Hilton Garden Inn Boston – Brookline | CambridgeSeven

About Hilton Garden Inn Boston

This beautifully curving and sculptural structure expertly links the verdant Olmstead Emerald Necklace with neighboring business and residential blocks at a bustling crossroads on the Brookline fringe of Boston’s medical sector, strongly anchoring its outstanding location. The structure, wrapped in tensile glass and composed of three stepped masses, is extremely sensitive to its unusual urban location.

© Anton Grassl

Hilton Garden Inn Boston’s Design Concept

A primary goal for Hilton Garden Inn Boston on a problematic triangle site was to create a building of substantial visual significance that also delivers a distinctive urban hotel experience, with each face of the structure responding to diverse contextual contexts. Three glassy volumes attain varied heights as they wrap around the location. The structure drops to the Emerald Necklace to let light into the park. At the same time, the urban street borders become taller to meet the surrounding Longwood Medical District and provide a bridge between Brookline and Boston. Fritted glass panels produce a visual gradient of textures and gentle reflections that decrease glare, undesired heat gain, and bird attacks, which are frequent problems with glass structures.

© Anton Grassl

Previously, the location had a derelict gas station, which was unpleasant and dangerous for people crossing Brookline and Boston. The new hotel not only changed the program of the site, but it also changed the streetscape experience with enhanced sidewalks and crosswalks, a new traffic pattern with updated traffic and street lights, a new cycling route with bike racks, a repair station, and drinking fountains. The location presently has a walk rating of 93 and a bike rating of 86.

© Anton Grassl

Robust and inclusive public dialog and the developer’s sensitivity to neighbors’ concerns paved the way for this site-specific solution, the shape of which answers to the town’s different requirements and wishes. The prominent location, which faces the busy junction of Brookline Avenue and Route 9, draws visitors into the public lobby and seating area, where everyone is invited to rest around the fireplace. The hotel’s design evolved from an egalitarian and inclusive community approach with open seminars to facilitate interactions between the developer and town citizens.

© Anton Grassl

This hotel offers a firm and welcoming presence in the neighborhood. It caters to guests wanting a non-generic experience, with community gathering space, a relaxed and friendly lobby dining area, and a distinctive restaurant that honors local food and tradition. The hotel’s public areas provide a welcoming and much-needed social space, with the locally owned, one-of-a-kind restaurant and bar enlivening the arrivals lobby and spilling out into the streetscape to form an outdoor eating terrace adjacent to the park.

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