Project Overview
The Meeting Street Center is a 76,000-square-foot, multi-use educational and clinical facility designed to serve over 3,000 children and families annually. The building is sited on a nine-acre campus and supports a range of integrated services, academic, therapeutic, diagnostic, within a spatial framework that prioritizes accessibility, sensory awareness, and spatial diversity.

Design Strategy
The design emphasizes a spatial dialogue between structure and site, negotiating an emerging urban edge and the open landscape it inhabits. This dual condition informs both the massing and the orientation of the building: portions of the structure reach outward into the landscape, while others curve inward to frame intimate, sheltered outdoor spaces. Public zones, galleries, gardens, and shared lobbies, are positioned to blur the boundary between interior and exterior, creating spaces that are porous, visible, and socially engaging.

A key organizational strategy was the modulation of spatial scale. Narrow corridors give way to expanded atria; framed thresholds open into shared gardens; circulation paths fold into meeting spaces. These shifts in scale reflect the varying sensory needs of the occupants while creating moments of surprise and pause within an otherwise efficient layout.

Circulation and Program
Movement through the building blends two types of spatial logic: linear mechanical corridors and more organic, path-like connectors. This hybrid circulation strategy allows the building to serve multiple programs simultaneously while avoiding institutional monotony. Hallways are widened into informal gathering nodes, waiting areas open into daylit garden bays, and access ramps are integrated into continuous, landscaped interior zones. This allows the building to serve as a framework for social interaction, rather than simply a means of navigation.

Visual access and daylight play a central role in the spatial composition. The building is organized around a series of interconnected volumes, articulated through shifts in height, cladding, and transparency. Generous glazing along circulation spines and entry points brings natural light deep into the plan, while creating lines of sight between classrooms, therapy zones, and outdoor learning environments.

Material Palette
The project uses a restrained material palette to unify the diverse programs within. Exterior panels in muted tones are broken up by brighter, warm-colored modules that signify entry and public gathering areas. Inside, exposed structural systems and bright floor finishes establish orientation and character while supporting legibility for diverse users, including those with sensory processing needs.

Color is used not just decoratively, but as a spatial signal, grounding wayfinding and zone identity. Textures are soft, cleanable, and acoustically tuned. Landscape integration includes native plantings, snow- and shade-appropriate paths, and protected play zones, reinforcing the building’s relationship with its environment.

Conclusion
Meeting Street Center is designed not as a single-purpose facility but as a network of interrelated spaces, academic, therapeutic, administrative, and social, united through a commitment to accessibility and community engagement. It prioritizes clarity without rigidity, flexibility without anonymity, and care without compromise. The building serves as a framework for care, learning, and gathering, designed to grow with its community.