Everything I Would Change About Boston’s District Hall (Part 1: Design)
District Hall, a 12,000 sf innovation center in Boston’s Seaport Innovation District. A hardworking little building that has hosted thousands of events and won many design awards, for good reason. But even the an award-winning project has its flaws—many of the design decisions made on this building negatively impacted operations on a daily basis, limiting revenue potential and diminishing team morale. I know—I was there!
Photo by Gus Hoiland.
If you know me, you probably know District Hall.
The project has been a central part of my life and work since 2009, when i started work on a conceptual design for a "Boston Innovation Center," a loosely defined public space that would serve as a new gathering place and focal point for the city's innovation economy.
In 2010, the site was locked down, and design began in earnest. After many iterations, lots of conversations with partners and startups, and many rounds of 'value engineering' to get the project budget down, construction on District Hall began in 2012, and the building opened in Boston's Innovation District in 2013.
Since then, District Hall has become an important part of the innovation ecosystem in Boston and beyond. It is a place where startups can gather to work on their businesses, where established companies can come to find new partners and ideas, and where citizens can come to get connected to the innovation economy. District Hall has also played host to hundreds of events, from small meetups to large conferences, and has become a go-to spot for local food and drink.
I'm so proud of my work on this building and its programs and operations. But as with any project, there is always room for improvement. In this four-part blog post series, I will talk about the ways that I would change the District Hall innovation center model to make it more impactful, financially sustainable, and easier to operate.
Design: Redesign key components of the space, from back-of-house and infrastructure to core program spaces like meeting rooms. This means adding more storage, rethinking the placement of the bathrooms, expanding the team office, adding more small conference rooms, creating dedicated space for exhibitions and retail, fixing bad cost-cutting decisions, and more.
Operations: Optimize the operating model to align partnerships and incentives with the mission of the building. One of the biggest changes I would make? Let District Hall be a new independently run organization, rather than becoming part of a pre-existing nonprofit. This would reduce drag from constant bureaucratic oversight and approvals, create room for innovation without the pressure of satisfying an existing model and a constantly changing board of directors, allow the innovation center to be more nimble and responsive to the needs of its market, and increase revenue to support its operations. Another key change would be to reshape the role of the restaurant partner to allow for more affordable event hosting, less clunky tech systems, and a more symbiotic working relationship.
Programming: Expand and refocus the programming to be more impactful and financially sustainable. I would add new programs like an entrepreneur-in-residence program, office hours with innovation experts, and more opportunities for community engagement. And I would make sure that all programming is laser-focused on the innovation ecosystem, rather than trying to be everything to everyone.
Scale Strategy: develop a strategy for replicating and scaling the innovation center model. This would involve designing an open-source kit of parts that could be adapted to different sites, and creating a playbook for effectively adapt, fund, build, and launch a new innovation center that serves your particular community's needs.
So there you have it: my thoughts on how to improve the District Hall innovation center model.
In the next three posts in this series, I'll go into more detail on each of these topics. I hope you'll join me in this conversation about how we can make innovation centers like District Hall more effective and easier to manage. Please stay tuned for Part II, III, and IV of this series coming soon--get notified of new posts when they go live by signing up for my newsletter here!
Let’s get started: today’s post will break down the changes I would make to the architectural design of District Hall.
This is the coffee shop and central hallway of District Hall right when the building opened—there’s not even any carpet installed yet! This space often gets rented for private events, and the coffee shop converts into a private bar. All very cool, and it works great—except that the bathrooms are down the hallway. This means that restaurant customers have to walk through the private parties to get to the bathrooms, making it really hard for event hosts to control who is actually allowed into their event space.
Photo by Gus Hoiland.
Part 1: Improving the design of District Hall.
I'll start where my work with the project originally began: with design. This first blog post will go into detail about design changes I would make to the space and building itself in order to improve operations, finances, and impact for the community.
A little context: I was on the design team for District Hall, and then I ran the building as General Manager for the first four years of operations. I literally drew plans and elevaations, specified lighting and materials, figured out how to rework the engineer's HVAC systems layout to actually fit nicely in the space. And when the building opened, I literally built the website, the booking system, the pricing model, the communications templates, and other operational infrastructure. I also built a team, closed sponsorships, wrote grant applications, threw events, managed client issues, coordinated maintenance, tracked finances, and did anything else that was needed to keep the building running.
These are some early-stage renderings I created to show the interior of District Hall, with labels for the various elements that would make it adaptable for many user types.
Images and 3D model created by me while I was a designer at Hacin + Associates.
I know the building inside and out, every carpet transition strip and every access point and every building system. I've probably logged more than 20,000 hours thinking about and working on District Hall--at least double the 10,000 hours that are supposedly required to become an expert on something.
District Hall was in many ways the foundation of my early career. For me, it was a living laboratory for understanding the impact of design decisions in the real world. I had the opportunity to see every day how the choices we made affected our financial outcomes, the safety and satisfaction of our staff and customers, and the economic and social impact of the program overall.
Architects and designers are rarely connected longterm to the spaces that they design, and that's a problem. It means that money and time is wasted on things that don't matter, and that the same ineffective products and materials keep getting specified over and over, regardless of their actual durability or effectiveness.
I decided early in my career that to make better buildings, I needed to take a longterm view. I needed to base my design approach on observation, data, and accountability, not on trends, personal preferences, and hearsay.
This is an article I wrote for ArchitectureBoston magazine in 2012, in which I interviewed young designers about the future of the profession. One of the biggest ideas that came from this discussion was that architects aren’t connected to their buildings for very long—they arrive after the major decisions on budget and program have been made, and leave before the building is operational. This means that we just…don’t understand buildings as well as we could, and aren’t in a position to design them for longterm operational success. I came away from this conversation fully committed to developing a more longterm understanding of buildings, beyond the basic design phase.
The full article is cross-posted on my blog here, if you’re interested in reading more.
Spread from Architecture Boston, the Change issue.
There is a lot that we got right in the design of District Hall from the start.
The building was meant to be flexible to support many types of events, and it is. It can host everything from solo work session to a 2-person meeting to a 200 person conference to a 400 person cocktail party. It feels just as good to host a tiny meeting for your startup there as it does to host a research symposium for a major institution.
Event clients can easily change the space to suit their brand by writing on the whiteboard walls, hanging signage, changing the color of the LEDs, and more. If you have no money, the space looks great as is. If you have a major corporate budget, you can bring in whatever you want and transform the space completely.
I can't claim much credit for the exterior of the building--I wasn't a major part of that design process. But the building does what it's supposed to do in the landscape. It's meant to be odd-looking, idiosyncratic, a strong contrast to everything around it. When people walk by on the street, they are curious. They see its odd angular shape and wonder, "What is that thing?". If they want to learn more, they can walk right in and ask a question, no appointments, no security, no barriers.
This is very different from most innovation centers. Most of these spaces are tucked away on university campuses, or on the upper floors of office buildings, behind layers of security and access control. To get in, you need appointments, nametags, NDAs. There could be a hundred startups and investors nearby as you walk down the street, and you would never know they were there, let alone how to collaborate with them.
District Hall is fundamentally different. It's on the ground floor. It's a weird shape, to attract public attention. It has a restaurant and coffee shop, which makes people feel comfortable with how to engage. You can get a coffee and lurk at a table and just listen, if you're too shy to ask a question. Or if you want to, you can walk right up to the staff office and say, "What is this place? How does it work? How do I get involved?"
Other design details that worked really well: the acoustic-rated garage doors we used to divide the main assembly space; the whiteboard paint on every surface; the "spine" of color-changing LEDs that is visible from the outside and invites people in.
Like I said, a lot was right from the start, and people loved it.
Of course, some things didn't work well at all. Let's get into it.
Problem #1: Insufficient storage space.
One of the biggest issues was that there wasn't enough space to store things. I would like it to be widely known that I advocate for more storage space on every single project I have ever designed, and this one was no exception. In this case, I was sadly overruled, and we paid the price.
For example: On any given day, there might be an ugly coat rack with crappy mismatched wire hangers floating in the hallway or lounge space, a stopgap solution for the lack of a proper coat closet. It's an event building in Boston, designed without storage for winter coats. That is a mistake, and one that makes the building look messy and unprofessional on every cold, snowy, or rainy day.
Another example: clients that booked larger conferences and workshops always had lots of materials to store: banners, workbooks, prizes, etc. They often asked if they could ship these things to the building in advance. We had absolutely nowhere to put these items either before or during events, so we ended up tripping over them in the office or putting them a sellable conference room (which meant that room could no longer produce revenue).
And another example: There was no dedicated storage for things like ladders, extra podiums when not in use, or off-season items like shovels. So these items ended up being regularly shoved into electrical and mechanical rooms. That's what happens if you don't give operators space to store things properly. They end up needing to cut corners in order to get by.
Probably the biggest issue was the stacking chair storage. There is one weird storage space between the restaurant and the assembly space that is woefully undersized and badly designed for its purpose. It has two entries, which minimizes the amount of space that's available for storage. It barely has enough space to house a few stacks of chairs. The restaurant also underdesigned their storage, so instead of being a purpose-built closet for stacking chairs and folding tables, it became a catchall for random bowls, racks of glasses, rental items, paint buckets, and more.
That room also had a threshold at the main door into the assembly room, a strip of metal about 3/4" high. Knowing how things work in architecture firms, this was probably a leftover specification from some other project that looked fine enough to use for this one too.
It's hard to imagine that a little threshold could cause a lot of problems. What could go wrong, right?
Well, here's the thing. That room was where we stored the rolling racks of stacking chairs. These were small metal dollies made of hollow steel tubes, with rubber wheels. You'd stack about 20-25 chairs on each one, and the stack would become heavy and unwieldy pretty quickly. And when you try to pull a wobbly stack of chairs over a too-high threshold, one of two things happens:
Best case scenario: you put in a ton of effort, huff and puff, and pray, and the cart will finally, awkwardly, bump over the threshold and into the room.
Worst case scenario: You push and pull to try to get the chairs over the bump, and the wobbling stack of chairs topples over on top of you, or pinches your thumb between chairs, or maybe doesn't even get over the threshold at all.
We had injuries on our team and on the restaurant team because of that threshold. People had to get bandaged, or go home, reducing our operational capacity and morale. And even when we weren't getting actively injured, it was exhausting to haul these chairs over that thing every day, sometimes multiple times a day. That threshold is probably responsible for thousands of dollars in lost time and labor.
This is a problem that could have been easily fixed with some simple design changes. Adding more storage closets throughout the space, as well as some larger storage areas for event clients, would go a long way in solving this issue. And optimizing the storage spaces that were already planned--removing things like excessively high thresholds and replacing them with simple rubber transition strips--would have prevented injuries and increased operational efficiency.
One thing I'd like to point out is that other than me, every person involved in the architectural design of District Hall was a man. In those design meetings, I was in my early 20s, a small, feminine person, surrounded by well-paid white-collar white men. According to Zippia.com, "85.6% of all meeting/event planners are women, while 14.4% are men." Like many other feminine professional people, I had planned and managed plenty of events. When I said "hey, we will need more/better storage", I said that from experience and foresight.
Design is often subjective, and design teams move from both experience and gut feel. The problem in this case is that the team did not accurately represent the management or user base of the building at all. Other than me, everyone there attended events, but didn't plan them, and even if they did, they certainly weren't the ones stacking chairs, managing packages, and picking up trash. In this case, I was ignored or outright challenged by my collaborators on something I knew was an obvious need--and the building operations suffered for it.
The point of this is not that I was right--although, for the record, I was. The point is that design teams need to account for the perspectives of the actual users and operators when they design a space, rather than designing solely from their own subjective, limited, and flawed perspective.
Problem #2: The bathrooms are in the wrong place.
The bathrooms. Ah, the bathrooms.
Before I can talk about bathrooms, I have to talk about phases.
District Hall was designed and built in three phases--which is much more like the process for building a major spec office building than a cultural center.
When you design a commercial office building, you generally design in two phases: a first phase called "core and shell", and a follow-on phase called "tenant fitout". This means that you first design the central shared infrastructure, or "core" (i.e. elevators, bathrooms, etc.) and the exterior, or the "shell". The office floors and retail spaces are left empty, to be built out custom for the tenants needs once a lease is signed.
This approach makes a lot of sense in a building that shares a lobby and central systems but provides space for many companies with many different needs. It makes zero sense for a purpose-built cultural building that does not have multiple tenants.
District Hall had not one, not two, but THREE design and construction phases. There was a core and shell phase first, where the exterior and bathrooms were designed. Then there was a modified "tenant fitout" phase, which did not include the restaurant. And then the restaurant was built last, in a third phase.
Three phases means more like 9-12 sets of drawings instead of 3-4. It means that some things were built and then immediately demolished, wasting labor, time, and money.
But I'm not here to talk about design phase waste--I'm here to talk about bathrooms.
Like I said, the exterior and the bathrooms of District Hall were designed first--before there was even a plan for the building and its operations. The design team (which did not include me at the time) made shapes they liked on the outside, responding to the exterior and the buildings around.
And they placed the bathrooms in the very center of the plan, in a place that seemed like it would serve the whole building effectively.
Well--it didn't.
The bathrooms were shared between event guests and restaurant customers. This mean that if we rented out the building for a private event, people from the restaurant had to walk through someone else's party in order to relieve themselves. That meant that it was impossible to really control access to private events, since anyone could just walk in to the event and claim they were going to the bathroom, and then stick around to see proprietary information or drink free drinks that were meant for conference attendees.
Clients, understandably, did not like this. I spent a lot of time soothing annoyed clients who were frustrated to see strangers coming in and out of their private events.
Another issue is that the bathroom hand dryers were loud, and every time the door opened, there would be a blast of mechanical air sound that disrupted speaking events and cocktail conversations. We had a comedy show in the lounge once, and the comedian literally made fun of us because of the hand dryers. He was right--they were awful, and they pretty much ruined his set.
We ended up having to change the hand dryers to quieter ones, which helped, but didn't fix the issue entirely. Switching the bathrooms and the coffee shop locations would solve it--the bathroom entrance could be near the restaurant, so customers could use it without walking through an event, and the sound from the hand dryers would have just mixed with the sounds of the restaurants.
One other thing to note--the bathrooms also had completely inappropriate thresholds. In this case, they were thick and made of marble (the only marble in the building, probably a leftover spec from another project that never got updated). They were so bulky and hard to navigate that they actually prevented folks using mobility devices like wheelchairs or scooters from entering the bathrooms. This means the bathroom was...not accessible, even though technically it had an ADA stall and sink setup.
The bathroom location and the multi-phase approach to the buildout caused waste and frustration. These decisions were the result of a rushed process and poor planning, and caused a lot of issues for customers and staff alike.
The bottom line? Bathroom placement is absolutely essential in a cross-functional event building, and designing in multiple messy phases results in longterm issues and financial loss.
Problem #3: The team office was too small.
Ah. The team office. The team office at District Hall is a tiny, tiny room, approximately 8' x 8' with no exterior windows. There was one window to the interior of the building, and we had to keep the blinds down in order to have any privacy from event customers, which meant no natural light at all.
The back of the server closet was open to the room, meaning that one wall was not usable for storage without blocking access to the servers. I remember that decision being discussed in meetings, as if it was a really great idea. It did save some space, sure. But it meant that the office was hot with computer heat, and noisy, because the servers are loud and because the closet ceiling was open to the hallway for ventilation.
When we opened, it was okay in there, as long as we only had one or two people in the office. But as we grew, things got tough. Fitting four staffers into a tiny closet room with very little usable wall space is...difficult. It's even more difficult when the Executive Director and volunteers also need to use the office because the building was booked up with events.
We ended up spending a lot of time arranging and rearranging that tiny space so that multiple people could work in there and so we could store the many tools, cords, and supplies needed to run events. Rearranging offices is a waste of time when you have hundreds of customers to respond to an a growing community to serve.
The team office situation caused a lot of tension and frustration, both for staff and customers. Staff felt cramped and uncomfortable, which made it hard to focus on work tasks. Customers saw staff crammed into a tiny space and thought we didn't have enough resources, which made them less likely to book events with us or donate money. The only way to get enough storage was to block the back of the server closet, which meant that any tech repairs required the entire office to be rearranged to allow access.
It was a mess.
A properly sized team office is essential for an operation like District Hall--it should be large enough to comfortably fit all staffers, with room for growth. The office should also have ample storage space and natural light. Preferably, the office would be located away from event spaces to reduce noise and distractions.
Problem #4: No dedicated space for retail pop-ups or small events.
District Hall was intended to be was a space for small businesses and entrepreneurs to test out their products and services. To that end, we built these flexible 'pod' rooms, which worked as conference rooms but also could be converted into pop-up retail or installation spaces with direct frontage on the sidewalk.
The problem? The demand for conference rooms was so high that there was never any chance to use those rooms for something else. That meant that we barely hosted any retail in the space, and when we did, it was typical market table format, no a proper pop-up store. Vendors couldn't leave their merchandise displayed over night and had to set up again every day.
Any District Hall type building in the future should consider having purpose built pop-up retail and installation space that is not located in a conference room. Not everything has to be multi use. Sometimes needs can just be served immediately.
Part of the reason that we didn't have retail is because there was no good place to put it. The main event space was intended for conferences, workshops, and larger events. There was a small cafe area, but it wasn't really suitable for retail as it was open to the event space and didn't have its own entrance from outside.
In order to support small businesses and entrepreneurs, any innovation center should have designated space for pop-up retail that is easily accessible from the street and has its own entrance (preferably with a storefront window). This dedicated space would send a strong signal that the innovation center is supportive of small businesses and interested in promoting entrepreneurship.
Problem #5: No dedicated space for exhibitions or ongoing displays of information or artwork.
Flexibility was the number one design goal at District Hall. In the beginning stages we thought that it would be cool to have rotating exhibitions throughout the event space, creating a cool backdrop for everything that happened there. This is similar to event venues like the BSA Space, or galleries and restaurants, where the artwork and decor is left in place during the event and adds to the ambience and vibe.
Well, let me tell you. That didn't work.
Many event customers liked the artwork or exhibitions. But many people that rented the building expected to be able to take everything down and replace it with their own event signage and branded graphics. It was very difficult--next to impossible--to install, remove, and reinstall exhibitions between events, especially without damaging the artwork or other display elements. This led to friction with event customers, friction with exhibition creators, friction with the restaurant events team, friction with our own staff.
The learning here?
Dedicated. Exhibition. Space. The only way to make this work is to decided fully that certain areas are dedicated for exhibitions and cannot be changed for an event. Or, if exhibitions are not the goal, the opposite--a completely changeable event environment where nothing stays from one day to the next.
This is an example of something I thought would work, but it didn't. Having hosted many events myself in galleries and art spaces, I thought it would be a benefit to customers. But often, when an idea hits the market, the market just tells you very clearly what it wants--or doesn't want. Flexible exhibition space throughout an event building sounded good in theory, but totally broke down in action.
Here's a summary, to wrap it all up!
These are the design changes I would make to the District Hall innovation center model:
Storage space, storage space, storage space. Storage for coats, storage for event materials, storage for stacking chairs (without any hazards that cause staff injuries), storage for rental furniture, storage for ladders and off-season items. This is the #1 thing I would change, because of the amount of negative impact the lack of storage caused. More storage means happier customers, more organized spaced, better morale, and more revenue.
Relocate the bathrooms. The bathrooms at District Hall were located in the middle of the event space, which meant that they were constantly being used by restaurant customers and members of the public in addition to event-goers. This frustrated event planners because they couldn't control who was moving in and out of the event space that they had rented. Moving the bathrooms would reduce congestion, improve the customer experience, and make events run more smoothly.
A properly sized team office that is large enough to comfortably fit all staffers, with room for growth. The office should also have ample storage space and natural light. Preferably, the office would be located away from event spaces to reduce noise and distractions.
Dedicated space for retail pop-ups that is easily accessible from the street and has its own entrance (preferably with a storefront window). This dedicated space would send a strong signal that the innovation center is supportive of small businesses and interested in promoting entrepreneurship.
What do you think? If you know District Hall, are there other design changes you would make to the model? Let me know in the comments!
Part Two of this blog post series will focus on operational changes that can be made to improve the District Hall innovation center model. Stay tuned, and subscribe to my list to be notified when new posts are published! Thanks for reading :)