Located in the Back Bay of Boston between the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the Hynes Convention Center, this central urban plaza serves as the front door for the Prudential retail and office tower at 888 Boylston. Highlighting the wind patterns of the site, a series of stainless steel woven light columns define the plaza. Wind vanes rotate on the light columns and signal the intensity of wind with changing color that indicate greater and lesser intensity, turning the plaza into a living wind diagram. All the lighting is powered by wind turbines that define the top of the Prudential Tower and highlight the sustainable nature of this project.

Image credit: Anton Grassl and Ted Cavanaugh

Awards

American Architecture Prize – Commercial Landscape Architecture

Chicago Athenaeum Green Good Design

LIT Awards – Lighting Design of the Year

International Lighting Design Awards

News:

• Beantown, Greentown (USGBC+)