MVRDV’s proposal is a residential complex comprising 343 apartments within Boston’s new Enterprise Research Campus (ERC). Verra is surrounded by a mix of laboratories, conference facilities, and a hotel. The ground-floor program—featuring shops, cafés, and restaurants run by local owners—helps integrate the building into Allstonway, the new public park that serves as the central axis of the ERC. In this way, the project places its residents at the heart of a dynamic district, bringing together an international community focused on science and innovation with the local Allston-Brighton community.
Furthermore, behind its verdant façade, the complex offers a diverse range of apartments with expansive views through numerous corner windows, ensuring a high quality of life for residents—both within their homes and throughout the surrounding neighborhood.
Verra by MVRDV. Photograph by Jason O’Rear.
Located across from the Harvard Business School on Western Avenue, the Enterprise Research Campus was created through a partnership between the Harvard Allston Land Company and real estate owner, operator, and developer Tishman Speyer. It aims to strengthen the relationship between academia and industry while also becoming an integral part of the Allston-Brighton neighbourhood – a place where scientists, students, entrepreneurs, and residents come together.
The masterplan was designed by Studio Gang, Henning Larsen, SCAPE, and local firm Utile. The first phase includes One Milestone, a conjoined pair of education, office, and laboratory buildings, also by Studio Gang and Henning Larsen, The David Rubenstein Treehouse at Harvard University conference centre by Studio Gang, and the Atlas Hotel by Marlon Blackwell Architects, as well as a variety of public artworks embedded in landscaped spaces designed by SCAPE.
Verra by MVRDV. Photograph by Jason O’Rear.
While the goal of the ERC is to provide a vibrant hub for world-class research and entrepreneurship, it is equally invested in becoming a part of the existing Allston-Brighton neighbourhood. Situated at the heart of the campus, the ERC Residences’ 343 apartments range from studios to two-bedroom units, with 86 reserved as affordable housing for residents with incomes below Boston’s Area Median Income.
Retail spaces at the base of the buildings are designed to appeal to local businesses, bringing a diverse collection of shops, cafés, and restaurants to the Allstonway – a green spine that forms part of the Greenway, a planned pedestrian route from the centre of Allston to the Charles River.
Verra by MVRDV. Photograph by Jason O’Rear.
MVRDV’s design comprises one eight-storey mid-rise and a 17-storey tower, incorporating high energy and water efficiency, as well as state-of-the-art MEP systems, to target LEED-Gold sustainability certification and Fitwel certification for healthy buildings. The two buildings, as well as the neighbouring Atlas Hotel, share a one-storey plinth that includes a co-working space, a gym, a game room, and meeting rooms designed by interior architects Michaelis Boyd. On the roof of this plinth is a roof garden for residents also designed by SCAPE.
The rich green façades of the buildings are animated by sections that “push in” and “push out”, recalling the green copper-clad bay windows that can be seen in historic neighbourhoods throughout Boston. With this approach, the design creates subtle variety in the façade to accentuate individual apartments and to allow several apartments to have corner windows, creating better views and letting in more light.
Verra by MVRDV. Photograph by Jason O’Rear.
“This campus for innovation and research does not really come alive unless it is populated by the community as well as students and researchers”
Nathalie de Vries, founding partner of MVRDV.
“Verra plays a crucial role in the dynamic of the campus as a whole: it helps bring the neighbourhood in, providing high-quality homes to Bostonians, and it enlivens the Allstonway. At the ERC, research and innovation is not cold and rational – it is social, energising, and human, a true example of the 4th generation university environments that are needed to cross-fertilise science and society.”
Nathalie de Vries, founding partner of MVRDV.
