Solomon Cordwell Buenz opens Boston office, creating coast-to-coast practice

Boston, MA Renowned national architecture, interior design, and planning firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB) has opened its new local office, blocks from the city’s Seaport District. The new East Coast studio solidifies the Chicago-headquartered firm’s national presence, and geographically balances its established West Coast offices in San Francisco and Seattle.

“For more than 30 years, SCB has been a dynamic, creative force along the East Coast, designing major commercial and institutional projects in Baltimore, Boston, Florida, New York, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, and Washington DC,” said SCB president Chris Pemberton, AIA. “Opening an East Coast office has always been a key part of our long-term strategic plan. Now, with our new Boston-based leadership team, we are primed to take our national practice to the next level.” The firm is continuing to grow its staff in the new office and is actively hiring.

Leading SCB Boston is executive director and principal Clara Wineberg, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, a commercial sector specialist who has extensive experience in large-scale multifamily residential, office, life sciences, and mixed-use developments. “This is an exciting time in the development of the city; one of innovation, research, and growth. We want to be a part of that,” said Wineberg. “We really came to know Boston well while working on Hub50House, and recognized that our diverse practice and design expertise was ideally suited to serve a city with such strong commercial and institutional sectors.”

Hub50House is the 38-story residential tower at the Hub on Causeway, Boston Properties’ 1.5 million s/f transit-oriented development and expansion of the Boston Garden. It is SCB’s most recently completed project in Boston.

A longtime Bostonian, and former principal at Sasaki, SCB principal Bryan Irwin, AIA, LEED AP is directing the East Coast office’s campus environments studio. “Collaborating with institutions on the East Coast has been a big part of my practice and it is great to continue that

work with the team here at SCB. This is a transformational time for higher education; not only in terms of how we think about campuses and the new teaching and learning models that resulted from the pandemic, but also the impact that schools will have on next-generation cities,” said Irwin. “We’re looking forward to working with the many acclaimed academic institutions in the area while continuing to serve clients around the country.”

Jay Longo, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, a Principal and Design Leader in SCB’s commercial and life sciences practice, identifies additional links between the city and SCB’s history of innovation. “As an urban-focused design firm, we have a significant portfolio of projects representing the full spectrum of mixed-use programs,” said Longo. “SCB’s inventive approach to designing hybrid buildings for contemporary city centers aligns with Boston’s status as one of the East Coast’s premier hubs of commerce.”

SCB’s active East Coast projects include The Laurel, a 48-story luxury condo, apartment, and retail mixed-use tower on Philadelphia’s historic and pre-eminent Rittenhouse Square; The Reston, an 850,000-square-foot mixed-use residential and office development that is part of the expansion of the Reston Town Center outside of Washington, DC; and the new Health and Social Innovation Centre, an interdisciplinary health science facility at the University of New Brunswick in St. John, Canada.

These projects build on SCB’s substantial body of in-place work on the East Coast; the Boston office launches with an East Coast portfolio of 20 projects in the last decade alone across the residential, mixed-use, higher education, and interiors sectors, with 11 additional active projects currently in design and under construction.