SGH Designs Reuse of Building for Boston Healthcare for the Homeless
Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. (SGH) recently completed structural design and building enclosure consulting work at Boston’s Jean Yawkey Place, the new home of the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program (BHCHP). SGH closely collaborated with Steffian Bradley Architects to renovate the 75-year-old building into a modern, integrated center that will provide comprehensive medical, dental, and mental health services to the area’s homeless.
Better known as the Mallory Building, Jean Yawkey Place is a four-story, 77,000 square-foot, concrete-encased steel framed structure that housed Boston’s city morgue until 1995. In the newly renovated building, BHCHP will be able to unite its core elements of care under one roof for the first time in its 23-year history. The building received its name in tribute to a $5,000,000 building renovation gift from the Yawkey Foundation.
“The multiple past uses and age of the building complicated its renovation design because programming needs changed on every floor,” said Erik Farrington, senior project manager at SGH. “Additionally, we performed a seismic upgrade to the lateral load resisting system in order to meet Massachusetts building codes. This design was particularly demanding because the new structural system needed to be staggered throughout the building in order to accommodate basic building elements such as the kitchen.”
SGH also designed a new glass-enclosed solarium located on top of the low garage roof, which provides access to the 2nd floor dining and activity rooms and an outdoor terrace. The solarium will function as a living room area where the patients and staff can gather. This curved structure is approximately 3,300 square feet, and it required significant attention to detail to interface with the existing building base structure.
