features
fall 2024
Professor Sean Solley (center), director of the interior architecture program, surveys buildings for lease just outside campus with graduate students Adeleke Eyeowa and Swathi Venkatesh.
By Andrea Grant Photography by Michael J. Clark
Return to Table of Contents
Nestled between an old-school jewelry store and the trendy Sweetgreen salad shop on Boston’s Freedom Trail, a banner boasts the unique opportunity to lease an entire building.
Pausing in front on his way to campus one morning, Sean Solley, associate professor of art & design at Suffolk University and director of its graduate program in interior architecture, called the leasing agent with an unusual request: Could his students tour the building, see its architectural plans, and reimagine the three-story space as an academic exercise so they’d be ready to tackle these challenges as designers in the near future?
Surprisingly, it was an immediate yes.
Students took measurements and pored over technical details and quirks, including a former bank vault they’d need to incorporate into their final design proposals. They layered schematic hand-drawings on top of original plans of the building, then created 3D renderings to bring their visions to life.
Among them was graduate student Adeleke Eyeowa.
Eyeowa remembers sitting at the kitchen table in Lagos, Nigeria, as a child and watching his uncle, a designer, sketch plans for his family’s new home. Seeing those doodles turn into reality inspired him to pursue a degree in architecture. Later, spending so much time indoors during the early days of the pandemic made him realize how crucial indoor spaces are to both mental and physical well-being. He came to Suffolk to study interior architecture, ready to rethink what buildings could be—both inside and out.
As it happens, it’s just this kind of imaginative thinking—courtesy of the city’s regular infusion of talented young people like Eyeowa—that the Hub needs right now.
Boston, like cities throughout the world, has seen commercial real estate vacancies skyrocket since the 2020 pandemic ushered in an era of remote and hybrid work. Office vacancies in Boston stood at 22.7% this July, close to an all-time high according to a report from investment management company Colliers. With fewer workers in the city each day and a proliferation of online alternatives, many shops, services, and restaurants have struggled, seeking smaller spaces or shuttering for good.
Though the glut of office space occurs at a time when there is also a desperate shortage of affordable housing in the area, retrofitting workplaces for such a radically different purpose is more complex than it seems, says Solley. Structural and code requirements—including standards for things like ceiling heights, plumbing, and emergency egress—are vastly different between residential and commercial use.
Solley knows that while housing is essential to Boston’s future, so are other features. So along with colleagues Elizabeth Ghiseline and Ashleigh Sanicola, who are also working designers like Solley, he’s challenging both undergraduate and graduate Suffolk students to re-envision nearby empty commercial spaces into destinations that help nurture vibrant, sustainable neighborhoods and offer compelling new reasons for people to venture downtown.
Eyeowa describes living in Boston as a “beautiful experience” due to the diversity of the people he has met here, and their willingness to discuss ideas. He drew inspiration from that—and from Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie’s warnings about the danger of telling one-sided stories—to imagine a new chapter for the empty downtown building that would bring something unexpected, but quite special, to the neighborhood.
His proposed Nigerian International Trade Center would beckon visitors into a lobby full of textile-inspired patterns in vivid greens and yellows, and up a new open staircase to the third floor, drenched in sunshine from an expanded skylight. Here, visitors could taste Nigerian cuisine and view works by the nation’s artists while exploring its rich, complex culture and history.
"This is a very good place to tell a well-balanced story of Nigeria” to the area’s residents and many tourists, explains Eyeowa. “That energy to always acquire knowledge and learn is something that I find very fascinating about Boston.”
New stories in old buildings
A couple of blocks away from Suffolk’s Ridgeway athletic complex, an airy 10,000-plus-square-foot open-concept building, flooded with natural light from its floor-to-ceiling windows, also sits vacant.
Tasked with transforming (at least on paper) this bright, spacious oasis, Swathi Venkatesh, MAIA ’24, first analyzed the neighborhood, noting transport links, grocery stores, pharmacies, and housing stock. Then she looked at what was missing.
“There were very few places open in the evening,” says Venkatesh, who conceptualized a flexible design that would function as a hip advertising agency during the day and serve the community as a multifunctional event space at night.
Her plan would take advantage of the building’s natural light to showcase biophilic design principles, such as the use of low carbon-emitting building materials and live greenery.
“Repurposing a space plays an important role in sustainability” over building from scratch, explains Venkatesh. “And so does being able to use that space 24/7.”
Solley lauds the creativity that students like Venkatesh and Eyeowa have brought to this tricky urban challenge. He points to student Kelley Morris’ concept—which calls for creating “pods” to house small businesses such as key-cutters and cobblers that have been forced out of places like Downtown’s Bromfield Street due to high rents—as another promising idea that could help revitalize the neighborhood. Ultimately, he says, this kind of forward thinking could be the city’s salvation.
“We’ve seen this in other cities, like London,” Solley says. “An empty space becomes an artisan market with a beer garden, and once it becomes a destination, then comes the interest from developers. Bring in the artists first, and transformation will follow.”
Bringing neighborhoods to life
A
Perry Bitter interned at the Massachusetts State House. “Just being exposed to this type of environment has opened my mind and broadened the scope of my entire life,” she says. Photograph: Michael J. Clarke
Adeleke Eyeowa, MAIA ’25, refined his plans in Suffolk’s materials library, which houses thousands of textiles and other interior design samples.
C
Eyeowa designed a floor plan and 3D renderings to show how a vacant downtown building could be reborn as a Nigerian International Trade Center.
B
Venkatesh incorporated natural light, plants, and eco-friendly materials into her design for a multipurpose office that promotes creativity and well-being.
E
Swathi Venkatesh, MAIA ’24, came to Suffolk to “delve deep into sustainable design.”
F
Elements like informal booths for working solo, collaborating with colleagues, or gathering with friends help Swathi Venkatesh’s design work 24/7, creating a sustainable neighborhood space where people can work and socialize.
D