The Landscape Architect’s Guide to

Boston

Cambridge: Harvard University

LISE and Science Center Courtyards

Your Guide
Laura Solano, ASLA
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Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has rapidly expanded over the past decade. The addition of the Laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering (LISE) created the University’s first research facility for nanotechnology. As Harvard evolves as an institution, every new building and landscape is an opportunity to improve the relationship to its urban context.

Here, the new LISE Courtyard and renovated Science Center Courtyard unify and serve both new and existing buildings. The LISE Courtyard is an extension of the building’s interior café—a full glass curtain wall helps to erase the boundaries between inside and outside. The Science Center Courtyard was an existing space that was overhauled when the existing café was re-done. Enclosed but open to the sky, the Courtyard landscape registers the weather and seasons for building users.

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