These three buildings (one of them an historic restoration) were all designed by the same architectural firm. Can you guess which one? (Hint: They are all in the city the firm practices in.)
I took these three photos before I knew who designed these three buildings, because each of them had that certain something special about them that I couldn't place – until I ended up working at the very place that designed them. Then I knew why they were special: the firm brought their distinctively pragmatic yet aesthetic personal touch to each of them. For more clues to who their architect is, they're described below.
Cambridge Fire Dept. Station 10 (a giveaway to where the architect practices!), completed in 2024, was the city's first fire station to be built in modular, kit-of-parts construction. It was erected as temporary quarters for
the department's Engine 1, Ladder 1, Rescue 1, and Dive Rescue Unit fire engines during the firm's environmentally sustainable gut-renovation of the historic Cambridge Fire Headquarters (right).
For a modular building, Station 10 has an unusually crisp, clean-lined, set-in-place design, with apparatus-bay doors topped with geometric variations on the window lintel hoods seen on some of the city's mid-19th-century houses. A "trailer" attachment, made up of six combined trailers, houses the firefighters' kitchen, common areas, fitness center, bathrooms, and sleeping quarters, one bunkroom per firefighter.
But the four-bay fire engine garage looks as professional as any fire station, expressing the speed, efficiency, and no-frills, no-nonsense dedication of the department's first responders. The modular building providers were Extreme Modular Buildings (EMB) of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, which transported the station parts and trailers all the way from Canada to 15 Hovey Street over a distance of 2,500 miles. Each modular component measured 54’ x 14’ x 17’2” so it could house one of the four fire engines. All parts were assembled onsite upon their cross-country arrival there.
Choosing the site in a densely settled city replete with untouchable historic buildings was almost as herculean a task as shipping the station there. After 44 feasibility studies were made of 27 sites, surplus space on a Spaulding Hospital parking lot was selected to minimize fire-engine din in residents' back yards and to complement the noise the hospital's emergency vehicles were already generating. The first responders are delighted with the new station, temporary and modular as it may be, particularly for its accommodation of one bunkroom per firefighter, instead of being crammed and cramped into one multi-bed dormitory. This is how Cambridge Fire Department Station 10 is a useful model for cost-saving modular design and construction for other public safety facilities and for temporary housing of firetrucks during a fire station renovation. Its recognition in the Firehouse Magazine Station Design Awards for 2025 attests to this.
The Harvard Faculty Club, first built in 1930-1931 from a design by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott in the brick Georgian style that has defined the Harvard campus from the beginning, was carefully restored to reflect that tradition. The reconstructed bay windows bear the academic marks of arched windows with keystones, complemented with mullion-lined cornices along the rooflines and pediments. Brick stringcourses articulate the floors. Slate roofs, dormers, and paneled chimneys complete the picture.
Built the same year as the Gold Coast Harvard Houses and the Biological Laboratory designed by the same architects, the Harvard Faculty Club is noteworthy for its more residential human-scaled stature than those other developments. This was an important quality I noticed about it while reading a book in its garden – its diminutive height enforced the garden's intimacy, helped along by the architect's thoughtful restoration – which motivated me to record this effect on my phone-camera.
The two-family home at 137 Mount Auburn Street has been garnering attention on the Nextdoor chatroom site as of late, for not being one of the "ugly" or "boring" new buildings that the post-writer was complaining about (click here) and that Neighborhood Conservation Districts and the Cambridge Historical Commission are curbing with professional architect, engineer and attorney reviews of new developments. And well-deserved attention at that. It was built to complement the historical styles along Mount Auburn Street without bringing "fake history" to the scene. The traditional symmetry and lintel-lined sash windows of the gabled, porched façade are broken by the contemporary corner-bay, corner window and balcony, with the effect of a newer building growing out of an older one in a way that is offbeat but not offensive, and clarifying the house's younger age.
OK, if you haven't guessed the architect yet, the answer is
The Galante Architecture Studio (TGAS). Located across from 137 Mount Auburn Street at Mount Auburn and Brewer Streets, TGAS practices in a corner shop with display windows showcasing the creative design process that goes into their buildings, as TGAS, and into their designer chairs, napkin-holders and wall-hangings layering cutout archival maps of cities at various historical development phases, as Galante Design Studio (GDS). Buildings and household objects originate in prototypes in their studio workshop, which evolve into models and' drawings. This process enables Ted Galante, his team, and his clients to develop a complete comprehension of a building or object, its place in its social context, and its best use to its client or buyer, and thereby develop the final product thoroughly to meet the owner's needs thoroughly.
These three buildings certainly exhibit that commitment to craftsmanship in their crisp, simple forms, their respect for their social and architectural contexts, and the down-to-earth pragmatism of their residential, academic and municipal functions.
Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!
Sources:
"Faculty Club," Harvard Property Resource Center, Harvard University Planning & Design,
The Harvard Faculty Club, first built in 1930-1931 from a design by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott in the brick Georgian style that has defined the Harvard campus from the beginning, was carefully restored to reflect that tradition. The reconstructed bay windows bear the academic marks of arched windows with keystones, complemented with mullion-lined cornices along the rooflines and pediments. Brick stringcourses articulate the floors. Slate roofs, dormers, and paneled chimneys complete the picture.
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