One Dalton: Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences
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Boston’s commanding new skyscraper conjures architectural magic
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One Dalton demonstrates how a tall building, together with the open spaces it frames, can respond creatively to the need for urban growth while showing appropriate respect for a sensitive historic setting.
One Dalton rises at the juncture of two Boston neighborhoods: the Back Bay, with its tree-lined streets of nineteenth-century townhouses, and the western end of the city’s High Spine, the largest-scale complex in Boston. This fascinating juxtaposition of scales presented one of the major challenges of the project.
Rising to the height of the nearby townhouses, the podium makes the 61-story tower a good neighbor. With expanses of warm gray granite, punctuated by clear glass shaded by wood louvers, the building presents an open and welcoming demeanor at ground level.
The upper portion of the exterior wall is shaped by surface incisions, offering views in two directions and allowing for operable sashes. The incisions give the tower a distinctive character while demarcating its two uses: condominiums on the top 40 floors, hotel on the 20 floors below.
Show Facts
Site
Southeast corner of Belvidere and Dalton streets, at the edge of Christian Science Plaza in the Back Bay
Components
706,000 ft2 / 66,000 m2 gross area; luxury hotel with dedicated hotel lobby, retail, café, restaurant, ballrooms, meeting rooms, gym, and spa; residential condominiums with fireplaces, balconies on upper floors, private lobby with porte-cochère, commons room with accommodations for private dining, theater, kids' playroom, golf simulator, pet grooming
Client
Carpenter & Company, Inc.
PCF&P Services
Architecture; exterior envelope; competition and concept design in collaboration with CambridgeSeven
Sustainability
LEED Silver
Awards
Best Tall Building (200-299m) Award of Excellence
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, 2022
American Architecture Award
Chicago Athenaeum, 2020
Design Award of Honor
Society of American Registered Architects, 2019
Architectural Design / Tall Buildings
Architecture MasterPrize, 2020
The Architecture Community: Global Design Award, Hospitality Projects
World Design Awards, 2020
Rethinking the Future Award: Large-scale residential
RTF Architecture Awards, 2020
Gold Key Awards: Best Luxury Guestroom
Boutique Design, 2020
Best in Boston Real Estate: Residential
Boston Business Journal, 2015
One Dalton (center) rises at the juncture of two neighborhoods of vastly different scales.
The site’s unusual equilateral triangular shape is a product of the former railway lines (in red) and Massachusetts Avenue (in blue), which edges the array of Back Bay blocks.
One Dalton was designed in composition with a second residential tower, 30 Dalton (at left), and a small neighborhood park.
View from St. Germain Street
Typical plan: hotel
Typical plan: residences
Glass-screened incisions in the tower’s surface animate the building volume while accommodating operable windows on the condominium floors.
The incisions give the building a distinctive personality both inside and out, while distinguishing the tower’s two different uses: condominiums above, hotel below.
Curtain wall detail (plan): The glass between the incisions extends beyond the right angle that forms the operable sash, protecting the sash from precipitation and Boston’s high winds.
Every room in the residential portion of the tower has an operable window.
Reaching out to the three corners of the site and rising to the 70-foot height of the nearby townhouses, the podium makes the 61-story tower a good neighbor.
The small park opposite the hotel entry serves as a mediating space that, along with the scale of the podium, integrates the building with the surrounding neighborhood.
Despite their distinct character and materiality, tower and podium are intimately engaged: sections of the tower’s curtain wall descend through the podium, here marking the hotel entry at center.
Hotel entry
Hotel lobby
Stair from hotel lobby to second-level restaurant
Residential entry with new park and 30 Dalton at left
Residential entry
Residential lobby
Residential terraces
The very low exterior solar reflectance of the glass curtain wall results in lower heat-gain radiated back into the surrounding environment.
One Dalton demonstrates how a tall building, together with the open spaces it frames, can respond creatively to the need for urban growth while showing appropriate respect for a sensitive historic setting.
Project Credits
Collaborating Architect: Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc., Cambridge; Gary Johnson, Lead Designer; Structural: WSP USA, New York; Mechanical / Electrical / Plumbing: WSP USA, Boston and New York; Landscape: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc., New York and Cambridge; Images: Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Albert Vecerka/ESTO