Flow Design Revisits a Vision for the Future of Architectural Education in Boston

Proactive Architectural Center for Innovation (PACI)

Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts

Nearly a decade before hybrid learning, innovation districts, startup incubators, and maker spaces became commonplace in higher education, architect Darguin Fortuna envisioned an alternative future for architectural education in the heart of Boston.

Originally developed as a Bachelor of Architecture thesis at the Boston Architectural College, the Proactive Architectural Center for Innovation (PACI) has recently been revisited by Flow Design as part of its ongoing effort to uncover and re-examine formative projects that helped shape the firm's design philosophy.

Located on a prominent corner parcel at Newbury and Hereford Streets in Boston's Back Bay, the project reimagines the traditional architecture school as an urban catalyst—one that dissolves the boundaries between academia, professional practice, entrepreneurship, housing, and public life.

Rather than functioning as a singular academic building, PACI was conceived as a vertical ecosystem of innovation.

The proposal combines student housing, maker spaces, active learning environments, galleries, business incubators, fabrication labs, collaborative workspaces, cafés, performance venues, and entrepreneurial support programs within a single mixed-use structure. The objective was to create a building where ideas could move fluidly between disciplines, transforming innovation from an isolated event into a continuous process.

At the urban scale, the project seeks to strengthen the relationship between the Boston Architectural College and the surrounding city. Rather than treating education as an inward-focused activity, the building extends itself into Newbury Street and Alley 430, activating both public and semi-public spaces while encouraging interaction between students, professionals, residents, and visitors.

The massing responds directly to the irregular urban conditions of the site. A softened corner condition creates a public threshold while simultaneously reinforcing the building's identity within Back Bay's dense urban fabric. Large areas of transparency establish visual connections between the institution and the city, allowing making, learning, and collaboration to become visible activities.

Wrapping the building is a distinctive diagrid exoskeleton formed by a continuous geometric lattice. More than an aesthetic gesture, the structural skin acts as an architectural framework that unifies structure, enclosure, and identity. The pattern creates a recognizable civic presence while filtering daylight, framing views, and reinforcing the building's role as a place of experimentation.

Inside, a series of interconnected atriums carve through the building's mass. Learning spaces are organized around these voids, creating visual relationships between programs that would traditionally remain isolated from one another. Students working in fabrication labs can see gallery exhibitions. Entrepreneurs can overlook collaborative studios. Residents can observe the activities of the institution below.

The result is a building designed around discovery.

Throughout the project, innovation is understood not as a product but as a condition. The architecture intentionally creates moments of compression and release, concentration and collaboration, solitude and community. Spaces are organized to encourage chance encounters, unexpected conversations, and the exchange of ideas between diverse users.

Recent visualizations developed by Flow Design revisit the project with contemporary rendering technologies while remaining faithful to the original design intent. Warm white oak interiors, floating staircases, expansive collaborative lounges, transparent learning environments, and elevated social spaces demonstrate how the concept continues to resonate today.

Viewed through a contemporary lens, PACI feels less like a student thesis and more like a prototype for a new educational typology—one that anticipates the convergence of learning, living, making, and entrepreneurship within the city.

Nearly ten years later, the project serves as a reminder that architecture's most powerful role is not simply to accommodate change, but to create the conditions from which change emerges.

Project Information

Project: Proactive Architectural Center for Innovation (PACI)

Location: Newbury Street & Hereford Street, Back Bay, Boston

Original Design: 2016

Architect: Darguin Fortuna

Institution: Boston Architectural College

Revisited and Visualized By: Flow Design

Building Type: Educational / Mixed-Use / Innovation Center

Program: Student Housing, Maker Spaces, Galleries, Active Learning, Business Incubators, Collaborative Workspaces, Café, Auditorium, Fabrication Labs, Community Outreach

Status: Conceptual Research Project