Machado Silvetti

At the edge of Boston Harbor, South Boston Waterfront Park creates a vibrant public space where the city meets water.

Part of a larger initiative by the Massachusetts Port Authority, the park was reimagined by Machado Silvetti in collaboration with the Halvorson Design Partnership as a cohesive waterfront landscape with distinct zones for gathering, movement, and recreation. Unified in material yet varied in experience, it brings new opportunities for public life along the harbor.

Sculptures are - “Aqueous Humor” by Ellen Driscoll

From 1811 to now, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art continues to evolve. What began with James Bowdoin III’s gift of European paintings and Old Master drawings grew into the iconic Walker Art Building, designed by Charles Follen McKim. In 2007, that legacy was expanded through careful renovation and additions that meet contemporary needs while preserving its historic identity.

A new glass, bronze, and blackened steel pavilion redefines the entrance, connecting past and present to create an accessible entrance to the expanded galleries, and introduces state-of-the-art systems to support both preservation and teaching.

The Getty Villa, a museum devoted to classical arts, was transformed by Machado Silvetti from a private estate into an institution. The project reimagines the museum, adds research, conservation, and facilities, and unifies buildings and gardens through an expansive masterplan connecting spaces and framing views of the Pacific Ocean.

At the Vietnamese German University, a collaboration between The Vietnamese Ministry of Education & Trade and the German state of Hessen’s Ministry of Science and Art with funding by the IMF, Machado Silvetti designed a campus for 12,000 students that merges research, learning, and daily life.

Part of a broader master plan, this lecture hall sits within a cohesive campus, where architecture supports innovation, flexibility, and long-term academic growth.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has awarded Machado Silvetti multiple national design awards for Downtown Cary Park. A collaboration between Machado Silvetti, OJB Landscape Architecture, and the Town of Cary, North Carolina, Downtown Cary Park is a transformative integration of architecture, landscape design, and urban planning. The AIA recognizes the cross-disciplinary excellence of the park’s design by honoring the design team with the AIA Regional and Urban Design Award, and the AIA Small Project Award for the Bark Bar Pavilion.

Project / Downtown Cary Park. Cary, NC
Team
Architects /Machado Silvetti Architects
Landscape Architecture / OJB
Civil / Withers Ravenel
Structural / SGH
MEP / Cosentini
Lighting / LAM Partners
Irrigation / Irrigation Consulting Inc
Water Feature / Fluidity Design Consultants
Signage / Wayfinding / Graphics / RSM Design

Programming and Operational Planning/ Biederman Redevelopment Ventures (BRV)

At the Honan Alston Branch of the Public Library in Allston, Massachusetts, we reconceived of a new civic architecture. Three parallel zones—active, meditative, communal—orchestrate the everyday ritual of reading. Where industrial land becomes gathering place, slate and light compose a public library that earns its honors through clarity of purpose. The project was awarded the 2003 National Honor Award for Architecture.

Machado Silvetti’s latest building is aanother parking structure that refuses anonymity—brick and terracotta meet Downtown Cary’s streetscape, bronze chevrons animate the facade, and an ivory-colored spiral stair tower establishes a presence. The gains not just parking, but a building that reinforces human scale and urban vitality; architecture in service of place.

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Sited on original WTC excavation landfill, Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park in Battery Park City, New Yor rose to embrace the harbor, the Statue of Liberty, the harbor’s memory. Postmodern colossus rendered intimate. Brick pavilions frame the city from within itself—design that acknowledges colossal surroundings while reserving the plaza for the public alone. Winner of the 1998 AIA National Honor Award for Urban Design the Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park in Battery Park City, New York was designed by in partnership with and was critiqued by in the saying: “What is most important is that every aspect of this design emerges from the realities of the park’s surroundings—the waterfront, the Statue of Liberty, the rest of Battery Park City and lower Manhattan—and connects to the imperatives of human use.”

Winner of the 1993 Award for Architecture – a first for Machado Silvetti - the Science and Engineering Quadrangle Parking Structure at University in Princeton, New Jersey is a garage elevated to monument. We asked: what if functional necessity became an exercise in contextual discipline? 410 cars concealed by bronze lattice and masonry—architectural rigor?

Photo by Anton Grassl