The Mayflower Building, Boston
Boston College’s new bespoke learning centre for young people and adults, ‘The Mayflower’ has officially completed with a footprint of 1,940sqm and a gross internal floor area of approximately 2,880sqm. The remodelling of the site included 74 car parking spaces and 60 bicycle parking spaces on the site for learners, staff and visitors, together with botanical gardens for the whole community to share.
The two-storey teaching building provides spaces for new start up businesses in the business hub wing, also voluntary services, careers advice, health and wellbeing support, and opportunities for skills development. It will be home to University-Level students being trained in the art of commercial catering, working and learning in the new large commercial standard kitchen & bakery training rooms and also accommodating on-site student-led fine-dining restaurant, called “1620” (a nod to the date the original Mayflower sailed from Boston).
The building also boasts of a large professional kitted out Hair & Beauty training room covering hairdressing, barbers, nail salon, and massage treatment rooms. Both Restaurant and Hair & Beauty treatments will be open to the public.
The impressive entrance function space is a large open plan atrium with a feature roof formed by five glulam beams, 13 metres high with the area lit by 30no. controllable, dimmable 1200mm diameter Halo Lights. The roof is constructed by built up system aluminium standing seam with a gold finish externally, to visualise the ship’s main sail. Internally it follows the form of a ship’s hull, with the beams visible from inside. It was designed as a nod to the original Mayflower Ship that took the founding fathers to America in 1620.
Internally, the ground floor of The Mayflower accommodates a number of different functions that will be ran by Boston College learners, staff and the local community:
- Function Space
- Catering Department – including a cafe and restaurant.
- Hair & Beauty Salon
- Shop
- Digital Hub
- Business Incubation Units
The first floor of The Mayflower also provides:
- Conference Space – flexible spaces for Boston College conference meetings, seminars and tutorials.
- Higher Education Department – teaching facilities and break out space for HE learners, supporting degree courses.
- Training Classrooms – teaching spaces for learners to develop new skills and qualifications to develop their careers.
- Business Incubation Units; supporting the development of new businesses in Boston.
The College’s new flagship building will transform FE and HE learning, creating an inclusive space where students and businesses can connect, collaborate and thrive. It will feature higher education, careers advice, voluntary services, health and wellbeing support and state-of-the-art digital upskilling.
