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Custom 6-foot-diameter pendant fixtures further brighten the existing 1990’s atrium, expanded to accommodate a flexible work lounge and other amenity spaces.
The former Western Electric Company headquarters in Watertown, Massachusetts, was not an obvious place for a cutting-edge life-sciences research facility. Approximately 10 miles west of Boston, the 1931 structure was built for heavy industrial manufacturing and most recently held an insurance company office. Though it retained its art deco exterior, no period details remained inside. But its large size, solidity, and proximity to Harvard University and MIT caught the eye of developer Spear Street Capital. It tapped local firm Elkus Manfredi Architects to transform the seven-story building into Watertown Exploratory Labs (WELL), a state-of-the-art campus for life-sciences research and development.
Elkus Manfredi was up for the challenge. Ranking 75th on the Interior Design top 100 Giants list for 2025, the firm has completed major scientific research centers, namely the 250,000-square-foot TMC3 Collaborative Building at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, and adaptive reuse projects like Boston’s 401 Park, an art deco landmark turned community hub. Elkus Manfredi also ranked in the top 50 on last year’s healthcare, hospitality, and sustainability Giants lists, and brought that breadth of expertise to WELL, understanding both the engineering necessary for lab and manufacturing facilities and how to create a campus that brings innovators together—a top priority for Spear Street.
Inside The Futuristic Campus for Watertown Exploratory Labs
At Watertown Exploratory Labs (WELL), a 520,000-square-foot life-sciences research and manufacturing facility occupying the 1931 former headquarters of the Western Electric Company in Massachusetts, Elkus Manfredi Architects commissioned a three-story-high, hand-painted mural of subatomic particle decay patterns by Los Angeles artist Kysa Johnson for the main lobby, where existing concrete flooring was polished.
Steel, solid surfacing, and plastic laminate form the 21-foot-long custom reception desk.
“We were building a community,” Elkus Manfredi principal Elizabeth Lowrey begins. Unlike a university or corporate client, there was no existing identity to work with, so she and her team had to start from scratch. The site itself led the way. “It had texture, authenticity, and a story,” she continues. It’s also located on the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway, and many employees would bike to work. Studying the neighborhood and prospective end users, Elkus Manfredi knew that it needed to bring in daylight, create access to the outdoors, and instill a sense of history.
None of those elements existed when Lowrey first visited. “It was depressing and dark. Imagine an insurance company in an old movie with lots of cubicles and long corridors,” she recalls. There was an atrium from the 1990’s, but it was inexplicably hidden: “You had no idea how to get there because it was buried in the middle.” Elkus Manfredi gutted the 520,000-square-foot structure and made the atrium its heart, extending it so it’s visible from the entry. The firm added windows to the ground floor and garage doors that open to a private courtyard. “It was like turning it inside out—the interiors had been very insular. Now they’re open to nature and light penetrates deep inside,” Lowrey says. She also relocated the main entrance from the street to the back, near the bike path and garage, and installed a welcoming forecourt. These interventions, as well as preserving the original building, helped the project earn LEED Gold certification.
Letting In Light Through This Breathtaking Atrium
Custom 6-foot-diameter pendant fixtures further brighten the existing 1990’s atrium, expanded to accommodate a flexible work lounge and other amenity spaces.
The 26,500-square-foot amenity space, which includes a flexible work lounge, café, gym, and conference center, revolves around the atrium. “It’s about placemaking, not checking a box that there’s a spot to get coffee or work out,” Lowrey explains. “The tenants all share this town square.” Using urban-planning principles, Elkus Manfredi created magnets that pull people in, starting with the bright atrium lounge and adjacent coffee bar and café. “If you create a heart where people want to be, it gives the space a pulse,” Lowrey notes. Employees from different companies will naturally meet there, potentially sparking new ideas.
Site-specific artworks help define WELL’s identity. Three murals, a particularly huge one in the lobby, depict subatomic particle decay patterns and images of space and plants. In the lounge, circular paintings of clouds are like portholes bringing the outside in. Elkus Manfredi also formulated wall graphics based on shadows coming through the building’s windows.
A Stylish Research Facility Nodding To The 1930s
The full-height atrium brings natural light into the center of the building.
A visitor could easily mistake the atrium for a stylish hotel lobby. But there are spaces for high-tech labs all around it. WELL can house up to 2,300 people, many of whom will be involved in therapeutic research for treating medical conditions. Elkus Manfredi had to conceive new infrastructure for labs, and ensure it would be flexible enough to support them as technology and equipment evolves. The firm gutted a small two-story section of the old building, and then topped it with two floors, yielding a four-story addition for utilities and manufacturing capabilities—essentially all the systems necessary for the power, fresh air, lab exhaust, water, and chemical-waste handling—allowing researchers to develop therapies and medical devices on-site.
Subtle industrial and art deco references also appear throughout the project. Curved reconfigurable banquettes, fluted wood columns and ribbed glass panels, and geometric stained glass in the coffee bar channel a 1930’s aesthetic. A distressed circular pattern on the concrete floor is “like a palimpsest of the old building,” Lowrey says. In the café, dozens of vintage-looking pickle jars serve as a clever veiling device between the food-service and dining areas.
The pickle jars, 56 in total, frame the counter faced in ceramic tile and topped with solid surfacing.
WELL will likely hold around 10 tenants, ranging from startups to established companies. Once employees move in, Lowrey can envision how their days will play out, from meeting colleagues for coffee to having a midday workout and gathering for a building-wide event. It will function like a university campus: comfortable, lively, and brimming with promise.
Walk Through The Watertown Exploratory Labs Facility
Anderssen & Voll’s Outline sofas face off near photo encaustic paintings of clouds by Memphis artist Catherine Erb in an atrium lounge.
Wood-look ceiling panels help control acoustics in another atrium lounge, featuring Jaime Hayon’s modular Lune sofa.
Operable garage doors in the café open onto a private tenant courtyard.
Vintage-style glass pickle jars partition the café’s food-service and dining areas
An atrium lounge’s banquette upholstery is vegan leather.
A smaller lobby is on the north side of the building.
A Stylish Facility Full Of Community + Color
A custom graphic print by Elkus Manfredi marks the entrance to the gym.
Tenant interior windows circle the upper floors of the atrium, so the polished concrete floor was treated with a matte clear coat and custom stencil for a more dynamic view.
Pix ottomans by Ichiro Iwasaki echo the pendants in the north lobby.
Graphic custom signage marks the entry.
Elkus Manfredi also designed the graphics in the conference center, these based on shadows coming through the windows.
ELKUS MANFREDI ARCHITECTS: DAVID P. MANFREDI; STEVE DUBE; LAWRENCE KO; RAHISSA MELO WANG; JEFF SALOCKS; GREG BUCKINGHAM; JARED TATTERSALL; JUNAID ABBASI; ELIZABETH STEVENS; DREA PLUMMER; OREN SHERMAN. CASTELLI DESIGN: LIGHTING DESIGN. EMILY FINE ART: ART CONSULTANT. WHITNEY VEIGAS: CUSTOM SIGNAGE. MCNAMARA SALVIA: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. WSP: MEP. VHB: CIVIL ENGINEER. DAVIS ARCHITECTURAL WOODWORKING: MILLWORK. CONSIGLI: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.
FROM FRONT MUUTO: SOFAS (ATRIUM LOUNGE 1). COPPER & TWEED: ROUND COFFEE TABLE. ALLERMUIR: DINING CHAIRS (ATRIUM LOUNGE 1), BLACK CHAIRS (ATRIUM). HAY: LOUNGE CHAIRS (ATRIUM LOUNGE 1), COFFEE TABLES (ATRIUM LOUNGE 2). WEST ELM CONTRACT: BENCHES (ATRIUM LOUNGE 2), BISTRO TABLE (ATRIUM LOUNGE 1). GUS MODERN: LOUNGE CHAIRS. FRITZ HANSEN: SOFA. ROLL & HILL: LAMP. ARMSTRONG: CEILING SYSTEM. NIKARI: COMMUNAL TABLES (CAFÉ). KATHY KUO HOME: PENDANT FIXTURES. GRAND RAPIDS CHAIR: UPHOL STERED CHAIRS. OVERHEAD DOOR COMPANY: GARAGE DOORS. EXTREMIS: UMBRELLAS (COURTYARD). SPECTRUM LIGHTING: CUS TOM PENDANT FIXTURES (ATRIUM). HUGO & HOBY: CUSTOM TABLES, CUSTOM BANQUETTES. EXPORMIM: CHAIRS. ANCHOR HOCKING: JARS (CAFÉ). BRENTANO FABRICS: BANQUETTE UPHOLSTERY (ATRIUM LOUNGE 1). LIGHTNET: PENDANT FIXTURES (NORTH LOBBY). LUMI NART: PENDANT FIXTURES (CAFÉ). SCHOOL HOUSE: CEILING FIXTURES. DIVISION 9 COLLABORATIVE: COUNTER TILE. DEKTON COSENTINO: COUNTER SOLID SURFACING. ARPER: OTTOMANS (NORTH LOBBY), CHAIRS (CONFERENCE CENTER). ECORE ATHLETIC FLOORING: FLOORING (GYM). BUSINESS INTERIORS: CUSTOM FLOORING (ATRIUM). ANDREU WORLD: SQUARE TABLES. ACOUFELT: ACOUSTICAL WALL PANELING (CONFERENCE CENTER). EGE: CARPET. THROUGHOUT MAHARAM: ACOUSTICAL PANELING FABRIC, RUGS. SCOFIELD: CONCRETE FLOORING. ASTEK: CUSTOM WALLCOVERING.