The Architectural Team completes design for $400 million Raffles Boston Hotel & Residences

Boston, MA Reflecting its creative and influential approach to urban high-rise architecture, The Architectural Team (TAT) has completed its design for the Raffles Boston Hotel & Residences – a new luxury hospitality and residential destination, lauded as “the city’s most exciting new hotel opening” by Robb Report. With an inventive cantilevered structure and the city’s only sky lobby, the 400-foot curved glass tower provides an architectural case study in delivering a new skyline statement within a challenging and historic context.

Now open to guests and residents, the $400 million, 35-story tower comprises 146 homes, 147 hotel guestrooms, and 16 amenities spaces. It is the first-ever mixed-use property in North America for the Raffles brand, a part of the Accor world hospitality group. The development team is a partnership comprising locals Jordan Warshaw of The Noannet Group and hotelier Gary Saunders of Saunders Hotel Group, alongside their global development and equity partner Cain International, with Madison Realty Capital providing construction financing. The Raffles project will also contribute over $22 million in public benefits, including street and public realm improvements, seven on-site affordable housing units, and a contribution of $13 million+ to further support additional affordable housing in the city – a mission closely aligned with that of TAT, a national housing leader.

In addition to TAT as architect, the Raffles Boston design team includes award-winning hospitality design firm Stonehill Taylor for the hotel interiors, Rockwell Group for the residences, fitness center, Guerlain spa, and bevvy of residential amenities, and Studio Paolo Ferrari for the Long Bar venue.

“Raffles Boston Hotel & Residences represents an ambitious mix of uses, with a design that is particularly sensitive to its surrounding context – the historic Copley Sq. and iconic Hancock Tower,” said Michael Liu, AIA, NCARB, a senior partner and design principal at TAT. “The exterior is sculpturally distinctive and explicitly designed to set itself apart from the neighboring buildings. Our aim was to bring new design energy to the skyline, a fresh vitality to the area’s street life, and capture the distinctive personality of Boston while honoring the impeccable luxury and legendary hospitality synonymous with the Raffles brand.”

“With their innovative approach to design, TAT was able to achieve our vision of creating a stunning new addition to the Boston skyline,” said Warshaw.

“TAT has sculpted a building unlike any other in Boston, that takes on a different appearance from every angle viewed. The team cleverly turned what could have been a negative - our site’s adjacency to Boston’s tallest tower and multiple other existing and proposed towers - into its distinguishing feature, a floorplate marked by curves and angles that maximize views from the inside and architectural distinctiveness from the outside.”

“Further, TAT adeptly managed coordination of four different interior design firms, and, over the 12 years from conception to completion, oversaw all design aspects of creating the most spectacular hotel and residences ever built in the city of Boston,” said Warshaw.