Rental Car Center at Logan International Airport
New Construction
The southwest service area is one of the last sites available for development at the land constrained Logan International Airport, and the area expresses a unique urban condition where the airport precinct – large scale buildings and highway scaled roads – interfaces with residential neighborhoods of East Boston. The ConRAC includes a customer service center, structured parking for 3,100 cars, fueling and light maintenance, on-site storage parking and other ground transportation functions, and a four-level garage. Fennick McCredie was design architect for the facility and the architect of record for for the parking garage component.
The overarching goal of design was to develop an architectural aesthetic befitting the neighborhood, the airport and the region:
- Integrate with Logan’s high-quality contemporary architectural character
- Responsive to the neighborhood context
- Maximize sustainable design opportunities; and
- Provide passenger experience consistent with the terminal area, commensurate with a world-class airport.
Fennick McCredie designed a unique façade solution employing terra cotta cladding to bridge the modern airport architecture and the traditional, predominately, brick residential neighborhood of East Boston. FMA first developed a white paper which researched the full range of terra cotta cladding applications worldwide. Based upon this research, the entire project team (client, construction manager, design team, precast subcontractor) actively pursued the innovative technique of embedding terra cotta within the structural precast panels. This process is similar to a ‘thin brick’ application, but had never been done in the United States. A savings of $1 million to the project was realized while elegantly achieving the design vision.
