Harbor Towers Resiliency Improvements

The Harbor Towers Condominium Trust engaged Weston & Sampson to provide resiliency and flood protection improvements for their architecturally significant buildings on the waterfront in Boston.

We set the design flood elevation (DFE) at the 2070 1% storm plus one foot of freeboard to protect the property from the most extreme events in the near- and long-term. Our team provided architectural, structural, geotechnical, mechanical, and electrical services to help with resiliency goals. Aesthetics were particularly important for this I M Pei & Partners-designed structure with architectural importance to the city’s skyline. To protect the openings, we considered various products and approaches to minimize visual changes to the buildings, reduce operational needs for deployment, provide redundant protection, and determine co-benefits of options. We selected materials to match and blend in with the brutalist architecture of the buildings, subject to wave action.