A transformational new adaptive reuse project for Harvard Law School’s Lewis International Law Center has been completed recently by Deborah Berke Partners.

Meant to “holistically” meet the demands posed by modern legal education, the project remade the original 1957 Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott design into a “porous, open connector” located at the heart of HLS’ Cambridge campus.

Existing limestone edifices were removed to add an influx of natural light into the structure, which retained 80% of its original concrete foundation, steel-frame structure, and most of its modernist envelope. Terraces were added to the fifth floor and rooftop. A slate of new or repositioned entrances now helps to define the project’s exterior renovations, with the end of enabling greater accessibility to a campus that is now addressed from all sides.

Inside the building, several floor sections were removed at each level to create a series of interlocking “bullpen style” spaces designed for student and faculty collaboration. Flexible conference rooms and other collaborative spaces were grouped around a new lightwell to further encourage what the firm calls “impromptu connections.” 

More reclusive study areas were then added away from these areas to ensure discrete modes of work and study are still possible. Finally, the renovated space includes a new laboratory home for Harvard’s influential Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

“Deborah Berke Partners helped us to articulate our highest hopes for a new physical space, and then translated those aspirations and values into compelling alternatives for how our community could work, connect, and play,” Professor Jonathan Zittrain, institute co-founder and George Bemis Professor of International Law, said in a statement. “Our center has been transformed by the results, dwelling now within a series of network hubs that both welcome those participating virtually and give reason for so many to drop Zoom and join together in person.”

The renovation was completed in the spring of last year. A budget for the project was not revealed.