1 Congress Street

Adaptive reuse and historic rehabilitation of a significant Portsmouth city block with multiple connected 18th and 19th century buildings, a new four-story building, and underground parking. Ground floor uses will include restaurants and retail shops. Upper floors will be converted from office use to multi-family apartments and coliving suites. The design concept of “time as shaped by light” revolves around the iconic historic North Church Steeple Clock, which dominantly presides over these edifices. Windows, details, and materials throughout the design enhance wayfinding, reinforce a sense of place, and reduce energy consumption by bringing more daylight into interior spaces. The existing buildings will undergo deep energy retrofits with high performance envelopes and both passive and active energy reduction strategies. A dramatic transformation of the surrounding site will provide accessibility, improve lighting and landscape, and provide intimate new public spaces to forge new connections with urban focal points in the surrounding neighborhood.