Allied, an advertising and public relations firm specializes in motion picture and entertainment advertising. Allied regularly holds film screenings for New England’s newspaper and television film critics. It also selects and previews all films for the annual Boston Film Festival. Located in a twelve story office tower overlooking the Boston Common, Allied‘s reception area is shoe-horned next to the elevator bank with no exterior view or additional space to expand.

The program called for creating a strong architectural character, visually enlarging the reception area, renovating all public spaces, and updating these spaces to current code and security requirements.The reception area has been spatially enlarged by a curved wood wall as well as by adding a low wall divider between the reception area and the screening room. The light cove floods the curved wood wall and provides general illumination to the space. Concealed lighting located in the top of the low wall divider adds illumination to the seating area as well as the corridor beyond.

Colors are kept to a minimum, while materials such as white stained ash, polished and matt laminates, and smooth terrazzo tile, define and articulate each surface. It is this “expanded space” with defined limits that establishes this reception area as a special place with infinite bounds.