The power of design advances equity and inclusive growth in order to strengthen and empower our communities. The Incubator at Sasaki cultivates a network of ambitious people committed to advancing solutions to the major challenges our generation faces. This flexible research studio and shared work space serves as the catalyst for cross-industry collaboration—bringing academic, professional, and community partners to the table.
The Sasaki Foundation serves as the steward and curator for this facility—activating it with public programs, facilitating research initiatives, and inviting new people to the mix—while Sasaki offers its expertise and resources as a global design firm interested in working with new neighbors to co-create change.
The Incubator is located on Sasaki’s Chase Mills campus, within one of several interconnected historic mill buildings along the Charles River. Sasaki is an award-winning international design firm, focused on architecture, landscape architecture, urban and campus planning, and more.
The Incubator at Sasaki resides within a historic brick mill building on the Charles River. It once housed Hollingsworth & Whitney Paper Company, a paper bag factory whose innovations helped give rise to the modern paper bag and Lewando’s French Dyers and Cleaners, one of the largest laundries in the country by the late 1800s.
The spirit of creative production and an active making and fabrication practice continue to percolate under these wooden beams. The design of the Incubator picks up on elements of this long tradition of creative process, innovation, design, and production in the hopes that anyone who enters will be inspired to join in the messiness and reward of creating 21st century outputs for contemporary challenges.
Starting in the 1630s, such a proliferation of mills cropped up in this area of Watertown, MA that it was dubbed “the Mill District.”
This close-up of the 1879 map shows the exact building where the Incubator at Sasaki is housed today at 64 Pleasant Street.
The structure of the original mill buildings remain intact. Referencing its history of making in its design, the Incubator will continue a long legacy of creative production within these walls.
Lewando’s French Laundry & Cleaners used six artesian wells and much of the Watertown Water Supply Company’s supply.
Mills like Hollingsworth & Whitney Paper Company were built along the Charles River to capitalize on hydropower.
Three steam engines of six, eight and ten horse-power operated the laundry.
Lewando’s became one of the largest laundries in the United States and could turn out about 4500 collars and cuffs, 500 shirts each day.Interested in partnering with us? Let us know!
