Wayland design board urges Carroll School to tie new buildings to historic mansion

WAYLAND — January 27, 2026 — Wayland design board unanimously presses Carroll School to better tie new pods to historic mansion. The Design Review Advisory Board voted 3-0 Tuesday to recommend that Carroll School's roughly 45,000-square-foot, two-story academic addition on Waltham Road add tower elements at each pod entrance to visually connect the new flat-roofed buildings to the existing Fish Center mansion. Chair Bill Sterling called the proposed design an imitation of "tech office parks of the 1970s," while members Tania Person and Robin Borgestedt agreed the new and old buildings lacked visual connection despite shared stone, lap siding and shingle finishes. The board also flagged that seven 25-foot parking-lot light poles would be visible to abutters above buffer plantings, asking the town to weigh accepting "some light spillage from 14-foot poles" instead. Architect Daithi Blair of Flansburgh Architects said he would try to incorporate the feedback.