The Land's Sake Farm (left), winner of the Boston Society for Architecture's 2025 Harleston Parker Medal and Harvard University's Tozzer Anthropology Building (right), winner of the 2025 BSA People's Choice Award. Photos by Warren Jagger Photography (left) John Horner Photography (right) | Courtesy of the Boston Society for Architecture

What do a Weston farm and a Harvard University academic building have in common? They just won two of the Boston area’s most prestigious annual architecture awards.

Land’s Sake Farm, designed by Payette, was awarded the Boston Society for Architecture’s 2025 Harleston Parker Medal at the society’s gala Thursday night, while the Tozzer Anthropology Building at Harvard University in Cambridge, designed by Kennedy & Violich Architecture, was awarded the People’s Choice Award.

The former award recognizes “the most beautiful piece of architecture, building, monument, or structure built in the metropolitan Boston area in the past 10 years” and is awarded by a jury of professional architects, planners and public officials. The latter is voted on by members of the public.

The Land’s Sake Farm project consisted of an flexible pavilion dubbed “the animal barn” and a separate farmstand building, both set amid the vegetable fields at the nonprofit Land’s Sake Farm. Payette, working on a pro-bono basis, designed structures made mainly of heavy timber and, in the case of the farmstand, walls of windows that show off its structure to visitors inside and outside the building. The high-performance buildings included heat recovery systems and solar PV panels that let the farm become a net-zero operation.

The Tozzer Anthropology Building represented a different challenge for architects KVA: reuse the footprint, utility hookups and steel and concrete structure of a 1971 library building to make a new classroom and office space for Harvard’s anthropology department. The result was a brick-and-copper form that subtly twists to catch daylight and spill it into a central atrium, and a direct connection to buildings housing Harvard’s Peabody Museum and archeology department.

“Architecture is ultimately about people and the communities we serve. At the BSA, our mission is to advance design that fosters equity, connection, and opportunity across Greater Boston. We believe thoughtful, inclusive design can strengthen neighborhoods and expand what’s possible for everyone,” BS Executive Director Danyson Tavares said in a statement. “The annual BSA Awards gala is a celebration of that collective impact—honoring the creativity, leadership, and shared commitment that make our community and our cities stronger.”

Four other annual BSA awards were conferred Thursday – the Commonwealth Award, the BSA Award of Honor, BSA Honorary Membership and the Earl R. Flansburgh Young Designer’s Award – to projects and individuals from across New England.

Land’s Sake Farm

Photo by Warren Jagger Photography | Courtesy of the Boston Society for Architecture

Photo by Warren Jagger Photography | Courtesy of the Boston Society for Architecture

Tozzer Anthropology Building

Photo by KVA | Courtesy of the Boston Society for Architecture

Photo by John Horner Photography | Courtesy of the Boston Society for Architecture