It's just a formality required by code, some of the things they post are pretty comical, my personal favorite is this one:The only parking garage in the city even remotely worth keeping is the Motor Mart in Park Square. And that one is going. Why this is even being considered for preservation is beyond my comprehension.
DPIR: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/wjno02d35b3a6uo2b6xao954ra5v9cjm
This is now apparently named "Fenway Corners".
From page 21, they lowered the tallest building from 300' to 265'. How come the first change to all of these major projects lately is for the tallest building to get cut?
View attachment 21165
Page 82 shows a building replacing the Shell on Boylston. What is that project?
My cynical guess is that they planned for 265ft from the beginning, but made a show of lowering it to prove that they are "listening".
Harvard has the issue of a blank slate - it's much more difficult to create a sense of place out of nothing than to forge something amongst dozens of neighbors that have defined the neighborhood for decades, and allowed for the architects to incorporate and twist those characteristics into the new development. Harvard obviously has a financial interest in Allston's real estate, and have proven an appreciation for capital-A Architecture, but they're their biggest enemy by having a master developer for the entire neighborhood all essentially at once, rather than here, where a more authentic evolution of the neighborhood has occurred.
Not saying Harvard is off the hook, but it's not entirely the same design approach that would yield a similar result. At the very least, it would feel extremely forced and inauthentic if this design was located in Harvard's Allston campus, but here, it makes sense, because it's what's been here.
To be cute; "that's a shot, it looks like it's going to hit the moon, way back to left, way back, that's outta here and going to smash a window... Better call Anderson Window, because for every window smashed, Anderson will donate $1000 to the Jimmy Fund.".Harvard would have something like this if they'd chosen WS Development instead of Tishman Speyer. This project is very much in-line with WS's more recent Seaport work (Parcels N and P, SeaPAC, etc).
Not that context doesn't matter. 109 Brookline and The Beacon were both forced to conform to the neighborhood (the latter more than the former), and I doubt the Red Sox wanted nonsense on the other side of Jersey and Lansdowne. Look at that Lansdowne rendering in particular - the Red Sox probably pushed (and will pay) for that beautiful brick facade.
Speaking of which... that Lansdowne building is tall enough that it's going to get hit with baseballs from time to time (the ones that currently land on the parking deck). I hope they use strong glass.