Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

[itchy]

Agree - the design of 88 Seaport looks dramatically changed. Instead of 2 separate pieces (top and bottom), it now looks like they just inflect the windows a bit between the two.

That effectively kills off the garden / open area that was previously intended for the top floor of the bottom 'piece' of the building.

Also looks like some serious value engineering going on in the facade/windows of both the top and bottom pieces, separate from the middle gash.

 

[Vivanna]

My opinion was only that trading a 2 story retail podium for more park space was a fair trade. I didnt say anything about losing residential units or adding lab space.

By itself, I 100% agree, but this is a re-trade and the City loses big time.

 

[Equilibria]

FWIW, I’m pretty sure the design of 88 Seaport has changed. It’s quite similar with the diagonal feature, but it appears they shrunk the gap considerably where now the building looks more like it’s crunched together rather than cut out.

[Edit] Here are some screen shots for comparison:

Old design:

View attachment 24321

NPC design:

View attachment 24324

Fair enough. Looks more like they pulled the fully expected move of getting rid of the outdoor trees and enclosing those areas in glass.

 

[stefal]

Parcel G looks massive in these, possibly just due to perspective, and as nice as it looks, I'm really not sure if treating it with a more traditional facade is the move here. It'd be better served hosting something that compliments Parcel D and the ICA, as risky as telling an architect to use an almost-all glass facade is. But you can do it well, and I somewhat trust WS to follow through on doing a well-designed glass building. I'm envisioning a nice Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners project sitting along that park, but one can dream.

Brick and arches aren't close by, until you hit Fort Point/Parcels N & P, which are out of sight here. What's immediately close by is a (hopefully still) really dynamic and metallic-textured facade by OMA, a smooth glass wall on the Goodwin building, the bold form of the ICA, the calculated yet subtle and balanced design of 101 Seaport, and the round 121 Seaport with a clean-cut glass chamfer for its lobby. With the exception of the Goodwin Building, that's really not the worst set of buildings to be situated around for a nice contemporary and forward-looking design.

I also wouldn't read too heavily into the Parcel D. It may have changed, but it may just be a placeholder used by their masterplan architect.

 

[Vivanna]

Parcel G looks massive in these, possibly just due to perspective, and as nice as it looks, I'm really not sure if treating it with a more traditional facade is the move here. It'd be better served hosting something that compliments Parcel D and the ICA, as risky as telling an architect to use an almost-all glass facade is. But you can do it well, and I somewhat trust WS to follow through on doing a well-designed glass building. I'm envisioning a nice Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners project sitting along that park, but one can dream.

Brick and arches aren't close by, until you hit Fort Point/Parcels N & P, which are out of sight here. What's immediately close by is a (hopefully still) really dynamic and metallic-textured facade by OMA, a smooth glass wall on the Goodwin building, the bold form of the ICA, the calculated yet subtle and balanced design of 101 Seaport, and the round 121 Seaport with a clean-cut glass chamfer for its lobby. With the exception of the Goodwin Building, that's really not the worst set of buildings to be situated around for a nice contemporary and forward-looking design.

I also wouldn't read too heavily into the Parcel D. It may have changed, but it may just be a placeholder used by their masterplan architect.

Couldn't agree more on Parcel G, not to mention, coming from the east on Seaport Blvd, you'll see the St. Regis right before this comes in to view.

And I really hope you're right on parcel D!!

 

[Equilibria]

Parcel G looks massive in these, possibly just due to perspective, and as nice as it looks, I'm really not sure if treating it with a more traditional facade is the move here. It'd be better served hosting something that compliments Parcel D and the ICA, as risky as telling an architect to use an almost-all glass facade is. But you can do it well, and I somewhat trust WS to follow through on doing a well-designed glass building. I'm envisioning a nice Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners project sitting along that park, but one can dream.

Brick and arches aren't close by, until you hit Fort Point/Parcels N & P, which are out of sight here. What's immediately close by is a (hopefully still) really dynamic and metallic-textured facade by OMA, a smooth glass wall on the Goodwin building, the bold form of the ICA, the calculated yet subtle and balanced design of 101 Seaport, and the round 121 Seaport with a clean-cut glass chamfer for its lobby. With the exception of the Goodwin Building, that's really not the worst set of buildings to be situated around for a nice contemporary and forward-looking design.

I also wouldn't read too heavily into the Parcel D. It may have changed, but it may just be a placeholder used by their masterplan architect.

Fair enough, but I think that very presence is what makes this feel like a city and not a sculpture garden.

 

[stick n move]

Now that theyve added more park space Im kinda hoping they keep going and keep one harbor shore drive as just an underground garage. Iinstead of building a tower on top extend the fan pier park eastward. I know it would be a loss of money for a now severely overbuilt garage, but more money has been blown on much worse. It would be like a post office sq on the sea.

This open park space towards the harbor is going to look a lot less appealing if they block half of this view with a luxury condo tower imo.

 

[Vivanna]

Now that theyve added more park space Im kinda hoping they keep going and keep one harbor shore drive as just an underground garage. Iinstead of building a tower on top extend the fan pier park eastward. I know it would be a loss of money for a now severely overbuilt garage, but more money has been blown on much worse. It would be like a post office sq on the sea.

View attachment 24332

This open park space towards the harbor is going to look a lot less appealing if they block half of this view with a luxury condo tower imo.

I agree, but unfortunately this is going to break ground at the end of the year.

 

[stefal]

I agree, but unfortunately this is going to break ground at the end of the year.

Parcel D is moving forward per WS in recent press; is One Harbor Shore/Parcel H? Unless I've missed some news it's been pretty silent since 2016...

 

[Equilibria]

Now that theyve added more park space Im kinda hoping they keep going and keep one harbor shore drive as just an underground garage. Iinstead of building a tower on top extend the fan pier park eastward. I know it would be a loss of money for a now severely overbuilt garage, but more money has been blown on much worse. It would be like a post office sq on the sea.

View attachment 24332

This open park space towards the harbor is going to look a lot less appealing if they block half of this view with a luxury condo tower imo.

Different developer.

 

[Vivanna]

Parcel D is moving forward per WS in recent press; is One Harbor Shore/Parcel H? Unless I've missed some news it's been pretty silent since 2016...

Yes, the Fallon Co. that owns One Harbor Shore will break ground at the end of the year, condos only, no hotel.

 

[dirtywater]

I haven't seen anything that shows what is going to be built on Parcel D. Does anyone have a recent rendering?

 

[stellarfun]

Just a shout out to this fantastic Frank Stella View attachment 10156

Frank Stella died in NYC on May 3, 2024.

^^^ Architectural Digest on the installation of Damascus Gate at the Seaport.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/boston-seaport-frank-stella

From the effusive Globe obituary

Frank Stella, one of America’s great artists, whose career intersected — and helped catalyze — some of the most significant upheavals in 20th century art, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.

Mr. Stella, who was born in Malden on May 12, 1936, was ever restless, dynamically shifting his work in both style and scale while defying categorical boundaries between painting and sculpture. He was equally unbound from the many movements in American art competing for dominance in the latter half of the 20th century.

Matthew Teitelbaum, director of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, said Mr. Stella “both simplified and reduced the vocabulary of abstraction, challenging assumptions and opening opportunities to look and think differently. His relentless questioning of traditional boundaries in art applies to nearly every formal category of painting and sculpture. It is magical and inspiring.”

By the mid-1960s, he had abandoned the dark monochromatic palette that had made him famous, making elegant, brightly colored works using arcing stripes. His “Irregular Polygons” and “Protractor” series of the late 1960s and early 1970s helped cement his renown. “Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation I),” 1970, one of the best known of the “Protractor” paintings, was reproduced in 2019 for the facade of a building in Boston’s Seaport, the only Mr. Stella public artwork in his hometown.

In 1970, barely a decade after his museum debut in “Sixteen Americans,” Mr. Stella became the youngest artist to have a career retrospective at MoMA. Seventeen years later in 1987, MoMA would have him back for another retrospective of his prodigious output, the only living artist at the time to have been celebrated so fully by the same institution twice.

His most recent work was driven by large-scale public sculpture commissions, found in such prestigious places as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where his massive “Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, Ein Schauspiel, 3X,” a colossal abstract form in stainless steel, aluminum, fiberglass, and carbon fiber, has adorned the front lawn since 2001. (Its title pays homage to a play about love and war by the 18th-century German playwright Heinrich von Kleist.)

Indeed, his late career was focused on monumental-sized works, a fitting end for an artist ever pushing at boundaries of material, scale, and form.

“In its entirety, Stella’s oeuvre is decidedly unruly, overwhelming,” said Reto Thüring, the MFA’s former chair of contemporary art. “I admire his work exactly because it does not want to (visually) please. Instead, he kept pushing, and pushing, and pushing. Isn’t that an enormous achievement in and by itself?”

Frank Stella, Malden native who expanded boundaries of modern art, dies - The Boston Globe

Ever restless, Frank Stella dynamically shifted his work in both style and scale while defying categorical boundaries between painting and sculpture as he became one of America's most prolific artists of the past half century.

www.bostonglobe.com