Waterside Place 1A | 505 Congress Street | Seaport

Re: Waterside Place

My friend works in Seaport East and commented that everyone he has talked to thinks it looks dirty and cheap.
 
Re: Waterside Place

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Re: Waterside Place

I really don't understand this checkerboarding of panels. It's as if one person ordered one color of gray panels and then someone else ordered one shade darker by accident and they said well, lets just alternate them every 2 floors. They just look dirty.

I'm looking forward to the glazed curtain wall.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Congress Street is starting to feel like a street at least with this building.
 
Re: Waterside Place

datadyne007 said:
I really don't understand this checkerboarding of panels. It's as if one person ordered one color of gray panels and then someone else ordered one shade darker by accident and they said well, lets just alternate them every 2 floors. They just look dirty.

I'm looking forward to the glazed curtain wall.
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They aren't different shades, but rather different textures. The panels that appear darker in the photos actually have horizontal grooves cut into them.

Agreed, not the best look.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Oh Christ this is intentional and not some leftover stain?
 
Re: Waterside Place

Im sure they'll clean the dirty ones when done not that that will help much
 
Re: Waterside Place

I absolutely love the JH/Manulife building and would have hoped that it would have set the standard, would have been the role model, for architects and builders to follow in that section of the Seaport, but, sadly, it was not to be! Liberty Wharf rose to the occasion but, being a low-rise, doesn't have the same impact on the skyline!
 
Re: Waterside Place

If only this building had balconies they could call it Tremont-on-the-Seaport
 
Re: Waterside Place

this building is a good example of something someone posted on this board a while ago; why color pallets in a city matter. Boston can have bleak winters and many overcast days, a white or gray building does nothing to break the monotony of the dreariest times of year. Brick, terra cotta and other warm toned natural materials do. IF this building was more in the red, orange, or even blue color family, I think we may be singing a different tune about it.
 
Re: Waterside Place

What gets me is that a developer and architect agreed to essentially duplicate the style of a mediocre building nearby that was designed nearly a decade ago.

There will always be cheap buildings, but at least there are different styles of cheap. This particular cycle of value-engineered garbage is going on much longer than I would have hoped.
 
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At least it improved the streetscape!

Oh wait, no, that street is still a gigantic traffic sewer.
 
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There may be an obvious answer to this, but why are the roads in this district grade separated?
 
Re: Waterside Place

found5dollar said:
this building is a good example of something someone posted on this board a while ago; why color pallets in a city matter. Boston can have bleak winters and many overcast days, a white or gray building does nothing to break the monotony of the dreariest times of year. Brick, terra cotta and other warm toned natural materials do. IF this building was more in the red, orange, or even blue color family, I think we may be singing a different tune about it.
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I was in on that talk, and as I recall someone said they hated yellow buildings whereas I stood up and said I love them because they provide warmth during the grey months. Totally agree that this will look like shit during the nasty months, if not all the time.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Sunday I took a long walk from Purchase Street to the Blackhawk Terminal and back through the streets of the seaport dist. It was a lonely, bleak, tedious walk. The setback of the courthouse is a waste of lawn. Louis' is just a dumb-looking building. The ICA for all its innovation is empty around its base. All the streets are too wide for safe pedestrian crossings (though the dearth of traffic on Sunday made it easier.) Worse was the fact that nearly every building had nothing going on on the ground floor. It reminded me of parts of Chicago where 15 stories from the ground up are sometimes taken up by blank garage walls. Except for a few bars and restaurants....nothing, and more nothing. Even the parks were bleak and lifeless despite the out-of-scale lawns. I know that the area is not finished, but Waterside Place is shocking in its placement along...nothing. It only adds to the feeling that I'm in 1955 East Germany. They're reaching a kind of critical mass in developing this district whereby the scale is irreversibly tipped in favor of the auto and tarmac. I pity anyone having to live here. It's all actually a sad extension of the Blackhawk Terminal area, which is basically an industrial zone meant for trucks and taxis. Sad.
 
Re: Waterside Place

I like to think the architect and developer had a conversation that went something like this:
Architect: What sort of facade are you hoping for?
Developer: Something that will age poorly.
Architect: Ummm, ok. How about precast panels and alucobond? That would be contextual with the crap already built in the area.
Developer: No, too nice.
Architect: Hmmmm ... what if we made some of the precast panels corrugated. That should really capture salt from the ocean and soot from the ridiculously wide roads below and cause some nice discoloration in a short amount of time. Maybe even before you're done with construction!
Developer: You're getting closer ...
Architect: And we could make the precast panels stark white. That should make the stains and dirt really "pop" as concrete ages!
Developer: Yes! Nailed it!
 
Re: Waterside Place

i gave the kensington a pass but god damn this thing is bad
 
Re: Waterside Place

Padre Mike said:
Sunday I took a long walk from Purchase Street to the Blackhawk Terminal and back through the streets of the seaport dist. It was a lonely, bleak, tedious walk. The setback of the courthouse is a waste of lawn. Louis' is just a dumb-looking building. The ICA for all its innovation is empty around its base. All the streets are too wide for safe pedestrian crossings (though the dearth of traffic on Sunday made it easier.) Worse was the fact that nearly every building had nothing going on on the ground floor. It reminded me of parts of Chicago where 15 stories from the ground up are sometimes taken up by blank garage walls. Except for a few bars and restaurants....nothing, and more nothing. Even the parks were bleak and lifeless despite the out-of-scale lawns. I know that the area is not finished, but Waterside Place is shocking in its placement along...nothing. It only adds to the feeling that I'm in 1955 East Germany. They're reaching a kind of critical mass in developing this district whereby the scale is irreversibly tipped in favor of the auto and tarmac. I pity anyone having to live here. It's all actually a sad extension of the Blackhawk Terminal area, which is basically an industrial zone meant for trucks and taxis. Sad.
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This is basically how I feel, but cue several forumers arguing that the area is actually "packed with people" because of a couple waterfront restaurants and some lost conventioneers.
 
Re: Waterside Place

How you could give a death sentence to a neighborhood that's not even half finished is beyond me. There's a lot of foot traffic between Whiskey Priest and the Harpoon Brewer, AKA, the part of the Seaport that's more or less finished, and it's not crowded at all in the rest of the Seaport, AKA the parts that aren't finished. Why would that be surprising, let alone disturbing?
 
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