MassDOT Pike Parcels 12 - 15 | Boylston St. and Mass. Ave | Back Bay

I like the details put in by BRG (third proposal) on the MBTA station entrances and their integration into the rest of the building.
 
#3 wins by a mile. That looks great. They should choose them and put in a clause that they aren't allowed to value engineer anything from that.

Is there any time frame for the development of those adjacent parcels?
 
Why is everyone so rahrah for BRG (#3)? To me. it looks dated and tacky, or as if it flew in from Albany. What's so innovative about the circular massing on the corner? The Prudential Center's Shaw's has something similar, and I don't see anyone cooing over it.

Handel's is the most exciting of the bunch, and it also appears that they have done the most engineering legwork (hard to really know of course, but just going based on the slideware).
 
I like the BRG proposal fine, but it doesn't seem to relate to anything around it, and the entire thing looks like MBTA architecture - glass and metal pieces that look clean but have no warmth or character. I also notice that they didn't provide renders from inside that circular atrium, so my guess is that they have no idea how that would work either.

My preference is the Handel. Their design seems the best-thought-out, although it's very deeply dependent on the choice of cladding material. That design also has issues with street-level interaction, since so much of that terra cotta meets the sidewalk.
 
resisttheist said:
Here are the individual presentations:

http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/getattachment/5d7cefc1-a972-4bdf-b35a-0925743e528d

http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/getattachment/4bd294d8-e17c-43d7-9ec6-956f404ed468

http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/getattachment/6ae6134b-daa6-4444-9973-5fdfd882c56f

These each contain a lot more information than the previously posted slide show. Not that any of these are great, but I would go with the Peebles proposal hands down.
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LOL---- these are Garbage
 
Shepard said:
Why is everyone so rahrah for BRG (#3)? To me. it looks dated and tacky, or as if it flew in from Albany. What's so innovative about the circular massing on the corner? The Prudential Center's Shaw's has something similar, and I don't see anyone cooing over it.

Handel's is the most exciting of the bunch, and it also appears that they have done the most engineering legwork (hard to really know of course, but just going based on the slideware).
Click to expand...

I also think the atrium concept looks a little garish.

The Trinity proposal shares more or less the same massing, but the south-facing corner plaza creates some opportunities. I like the idea of a new iconic sculpture there.

The Handel one looks an awful lot like my freshman dorm building. All that terracotta needs some relief. With a little work I bet I could come around on it.
 
I like BRG's as well. Trinity's is decent but a little generic looking. Handel's is way too monolithic.
 
I kind of like whichever one I'm looking at. All three have good features, but I think that Trinity is the best fit for that location.
 
While I think that all of these proposals largely are just wasting valuable space, the second proposal is probably the best. I would rather see two really interesting buildings at that corner.
 
cden4 said:
I like BRG's as well. Trinity's is decent but a little generic looking. Handel's is way too monolithic.
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Ditto. Plus Trinity looks super cheap pre-casty. I was excited about Viola from a distance, but the more I looked at it, the more it looked like a tidal wave of terracotta getting ready to drown its neighbors. I'd like the BRG atrium better if it were taller.
 
whighlander said:
All of the designs are abusive and overbearing in how they relate to the old Police Substation (now Dillion's) & the Fire House / Architectural College

Those historic Boylston buildings along with the old Tower Records building on the corner of Newbury and Mass Ave need to be protected and isolated from the mass of the new construction
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I could not disagree more.

1) The Police/Fire station have no context, when they were built out there they were an island. The intent was undoubtedly that there would be a small alley between the ex-police station now BAC and whatever was built next to it, and that whatever was built next to it would be as tall, if not taller than the police station. If that wasn't the intent it would be detailed as heavily as the Hereford side of the fire station.

2) Dillons is, if anything, what's abusive to the station. A single story garage added on to the station when the police started motorizing. Having such a squat building next to what is essentially a party wall is the issue here, the intent was always for something much, much taller.

3) The BAC is now the owner of the police station half of the building. They have studios on the second and third floor. You know what really sucks in a studio? The setting sun streaming through the windows screwing everything up. A nice tall building to diffuse the light of the setting sun would be incredibly helpful.

4) Two towers are going to be built across the street on Boylston

5) 360 Newbury (tower records) used to have a fraternal twin next door, destroyed for the Pike. It doesn't need to be protected from anything. The shame is that Ghery cut windows into the whole side, preventing the party wall from being reused as intended, creating the current issue where all of the proposals have a two story max along Mass Ave.



All that being said, I do prefer the Pebbles proposal to that of BRG, and both blow Trinity out of the water. I think that Pebbles makes a lot more out of the plazas they are creating, as well as placemaking with the MBTA entrances. I also appreciate they are looking at matching facade elements up with the historic buildings next door, and seem to really be looking at this from a pedestrian point of view. I also really like that they are asking for extra height closer to Mass/Boylston in exchange for not building a tower. I think that this makes a far more interesting street wall then the stepped design of the other two proposals. It also makes the real towers across the street stand out even more.


Trinity looks like they just popped some facades onto the RFP MassDOT sent out. Their previous proposal was vastly superior.

BRG put a lot of thought into varying facades and uses to make this seem like a bunch of different buildings, which I appreciate. I fear that VE will get the best of it, however.
 
I prefer "The Boylston" as it improves the pedestrian experience the most. It does this by:
  • providing shops along Mass Ave and Boylston
  • avoiding an indoor mall
  • adding a pedestrian connection from Boylston to the alley
 
bigeman312 said:
I prefer "The Boylston" as it improves the pedestrian experience the most. It does this by:
Click to expand...

Nothing regarding your points, but I wonder whether I'm the only one becoming confused by the variety of naming conventions in play for these proposals. I'm not sure whether I even correctly labeled the one I mentioned above. It would be much easier if we just had numbered proposals or something. And the presentation PDF doesn't help, since it isn't any more consistent than archboston. Grrr.
 
I take the points about pedestrian experience, but aren't aesthetics in play there, too? The materials on the Boylston make it look like a glorified suburban strip mall, at least to me. The rounded atrium in the BRG proposal isn't mind-blowingly fantastic, I suppose, but I'll take glass over precasty stuff any day, especially here, where it would contrast with the surrounding architecture.

But I confess to being less interested in the pedestrian experience (which, at present, is terrible anyway) than I am the amount of housing. 460 beds for college students, whose presence in the regular market is a driving factor in this city's ballooning housing costs, are a pretty big deal. That's also one reason why if the BRG proposal doesn't go through, I'd choose the Boylston second: because even though it looks awful, it has more housing than the Viola, which looks kinda nice.
 
GW said:
I take the points about pedestrian experience, but aren't aesthetics in play there, too? The materials on the Boylston make it look like a glorified suburban strip mall, at least to me. The rounded atrium in the BRG proposal isn't mind-blowingly fantastic, I suppose, but I'll take glass over precasty stuff any day, especially here, where it would contrast with the surrounding architecture.

But I confess to being less interested in the pedestrian experience (which, at present, is terrible anyway) than I am the amount of housing. 460 beds for college students, whose presence in the regular market is a driving factor in this city's ballooning housing costs, are a pretty big deal. That's also one reason why if the BRG proposal doesn't go through, I'd choose the Boylston second: because even though it looks awful, it has more housing than the Viola, which looks kinda nice.
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I don't disagree with any of that, but at the same time I admit to being less concerned about aesthetics than pedestrian connectivity. I am interested in adding a lot of units to the area though. So, for that reason, I would choose the BRG proposal over the Viola.
 
BRG for me, but it's going to be so long that anything happens here, so ultimately I don't care.
 
Trinity...points for density. Rancid tomatoes for arthritic, constipated aesthetic.
Viola... love the design and sophistication—somewhere else though not here. Go tall or go home.
BRG...urbane, sharp, beautiful. Winner.
 
davem said:
I could not disagree more.

1) The Police/Fire station have no context, when they were built out there they were an island. The intent was undoubtedly that there would be a small alley between the ex-police station now BAC and whatever was built next to it, and that whatever was built next to it would be as tall, if not taller than the police station. If that wasn't the intent it would be detailed as heavily as the Hereford side of the fire station.

2) Dillons is, if anything, what's abusive to the station. A single story garage added on to the station when the police started motorizing. Having such a squat building next to what is essentially a party wall is the issue here, the intent was always for something much, much taller.

3) The BAC is now the owner of the police station half of the building. They have studios on the second and third floor. You know what really sucks in a studio? The setting sun streaming through the windows screwing everything up. A nice tall building to diffuse the light of the setting sun would be incredibly helpful.

4) Two towers are going to be built across the street on Boylston

5) 360 Newbury (tower records) used to have a fraternal twin next door, destroyed for the Pike. It doesn't need to be protected from anything. The shame is that Ghery cut windows into the whole side, preventing the party wall from being reused as intended, creating the current issue where all of the proposals have a two story max along Mass Ave.



All that being said, I do prefer the Pebbles proposal to that of BRG, and both blow Trinity out of the water. I think that Pebbles makes a lot more out of the plazas they are creating, as well as placemaking with the MBTA entrances. I also appreciate they are looking at matching facade elements up with the historic buildings next door, and seem to really be looking at this from a pedestrian point of view. I also really like that they are asking for extra height closer to Mass/Boylston in exchange for not building a tower. I think that this makes a far more interesting street wall then the stepped design of the other two proposals. It also makes the real towers across the street stand out even more.


Trinity looks like they just popped some facades onto the RFP MassDOT sent out. Their previous proposal was vastly superior.

BRG put a lot of thought into varying facades and uses to make this seem like a bunch of different buildings, which I appreciate. I fear that VE will get the best of it, however.
Click to expand...

Davem -- setting aside your comments on the new designs -- your statements of the historic context are not correct:

1) The building @941 Boylston St. housing the firehouse & BAC today was a combined "Public Safety Building" in modern parlance designed by Arthur H. Vinal the Boston City Architect and
It opened on February 20, 1888 as the home for both Engine Company 33 and Ladder Company 15 in the larger part [still in use as a Fire Station] and the Police Precinct in the smaller part which is today the BAC [ex ICA]
http://www.bostonfirehistory.org/activefirehouseengine33.html

2) the structure now housing Dillon's 955 Boylston was never considered a garage. It was a 1914 addition to the Division 16 Precinct Station [with some subsequent further extension circa 1922] needed to modernize the Precinct Station including a garage at the lower level opening on the Public Alley between Boylston St. & Newbury St.

3) There never was a twin to 360 Newbury demolished by the Turnpike Extension construction as there was nothing there to build upon -- where the turnpike is today was a rail cut with only slight alterations with an arch bridge and a girder bridge very similar in scale to today's bridge that carries Mass Ave & Boylston St. over the Turnpike
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cityofbostonarchives/13623761565/in/photostream/
Transparent.gif


4) 360 Newbury itself began in 1914 as a transfer station between east-west streetcars running in the Boylston Street Subway [today's Green Line] to the then end of the Tremont Street Subway @ Arlington -- and north-south streetcars traveling on Mass Ave. In 1919 the Boston Elevated Railway built the Mass Ave Surface station for the streetcars between Newbury [today's "the Slab"] and Boylston St. crossing over the Boston & Albany Rail Tracks

Looking_east_from_Massachusetts_Avenue_to_Newbury_Street_%2813473670824%29.jpg


After the tunnel and surface station was completed the company built the building now known as 360 Newbury to house their offices -- later the surface station was demolished [the only demolition on the Northeast Corner of Boylston & Mass Ave.

Note that the "Our Offices Here" was written on the photo sometime around the 1919 and refers to the BERY Offices in the newly built 360 -- also note there is no party wall -- there are windows
7002692_orig.jpg


Note that nothing could be built along the run of the roof of the tunnel where it was exposed except for what is today's Hynes Boylston Headhouse
 
i dont get the viewpoint of the last pic - where was it taken from?
 
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