Assembly Square Infill and Small Developments | Somerville

Noticed that the T is no longer offering parking in the lot where the rental building will be built. Wonder if that is a sign that that they are moving towards a construction start in the near future.

Edit: Just got an email that construction fencing work starts tomorrow (25th)
 
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I call this "walk back from the liquor store"

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^ Much of what has been built at Assembly is quite good, but those film reel graphics reek of strip mall.
 
fattony said:
^ Much of what has been built at Assembly is quite good, but those film reel graphics reek of strip mall.
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Yeah, it's the weakest of the buildings. I don't know what you could really do with a theater wall, though.

The only real architecture in Assembly is the office building. Avalon isn't too bad, while AVA (my building) is pretty much cardboard.

Can't beat the park, though. I'm only in my apartment to sleep these days.
 
Was it ever explained where the rusty H-frame girders that form a sort of colonnade on the Mystic waterfront came from? They are a really cool touch, and you can tell by the rivet construction that they're early/mid-20th C artifacts, as opposed to purpose-built.

I'd love to know the backstory. When in the design process did they decide they needed a "colonnade"? Were they from the site, some old Elevated, or other factory? They seem never to have been painted, so my hunch is that they were an interior element (rather than de-lead an El structure and then let it rust)
 
Arlington said:
Was it ever explained where the rusty H-frame girders that form a sort of colonnade on the Mystic waterfront came from? They are a really cool touch, and you can tell by the rivet construction that they're early/mid-20th C artifacts, as opposed to purpose-built.

I'd love to know the backstory. When in the design process did they decide they needed a "colonnade"? Were they from the site, some old Elevated, or other factory? They seem never to have been painted, so my hunch is that they were an interior element (rather than de-lead an El structure and then let it rust)
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They came from the old Ford assembly plant, IIRC. I think it came up here before.
 
They're from the ford plant, although not in their original location. They also have the old water tower, disassembled. In some renders of the partners building you can are they plan to put it back up in front of the parking garage.
 
Construction fencing will be completed in next day or two I bet. Bet there'll be fist fights over parking spots on the weekends now.
 
Much of what has been built at Assembly is quite good, but those film reel graphics reek of strip mall.
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Sorry but the whole thing is pretty much a strip mall and a caricature of urban design.
 
meddlepal said:
Sorry but the whole thing is pretty much a strip mall and a caricature of urban design.
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I disagree. The similarities to a strip mall are few (self-contained, retail oriented), but there are many key differences. I feel like I'm stating the obvious, but so many people keep calling this development a strip-mall that I feel like I need to point out how misguided this is.

Strip-malls generally have no residential component. This not only has a residential component, but a major, dense, urban residential component.

Strip-malls are usually single-story, single-use retail. These buildings have floors of urban residential above the retail.

Strip-malls have large, surface parking lots in front of the retail stores. This does not.

Strip malls have access, through a large parking lot, off of major roads/arteries. This is built on an urban grid of single-lane streets.

Strip malls are auto-centric. This development is pedestrian friendly and transit oriented.

Strip malls generally only have retail and service jobs. Sometimes there are small businesses, such as an accountant's office in a strip-mall, but usually nothing more than that. This is about to be the corporate home to a major healthcare company with hundreds of white-collar jobs in a transit-oriented, mid-rise office building.

etc, etc, etc.

Maybe calling this a strip-mall is an easy, insult (hey, there are stores and it's new! Just like those strip malls that line the major roads of Atlanta's suburbs!)
Fundamentally, though, this development is a well-executed, 21st century, transit-oriented urban neighborhood, concocted from scratch.

If this is not what people want (it is), then what do you want to be built on a brownfield next to a highway? Honestly, if this didn't exist and were proposed by an archBoston poster, everyone would drool and talk about how Boston is too conservative to ever let this amazing of a development take place.
 
There is actually a strip mall pre-dating Assembly Row development (with Sports Authority, etc. and a large parking lot) abutting the current development. If you compare the two developments, the difference is remarkable.
 
People get this way with phased projects. They critique each phase as if it is a finished product in and of itself, when it's actually a finished phase of a yet to be completed "neighborhood".

Even when the last phase is complete, it will require other developments around it to build up to and integrate to form an actual neighborhood.

There is kind of a cart before the horse approach going on here which is a bit different than some other areas. They put in a few destination stops here to draw people from without, because there are no people within (or not enough). I would love to have as many options in such proximity to each other here in Kendall, and it doesn't yet exist in a much more built out location with better mass transit connectivity.

It is not yet classic urban, and probably never will be, but is it caricature, or just the modern equivalent?
 
bigeman312 said:
Honestly, if this didn't exist and were proposed by an archBoston poster, everyone would drool and talk about how Boston is too conservative to ever let this amazing of a development take place.
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Your whole post is spot on, but this point is especially potent.
 
Reznor said:
There is actually a strip mall pre-dating Assembly Row development (with Sports Authority, etc. and a large parking lot) abutting the current development. If you compare the two developments, the difference is remarkable.
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+1
 
I'll also add that strip malls typically don't have a riverfront lined with restaurants and bars that are packed to the gills every night of the week. The most amazing thing to me is how freaking packed this place is all the time. It's only four blocks.

Also, walking across the river to Station Landing really shows how good Assembly is at what it's doing. It makes that development look like a wasteland.
 
My original concern with Assembly Row was that it was going to turn into something like Santana Row (San Jose) -- a high-end, outdoor mall that vaguely imitates the style of an urban neighborhood, but that's all. Not a place where people actually live.

I'm hoping that the decision to open a new Orange Line station and make the land highly transit accessible will ultimately save the character of the place from being entirely vacuous.

While I'm here, I'll also note that the most recent time I rode into Assembly Row, I went via the Mystic Riverfront paths, which are actually really nice once you start to get close. There's the residential neighborhoods north of Broadway near the river that enjoy a really easy walking or bike ride into Assembly Row now.
 
There's more than a whiff of Celebration/Seaside-ish type development here. It may not be the best comparison as they are decidedly suburban but the sense of artifice is the same. A degree of this is probably unavoidable when starting from scratch and hopefully the rest of the Assembly buildout mitigates a lot of it. The weakest architecture here, not surprisingly, is the old-timey stuff. The attempt at a yesteryear look only reinforces a theme park atmosphere.
 
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