South Station Tower | South Station Air Rights | Downtown

[odurandina]

Re: South Station Tower

Bus Depot is 9-27 airway.

 

[iamdjmichael]

Re: South Station Tower

Curbed article with a new render http://boston.curbed.com/2016/12/16/13980206/south-station-tower-1-dewey-square

 

[whighlander]

Re: South Station Tower

Odurandian -- I usually appreciate your sense of humour -- but you missed on this one

Our local Technological Industrial Behemoth [aka GE] has the perfect item for your post

to be complete like International Place there needs to be a companion tower made of Silicon Carbide

I ate GE's 'hottest' hot sauce and lived to tell about it
Gather around, children. Listen to Crave's Amanda Kooser share her tale of a night spent with 10^32 Kelvin, a hot sauce full of peppers whose names include words like "reaper" and "scorpion."

by Amanda Kooser
April 25, 2016 6:44 PM PDT

GE says 10^32 Kelvin is "the temperature at which physicists believe all matter starts to break down." It's also known as "absolute hot." Guinness gives the Carolina Reaper a 1.56 million Scoville rating, a method for describing the heat of chilies. Compare that to a jalapeño at between 2,500 and 5,000 on the Scoville scale....
GE packaged it in a silicon carbide tube topped with nickel alloy and an actual jet engine part. It can withstand temperatures up to 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit (1,315 Celsius). I'm wondering if GE's scientists can craft me some new intestines made out of those advanced materials so I can eat 10^32 Kelvin every night. I'm hooked..

https://www.cnet.com/news/i-ate-ges-hottest-hot-sauce-and-lived-to-tell-about-it/

 

[stick n move]

Re: South Station Tower

Threw together a quick render for u guys. I filled in the cladding on MT and cut in SST. The Winthrop tower is probably going to change to mitigate shadows but as we stand now this is what were looking at for the future. Looks nice and dense and also has a well positioned peak.

https://postimage.org/

 

[chrisbrat]

Re: South Station Tower

Threw together a quick render for u guys. I filled in the cladding on MT and cut in SST. The Winthrop tower is probably going to change to mitigate shadows but as we stand now this is what were looking at for the future. Looks nice and dense and also has a well positioned peak.

https://postimage.org/

thanks for putting that together, looks great.

i realize i'm not breaking new ground by saying this, but damn i wish we could get a few curves/points/peaks -- anything without a flat roof. 111 huntington gets a lot of grief and, sure, its crown doesn't play as nicely with its neighbors as those of the chrysler building or empire state or transamerica (or even the old john hancock tower), but i'm glad mumbles put his foot down and demanded some type of non-flat top to that building. i'd love it if walsh would take the same stance on a few of these upcoming projects. what's more mysterious to me is why the architects/developers, themselves, don't aspire to anything more distinctive than yet another up-ended shoebox of a building. it'd instantly make their new building stand out from the pack and also truly benefit the overall skyline. slanty roofs are well and good (MT etc.), but, really? that's the peak of "creative" highrise design in boston? i don't get it.

 

[stick n move]

Re: South Station Tower

I think its because they dont have enough room. They only have around 700 feet so they need to use a lot of that for office/condo space. If the height limit was taller they could get the square feet needed and then have some more room to throw a decoration on top. The govt center garage and hub on causeway will add some peaks but I agree its not enough. Maybe 1 bromfield can deliver something some day.

Real estate and construction costs in Boston are very expensive so they need to use as much of the height allotted for occupiable space. If the height limit was 1000ft they could get their return on investment with 750ft and then still have a couple hundred feet to throw a spire on top.

That being said there are ways to still make an intersting tower without having to throw a huge spire on it. Take the hudson yards towers. They essentially have the slanty roof that we like here but they made it almost into an obelisk. They look very good, I wouldnt mind one of these roofs

Ive actually rendered this before for the winthrop tower and thought it looked pretty good.

 

[chrisbrat]

Re: South Station Tower

completely anecdotal, but i was talking to a friend who recently visited from san diego and i asked her which of the skyscrapers in boston she actually remembers. aside from "the two tall ones by themselves" (JHT and the pru) she also recalled the custom house tower and "the one that looks like an H with venetian blinds." so -- essentially -- either notably tall and/or (relatively) solitary, or with a design that goes beyond a mere box. i understand that development, particularly in boston, is expensive, but it's not exactly cheap in NYC or SF and yet they manage more than two non-box towers every 80 years.

 

[stick n move]

Re: South Station Tower

Like I was saying I believe it has to do with height restrictions. NYC you can build up to the point where you get ROI then throw a spire on top. Here if you have a 700ft height limit thats damn near the height that you need to go to make money on the project, then theres no height left. You could build a 600 footer with a spire, but thats leaving 100ft on the table of occupiable space that in Boston you need to recoup. Thats why we get slanty roofs, you need a mechanical penthouse anyways, so they add a little pizzazz with the slant on a part of the building you had to build regardless. Thats why I think doing a hudson yards type of roof would work well here, because its still the mech pent house, but they found a way to make it look good and it doesnt add extra height.

 

[chrisbrat]

Re: South Station Tower

sure and it's a totally valid point (no pun intended), but the reason i singled out custom house and the fed is that it's clear that you *can* -- even with height restrictions and exorbitant development costs -- be more creative than just a box (or a box with a slanty roof). i mean, hell: united shoe machinery is nowhere near max height and is creative with its profile. exchange place doesnt have a pointy peak or anything, but it plays with what is, essentially, a box/rectangle shape in an interesting way. 60 state, as well. as much as one federal and one beacon are (rightly) despised as phenomenally unimaginative, heavy brown lumps of nothing, between the two i just referenced (60 state, exchange), the two from my previous post (customs, fed) as well as IP and even the preggers building, stuff that went up in past decades was -- on average -- more likely to be a little daring. these days we're getting a lot of stuff and it's happening fast, which is very exciting, but it's almost all glass boxes with nothing to distinguish. you can work with FAA and $$$ limitations in ways more adventurous that just a rectangle. i'm not advocating for a 900-foot sagrada familia, i'm just disappointed that in the midst of this awesome and exciting building boom, we're not getting anything more interesting than MT and avalon. if the pelli upskirt tower winds up happening, that'll be the exception -- and i really hope it does happen -- but until then it's a bit of a disappointment, aesthetically. mostly unrelated, but: please cap the roof on MT...

sorry to go off topic. to bring it back around -- please do something less dull with the profile of SST

 

[whighlander]

Re: South Station Tower

sure and it's a totally valid point (no pun intended), but the reason i singled out custom house and the fed is that it's clear that you *can* -- even with height restrictions and exorbitant development costs -- be more creative than just a box (or a box with a slanty roof). i mean, hell: united shoe machinery is nowhere near max height and is creative with its profile. exchange place doesnt have a pointy peak or anything, but it plays with what is, essentially, a box/rectangle shape in an interesting way. 60 state, as well. as much as one federal and one beacon are (rightly) despised as phenomenally unimaginative, heavy brown lumps of nothing, between the two i just referenced (60 state, exchange), the two from my previous post (customs, fed) as well as IP and even the preggers building, stuff that went up in past decades was -- on average -- more likely to be a little daring. these days we're getting a lot of stuff and it's happening fast, which is very exciting, but it's almost all glass boxes with nothing to distinguish. you can work with FAA and $$$ limitations in ways more adventurous that just a rectangle. i'm not advocating for a 900-foot sagrada familia, i'm just disappointed that in the midst of this awesome and exciting building boom, we're not getting anything more interesting than MT and avalon. if the pelli upskirt tower winds up happening, that'll be the exception -- and i really hope it does happen -- but until then it's a bit of a disappointment, aesthetically. mostly unrelated, but: please cap the roof on MT...

sorry to go off topic. to bring it back around -- please do something less dull with the profile of SST

ChrisBrat -- some good points but you blend together things from too many different eras

Think of the old FAA limit being 100 ft [Boston's limit except for Church steeples] -- so when the very valuable land of the Boston Fire was rapidly rebuilt in the 1870's and 1880's

We got a whole lot of 100 ft buildings along Washington St. No one thought of building taller until the Custom House project came along in the early 20th C. It was Federal which meant the architect could thumb his nose at the City Zoning. City Zoning adapted and a straight 155 ft limit was introduced followed by a setback bonus system

This unleashed the frenzy of building taller that occurred in the immediate post WWI period -- such as USM [26 stories], Federal Courthouse and Post Office [345 ft], Suffolk County Courthouse [330 ft] and of course New England Telephone on Franklin

Then nothing new until the weather Beacon Hancock challenged the Custom House in the immediate Post WWII period.

Later another entity with somewhat unusual rules to play by -- the Boston Federal Reserve created the washboard

 

[goldenretrievers]

Re: South Station Tower

needs more boston, less avery island...

 

[bayvillagebrahmin]

Re: South Station Tower

Remember that WSG still may change in architecture for shadow purposes slightly. #Hope

 

[chrisbrat]

Re: South Station Tower

ChrisBrat -- some good points but you blend together things from too many different eras

Think of the old FAA limit being 100 ft [Boston's limit except for Church steeples] -- so when the very valuable land of the Boston Fire was rapidly rebuilt in the 1870's and 1880's

We got a whole lot of 100 ft buildings along Washington St. No one thought of building taller until the Custom House project came along in the early 20th C. It was Federal which meant the architect could thumb his nose at the City Zoning. City Zoning adapted and a straight 155 ft limit was introduced followed by a setback bonus system

This unleashed the frenzy of building taller that occurred in the immediate post WWI period -- such as USM [26 stories], Federal Courthouse and Post Office [345 ft], Suffolk County Courthouse [330 ft] and of course New England Telephone on Franklin

Then nothing new until the weather Beacon Hancock challenged the Custom House in the immediate Post WWII period.

Later another entity with somewhat unusual rules to play by -- the Boston Federal Reserve created the washboard

all good points and i do (and did) realize all that, but that doesn't change the reality that we have a bunch of buildings that went up in the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s that -- while hardly "game changers" or jaw-on-the-floor innovative in design -- managed to not just be rectangles (or rectangles with somewhat slanted roofs). i'd take more 60 states or exchange places or IPs over all the non-descript glass boxes we're getting now in a heartbeat.

 

[tocoto]

Re: South Station Tower

It's interesting that when many of those buildings were built especially international place the contemporaries hated them too bad we can't find any of the globe stories about how IP is covered with paper doll Palladian windows

 

[JumboBuc]

Re: South Station Tower

I'd be very surprised if the renders we've seen resemble the final product. This is one project where I expect the BCDC to have a lot to say...

EDIT: My understanding is that be BCDC has approved some aspects of this project, but not the whole thing yet. I could be wrong on this, though...

 

[cjbski]

Re: South Station Tower

all good points and i do (and did) realize all that, but that doesn't change the reality that we have a bunch of buildings that went up in the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s that -- while hardly "game changers" or jaw-on-the-floor innovative in design -- managed to not just be rectangles (or rectangles with somewhat slanted roofs). i'd take more 60 states or exchange places or IPs over all the non-descript glass boxes we're getting now in a heartbeat.

Totally agree. Spot-on post.

 

[whighlander]

Re: South Station Tower

It's interesting that when many of those buildings were built especially international place the contemporaries hated them too bad we can't find any of the globe stories about how IP is covered with paper doll Palladian windows

Tocoto -- Robert Campbell -- on the IP windows

Phillip Johnson must have had an affair with a Palladian Window saleswoman

But the best comment

when the old Travellers Bldg was imploded for the two 125 High St. towers next to IP -- when the dust cleared and IP loomed into view -- someone shouted -- they Blew-up the wrong building!!

 

[Jahvon09]

Re: South Station Tower

With those few pics of hot sauce bottles, why don't we just call it the
Hot Sauce Tower? Hah!

 

[tobyjug]

Re: South Station Tower

Hillary Hand Bag Hot Sauce Tower?

 

[JeffDowntown]

Re: South Station Tower

Imagine if they did red architectural lighting at night, perhaps with a band of green near the top?