Recent content by theSil

I'd explain my thinking by comparing this to the overhaul of Winthrop Square in recent years. Compare it in 2009 and in 2024, after it was redeveloped. To me, the previous iteration distinctly reads, "Northeastern American city, early 20th century built environment". The current iteration isn't...

Echoing what @FK4 pointed out, I think the selection of pavers is one of the biggest issues here. @Bananarama's photo feels like the two dimensional version of how today's architects "break up the facade" of a five-over-one. We have 6+ different surface treatments in a small area with no clear...

I really hope we're at the nadir of multifamily facades. It can't get much worse than this. For the point of illustration, here is what @cubalibre shared in November, with a 2 second AI brick facade slapped on. Imo, worlds better. Do it in precast brick! How much more expensive can it be?

Curious if anyone knowledgeable on construction knows this: Why do the hotel floors would look so different from the condo floors? Part of it is that the lower portion has blue panels in between the windows and the upper portion has the silver indentations running up the building. But the...

The Mega Lucas At least in the renderings, the congruent materials makes the facadectomy much less conspicuous, whereas the Lucas, while not terrible, kind of has a cyborg effect. Makes me wonder how the Lucas would've turned out with a stone or light brick facade.

Has there been reporting on how many total people have died from this cold snap in Boston? NYC is up to 17, which is pretty unbelievable. I was also surprised recently that when it's a "Cold Blue" in NYC, a lot of homeless outreach is foisted upon NYPD. I placed a call to 311 recently for a man...

Makes it feel very personal and lived-in. I'm sure these would be difficult to see for anyone able to recognize half of their kitchen dangling up there. Sad, but very well captured photos, @kz1000ps.

Also it inherently raises housing prices. For underground parking and parking structures, the cost to construct an individual parking space is in the tens of thousands of dollars. That translates to more expensive rents/asking prices.

This has inched along. I remember emailing the developers probably 4+ years ago asking them to consider preserving the facade of 10 Highgate – it's a handsome build that prominently marks the entrance of Allston when entering from Cambridge St. Hope that it remains, like the later renderings...

Wow these images had completely faded from memory, and yet that first photo immediately transported me back to my childhood, remembering the food court down the hall beneath the giant scoreboard. Thanks for digging up.

I'm in favor of its adaptive reuse, ideally with a plan that goes tall and reconnects the street grid in some way. Will we give this to a team talented enough to pull it off? I'm skeptical.

I'm generally anti design review, but facades as bad as the Hampton Inn's should be illegal.

Regrettably but predictably, this thing lost considerable height since 2012 (source). That said, the version being constructed looks like it will have a nicer materials palette and cleaner lines than previous iterations. One thing not super clear in these new renders is how this version will...

This document shared by the author of the bill, Councillor Burhan Azeem, is the clearest description of the final bill and its context that I've found: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1frmIjXVm-DXKKXu7D3xMA71kicVjXeDOGrzQeXydsWQ/edit?tab=t.0

If anyone wants to support expanding rail projects in Queens: The QueensLink project is eligible to be awarded a $400k grant from US DOT to study reactivating the Rockaway Beach Branch and sending the the M train through southeast Queens. The project needs to raise $100k in matching funds to...