297 Medford Street | Somerville

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stick n move

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Developer releases designs for affordable housing apartments at 297 Medford​

Most units in the seven-story building in Somerville are geared toward families.

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“Nine months after the Somerville Community Land Trust (SCLT) and local developer Just A Start (JAS) acquired the land at 297 Medford Street, the team has released the initial images of its design schemes for an 100% affordable housing apartment building.

Of the 50 units planned for this seven-story building, 10 are expected to be three-bedroom units, 23 will be two-bedrooms, and the remaining 17 will be one-bedrooms.

A design for a garage door was moved to Medford Street to prevent friction between bikes, cars and pedestrians.

Extensive bike parking was included in the basement, in addition to 10 spaces in a ground floor garage for cars.

A commercial space has been designed for the first floor after neighboring residents who spoke at recent meetings expressed a desire for some kind of retail business on that lot….”

www.cambridgeday.com

Developer releases designs for affordable housing apartments at 297 Medford

Most units in the seven-story building in Somerville are geared toward families.
www.cambridgeday.com www.cambridgeday.com

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Scheme 1 appears to be the clear winner imho. Nothing amazing, but in context and intent that's not to be expected. It'll be nice enough to look at and the city needs more housing asap, so: win. I also welcome some more retail in that area. Hopefully it'll be something worth patronizing -- not another half-assed, poorly stocked "mart," anyway (there are too many within blocks of this spot already).
 
Something about the floor plates expressed every other floor on scheme 1 bothers me. I can’t quite figure out why.

Pushed to choose, I would probably prefer the expressed bays with the colors from scheme 1.
 
RandomWalk said:
Something about the floor plates expressed every other floor on scheme 1 bothers me. I can’t quite figure out why.

Pushed to choose, I would probably prefer the expressed bays with the colors from scheme 1.
Click to expand...
IMO, it plays better with its neighbor with the additional horizontal expression.

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I think part of it is that Just A Start is (likely) not going to use high end materials. That will make a difference.

I like the spandrel panels, but the horizontals ruin the flow. A better approach would be something like the Gryzmish building at Northeastern on the corner of Forsyth and Huntington. That would let the spandrels sing.
 
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