🔷 Open Thread

[kz1000ps]

Jass, you better get used to it: http://archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=4903&page=2

 

[datadyne007]

I just had to share this building. I'm in love inside and out!! Neo-brutalism done right!

Innovation Center UC

Architects: Alejandro Aravena | ELEMENTAL
Location: Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile
Project Team: Alejandro Aravena, Juan Cerda
Collaborators: Samuel Gonçalves, Cristián Irarrázaval, Álvaro Ascoz, Natalie Ramirez, Christian Lavista, Suyin Chia, Pedro Hoffmann
Area: 8176.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Nico Saieh, ELEMENTAL | Nina Vidic

The reversal of the typical office space floor plan (replacing the opaque core with transparent curtain wall glass perimeter by an open core with the mass strategically opened in the perimeter) responded not only to functional reasons but to the environmental performance and character of the building as well.

This building had to respond to the client’s expectation of having an innovation center with a “contemporary look”, but the uncritical search for contemporariness has populated Santiago with glass towers that due to the desert climatic local condition have serious greenhouse effect in interiors. Such towers spend a huge amount of energy in air conditioning. The way to avoid undesired heat gains is not rocket science; it is enough to place the mass of the building on the perimeter, have recessed glasses to prevent direct sun radiation and allow for cross ventilation. By doing so we went from 120 kW/m2/year (the consumption of a typical glass tower in Santiago) to 45kW/m2/year. Such an opaque facade was not only energetically efficient but also helped to dim the extremely strong light that normally forces to protect interior working spaces with curtains and blinds transforming in fact, the theoretical initial transparency into a mere rhetoric. In that sense the response to the context was nothing but the rigorous use of common sense."

http://www.archdaily.com/549152/innovation-center-uc-anacleto-angelini-alejandro-aravena-elemental/

 

[Matthew]

Done right...? In that it kills the surrounding urban context, so it's tower-in-the-park by design?

 

[Arlington]

I just had to share this building. I'm in love inside and out!! Neo-brutalism done right!

It is about as right as brutalism can be, I suppose, and I admire these things like I admire the prettiest dog of a breed I don't like.

Why can't it be as playful and engaging and humane on the outside as it is on the inside? The elevator doors (the central vertical band in the indoor photo) look great, but why can't the outside have touches like that?

 

[FK4]

nothing wrong with cold monumentalism here and there... not everything has to be like newbury st at ground level

the christian science center does this sort of monumentalism and succeeds sublimely

 

[The EGE]

Anyone see Interstellar? That building looks like the robot.

 

[citylover94]

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/02/americas-infrastructure-crisis-is-really-a-maintenance-crisis/385452/

This is a citylab article about the state of infrastructure repair and maintenance in the USA and I thought it was relevant to post with the conversations on maintenance that have been occurring on hear lately.

 

[davem]

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/02/americas-infrastructure-crisis-is-really-a-maintenance-crisis/385452/

This is a citylab article about the state of infrastructure repair and maintenance in the USA and I thought it was relevant to post with the conversations on maintenance that have been occurring on hear lately.

They must have written that before all of our storms, I was really surprised the spectacular failure of our transit system didn't get a mention.

 

[citylover94]

It was published on Feb, 12 of this year so two days ago... I'm guessing they didn't mention Boston because it mostly focused on roads not rail transit.

 

[Waldorf]

They must have written that before all of our storms, I was really surprised the spectacular failure of our transit system didn't get a mention.

CityLab rarely mentions Boston in any of its articles. When they do it's often anecdotally. They seem to focus on the hip cities du jour: New York, LA, SF, Austin, DC.

 

[JohnAKeith]

The BRA has its own Twitter feed as most of you probably know. They posted this image last week. Fun little chart showing tallest buildings in Boston. It leaves out One Dalton, though, which is under construction so should appear, plus it doesn't include approved (like Copley Tower) or proposed (like Trans National, Chiofaro, etc.)

https://twitter.com/BostonRedevelop/status/568836261911396353

 

[tobyjug]

Looks like the lunch crowd at the "all you can eat" buffet.

 

[JohnAKeith]

So, does a map like this help? It has the tallest 48 or so buildings in Boston, either built, under construction, approved, or proposed, including year completed, use, height, storeys, and address. Should the design be different, with more pin colors or descriptions appearing without having to click on the pins; stuff like that?

If you see any errors, please feel free to let me know. I took the data from Wikipedia, which seems to have taken almost all of its information from Emporis.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zJFeDVrr0ZCU.kgyh5ICS4Qwc

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: BCEC expansion

How the fuck do these morons become elected. Lets expand the BCEC but not stabilize the transit grid in Boston.

Not sure what type of Power the governor has but he needs to HALT all taxpaying projects at this point:

The only focus Baker should have now is MBTA and cutting other state costs.
Baker truly has his hands tied-- Start forcing Massport and other Govt agencies to sell off property to private developers to generate some money:

I would also consider taxing these non-profit colleges their real estate holdings to start paying their fair share to help with the MBTA transit (Especially when presidents or professors are banking in big salaries) That's not Non-profit-

 

[George_Apley]

Re: BCEC expansion

How the fuck do these morons become elected. Lets expand the BCEC but not stabilize the transit grid in Boston.

Not sure what type of Power the governor has but he needs to HALT all taxpaying projects at this point:

The only focus Baker should have now is MBTA and cutting other state costs.
Baker truly has his hands tied-- Start forcing Massport and other Govt agencies to sell off property to private developers to generate some money:

I would also consider taxing these non-profit colleges their real estate holdings to start paying their fair share to help with the MBTA transit (Especially when presidents or professors are banking in big salaries) That's not Non-profit-

Governing is more complicated than "SHUT IT DOWN SO I CAN FIX IT"...

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: BCEC expansion

Governing is more complicated than "SHUT IT DOWN SO I CAN FIX IT"...

So basically the state will continue to spend money that should be diverted in a more cautious and responsible manner.

 

[whighlander]

Re: BCEC expansion

....

The only focus Baker should have now is MBTA and cutting other state costs.
Baker truly has his hands tied-- Start forcing Massport and other Govt agencies to sell off property to private developers to generate some money:

I would also consider taxing these non-profit colleges their real estate holdings to start paying their fair share to help with the MBTA transit (Especially when presidents or professors are banking in big salaries) That's not Non-profit-

Riff -- before you order more pumps for the bilges -- make sure that there's a bottom to the hull

The T as presently constituted can consume all of the money that can be taxed and then-some
As soon as T Service has returned to early Jan levels sometime in April:

• The first thing that needs to be done is to receive and review the Top Level Assessment from which we hope to find out how much is being wasted and on what
  
• Then the Second thing is to fire anyone who is fireable [i.e. essentially all of Devall's appointees and their cronies on down to the civil service / Union protected employees] who have had anything to do with creating or perpetuating the current mess
  
• then as Winston said after the victory at El Alamein in the still bleak November of 1942
  
  http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/EndoBegn.htmlp
  

  November 10, 1942
  Churchill could finally tell the House of Commons that
  "we have a new experience. We have victory - a remarkable and definite victory.
  
  ....Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning...."

• Then just as in the case of WWII while there will still be many more battles -- we just might by the end of Baker's 1st term get the T for which the Taxpayers thought that they have been paying for these many years

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: BCEC expansion

Whigh---

Couldn't agree more. I believe every Govt and state agency should be audited and investigated at this point:

Looking at some of these Govt Agencies:
DEA--Not sure how much funding they get but seriously we have lost the war on drugs- Better off spending that money on educating kids about drugs.
SEC: Absolutely a useless agency
IRS: We should change the entire tax system into a simplistic scenario.
NSA: Do you really need an agency spying on the American people
TSA Do you really believe this agency will stop a highly advanced military group from taking over a plane

Need real change in State, Fed Govt's

 

[buju b]

Re: BCEC expansion

Whigh/Rif,
Here, here!
Let us not forget other bloated, largely unnecessary government organizations like the Depts of Transportation and Labor, or the BATFE.
Government has gotten waaaay larger (espeically at the federal level) than it was ever intended to be and needs to be cut back accordingly.
Many aspects of state and local levels of government are likewise out of control . . .
Presently managing a construction project in NJ and the process of getting a basic TCO for the office area renovations at the facility whilst we duke it out with a jaded local sewer authority for a discharge permit is difficult to the point of being absurd.
Absent a profit motive, any organization (in particular, a regulatory body) backfills that modus operandi vacuum with activities to, in their mind, justify and perpetuate their existence.
It is downright shameful that fewer than handful of people charged, theoretically, with looking out for well-being of their neighbors, can stop dead in it's tracks, a respectable business from bringing HUNDREDS of private sector jobs to an area that has been starving for them for years . . . And over a nothing but capricous and arbitrary bullshit.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: BCEC expansion

Whigh---

Couldn't agree more. I believe every Govt and state agency should be audited and investigated at this point:

Looking at some of these Govt Agencies:
DEA--Not sure how much funding they get but seriously we have lost the war on drugs- Better off spending that money on educating kids about drugs.
SEC: Absolutely a useless agency
IRS: We should change the entire tax system into a simplistic scenario.
NSA: Do you really need an agency spying on the American people
TSA Do you really believe this agency will stop a highly advanced military group from taking over a plane

Need real change in State, Fed Govt's

You wouldn't know how to read an audit report if your life depended on it. But never too late to start learning. Here you go, from the SEC.

http://www.sec.gov/about/secpar/secafr2013.pdf#financial