121 Seaport Boulevard | Parcel L2 | Seaport Square

[atlantaden]

Trust me, I love the color of the PWC building but I also really like 121's color as well, reminds me of the Lever Building green.

 

[JumboBuc]

I'll wait until the interiors are fitted out and window shades are hung before judging the glass color and horizontal banding.

The first good window washing after construction is complete always makes a difference too.

 

[shmessy]

I dislike the glass as well. Does anyone actually like this more than then the render?

Can't tell yet. The only glass I see up so far from the real life pics is less than 50% of the building and in patches/sides. The render has some nice differential lighting from inside (particularly the upper floors and the ground level).

The render was finished. This is still yet to finish.

 

[Czervik.Construction]

At least it is not another rubix cube box of a building with crummy cladding.

 

[FK4]

If the glass color stayed the same, then the complaint would have been...it's the same color as the PWC building, wtf!

Yeah, this seems premature. Come on... let's see what it looks like when finished and then you've gotta stand there in the midst of everything and decide.

 

[stick n move]

Mark me down in the this looks good and is only going to get better column.

 

[DZH22]

The shape and cladding reminds me a lot of the Phoenix Building in Hartford, which I'm a big fan of.

Reflections by CTfoto2013, on Flickr

Phoenix Insurance building by Brenda Holloway, on Flickr

Phoenix Building by John Hart, on Flickr


These pics are a bit redundant, from this weekend.

IMG_6556 by David Z, on Flickr

IMG_6557 by David Z, on Flickr

IMG_6558 by David Z, on Flickr

IMG_6559 by David Z, on Flickr

 

[Brad Plaid]

The Phoenix Mutual was an instant classic when built more than a half century ago and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, rightly so. A timeless beauty...Constitution Plaza itself though is still the poster child for anti-urban, street-killing disasters. 121 will turn out just fine.

 

[datadyne007]

The green-hued glass looks much better in sunlight than it does on a gloomy day.

 

[cca]

Just to be clear. That is not "green" glass. It is just glass. Clear glass with no tinting at all has a green hue because of the iron content. If you want clear, or low iron glass, you will pay a pretty penny.

Ok ... so ... lets move on.

cca

 

[atlantaden]

Just to be clear Clear glass with no tinting at all has a green hue because of the iron content.

cca

That clear glass with a green hue is sure looking like green glass to me.

 

[Suffolk 83]

Just to be clear. That is not "green" glass. It is just glass. Clear glass with no tinting at all has a green hue because of the iron content. If you want clear, or low iron glass, you will pay a pretty penny.

Ok ... so ... lets move on.

cca

Thanks for this.... its like saying the ocean isnt really blue because its actually all the other colors and blue is the color thats reflected back to your eye. Semantics. Its green glass (shit) for our purposes

 

[datadyne007]

Skanska, CBT Architects Save $6M With First-In-New England Collaboration Method
Project team uses BIM 360 Project IQ software on Boston's only elliptical tower

Collaboration between CBT Architects and Skanska USA accelerated construction of an elliptical building that distinguishes itself in Boston’s booming Seaport District.

As part of Autodesk’s annual AEC Media Summit, Skanska hosted a panel discussion and site visit to the 121 Seaport building on May 4. Approximately 65% complete, the 17-floor, 400,000 sq-ft building that sits on a 50,000-sq-ft retail base is Boston's only elliptical tower, according to Skanska. Targeting LEED Platinum certification, the project is expected to be completed next spring. The combination of building in a Federal Aviation Administration flight zone and over a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority transit tunnel marks a first for Skanska.

In collaborative design planning, the geotechnical and foundation engineers worked closely with the building structural engineers to produce an overall design that would deliver the project as quickly as possible, while greatly limiting lateral forces to the adjacent MBTA Silver Line tunnel and another nearby Skanska building called 101 Seaport Boulevard, says Paul Pedini, vice president of operations for Skanska.

The elliptical steel frame and virtually column-free floor plates on the 121 Seaport project are designed to provide flexible workspace. Henry Celli of CBT, says the ellipse allowed for more floor area with less façade and reduced solar heat gain. Its aerodynamic shape reduces wind loads and increases structural efficiency while the soft curvature of the building provides panoramic views of downtown Boston and the Seaport.

The project team employed an unconventional technique called up-down construction. Distinct from top-down construction, where foundation elements are installed first, up-down construction requires the project’s steel and concrete contractors to build the building’s foundation and frame simultaneously. In up-down construction “the building superstructure is progressed upward at the same time the excavation is proceeding downward,” Pedini explains.

This approach is helping the project stay on schedule, which Pedini says is critical since Skanska has self-financed, developed and built the building surrounded by several new office buildings that future tenants might decide to occupy if they open first. “We had to come up with an idea that would achieve speed to come out of ground faster than people [other construction projects] across the street,” Pedini says.

To minimize schedule and cost on the job, the team used a Autodesk Civil3D model to perform analytical functions. Data provided by the model was used to plan the excavation of each below ground parking level and to manage transport and delivery of the excavated material offsite, Pedini says. That Civil3D model was then combined with CBT’s Autodesk Revit model of the superstructure to create a constructability review of the entire job.

By modeling the entire building in Civil 3D software, the structural team could show their options to the design team with actual models. This first-in-the-region use of the method allowed the team to work quickly and save $6 million in the process, Pedini says.

“I tied the model to the schedule to get an animation of building in structural conformance with the model,” Pedini says before adding, “By using this method, you can tell the client exactly where you will be [in construction] on any date … There are so many uses for the model once you build it.”

Al Gogolin, senior vice president of Skanska, said BIM 360 software allowed them to implement “instantaneous communication” between project managers in the field and BIM managers back at the office.

Then, by taking Autodesk BIM 360 dashboard and aggregating data—in what Autodesk calls BIM 360 Project IQ—“we now can create a risk management procedure using predictive analytics,” Gogolin says. “This is the next step in the journey.”

Skanska is beta testing BIM 360 Project IQ on the project, says Sarah Hodges, director of the construction business line at Autodesk. She says the product is one of the first applications of machine learning in construction and adds that the pilot program recently was expanded to Autodesk’s enterprise customers. "[It] will be made commercially available this year,” Hodges says.

http://www.enr.com/articles/41961-s...ith-first-in-new-england-collaboration-method

 

[xec]

 

[found5dollar]

woah. this is the first pic in a while that actually shows the seaport as a urban whole. Variation in form, variation in style, and buildings next to other buildings. This looks like an area where a community actually may have a chance at developing....

 

[cjbski]

woah. this is the first pic in a while that actually shows the seaport as a urban whole. Variation in form, variation in style, and buildings next to other buildings. This looks like an area where a community actually may have a chance at developing....

Agreed...once they get the grass/tree median going it'll feel less like a concrete jungle, too.

 

[odurandina]

The white sidewalks seems kind of a bad look.

Can we get something nicer?

 

[estyle]

These are great, thanks for posting. The green glass is a nice change in this area.

Personally, I almost never like a light spandrel. They just read so strongly--if that is the design aesthetic, okay, but I think in general the designers are using spandrel to hide things and it ends up actually being more prominent because of the light color.

The comments about shades are good--those may help with that reading.

 

[bigpicture7]

I actually think that the tall lobby/atrium is going to be an important part of the appearance of this. If they go with the nice, crisp, black framing as shown in the render Justin posted, this is really going to break up the monotony of the front face:

Right now we see none of this in the present state of construction (from xec)...hold on before judging, folks:

 

[stick n move]

I actually think that the tall lobby/atrium is going to be an important part of the appearance of this. If they go with the nice, crisp, black framing as shown in the render Justin posted, this is really going to break up the monotony of the front face:

Thats a shadow.