Academic Building @ Suffolk U | 20 Somerset Street | Beacon Hill

[Padre Mike]

Azimuth: Wow, thanks for the concise and detailed explanation!

 

[Downburst]

Moving on up. This evening.

 

[BosDevelop]

Love the light in that pic Downburst!

 

[Boston02124]

??

 

[Boston02124]

 

[BeeLine]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/15305311697/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/15491594252/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/15305242500/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/15491935955/

 

[found5dollar]

woah! optical illusion precast? interesting....

 

[RandomWalk]

Up close the panels look interesting. From a distance, the building looks like it's aping the nearby Sixties-era urban renewal crap.

 

[Boston02124]

 

[commuter guy]

I know it's not done yet, but holy crap this looks like it going to be absolutely hideous. Certainly a step backwards from the the old MDC building

 

[BPLange7]

No me gusta

 

[Galactic]

This building is actually the worst. Terrible height, location, and now facade.

 

[Boston02124]

agree^ when I came around the corner I was like, thats it????? I prefered the old MDC building,maybe the glass will help but the hieght suks!

 

[commuter guy]

Reminds me of the video game Qbert for those old enough to remember:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q*bert

 

[davem]

It reminds me of the panels they use to pretty up parking garages. Except... it's not a parking garage.

 

[Galactic]

It would look better if the panels were rotated at random to create a more chaotic look, but since they are all uniformly skewed in one direction it just looks terrible.

 

[datadyne007]

So, it appears the panels were the result of VE. The panels were originally planned to have a horizontal texture. Oh, NBBJ, what have you done?

See post #247 that I posted on 08-19-2013, 02:37 PM:

I just happened to stumble across these on NBBJ's website. I don't think these have been posted before... Dated as Dec 4, 2012.

 

[dirtywater]

Not every change is a result of VE. This looks like it might just be a bad design change, perhaps design review run amok.

 

[datadyne007]

Or they got a scaled material sample of one panel and just went with it and didn't really test it on the whole facade. It really appears to be a direct swap.

 

[itchy]

Guys, this building was pretty hideous from the first render. Don't think VE is to blame here - just the all-around awfulness of 99% of modernist architecture. "Boxes with weird synthetic materials" seems to be rallying cry.

This was always a weird, stitched-together, Frankenstein-esque pastiche of a building, and a massive step down from the (fairly nice-looking) MDC building. That's what we're seeing realized now, and whether the panels are a little nicer or worse doesn't move the needle.