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

This will be fine. It's updated 60s modernist expressionism. The panels can certainly be considered ornamental so it can't really be accused of sterility. The only flaw is it's too short.
 
Beeline, thanks as always for your pix.

That certainly is a mishmash of fenestration, trying to do too much in too small of a vertical plane and winds up being too cute by half.
 
Swing and a miss for NBBJ. Unfortunate for a great firm.
 
Those windows are all wrong, esp. the muntins...housing project glass cum mall walls.
 
I'm baffled. I keep thinking I might kind of like it, or might actually kind of hate it, but it just does not compute inside this little brain of mine.
 
Contextually, it's my least favorite new addition to Boston in the 8 years I've lived here.
 
I can't place it- something is just off about this one. Maybe if the materials were just a little bit nicer, or (especially) if it was in a different location- but as it stands, I agree with kz. Something here doesn't compute.

Also- that glass is terrible quality.
 
dshoost88 said:
Contextually, it's my least favorite new addition to Boston in the 8 years I've lived here.
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I have the same sentiment, but I'll raise you and say that contextually, it's my least favorite new addition to Boston in the 25 years I've lived here.
 
Those look like crappy Home Depot double hung windows slapped into the facade when the real glazing got lost in a snowbank.
 
In photos something's "off" I agree but when walking up the street the court house is on this buildings façade fits in properly. Although I do think it should have been 15-20 stories and the whole window scheme would have made more sense with a taller canvas. As it is I wish there was something different on the top. One floor of something to break it up
 
Its off because they decided to play Escher with the panels, and then threw darts for where the windows would go. Symmetry in conflict with randomness as an architectural statement.
 
RandomWalk said:
Those look like crappy Home Depot double hung windows slapped into the facade when the real glazing got lost in a snowbank.
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The real glazing is still on that yacht that got stuck. They were trying to kill two birds with one stone, but forgot to take the glass out. :'(
 
I can't even give points for trying something 'different'.

Can we fast forward 25 years when this gets town down or a new facade?
 
Bos77 said:
I can't even give points for trying something 'different'.

Can we fast forward 25 years when this gets town down or a new facade?
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Bos77 -- some time-traveling aliens enroute to Giza to drop off a pyramid stopped by and dropped off the loser in a children's building block competition

They were trying to teach us something -- we just can not yet ken what it might be -- after we achieve Warp speed for the first time -- we'll know ;)
 
This is an interesting example of how a building, or a facade can be a mixed metaphor. The fact that these panels seem to have a geometric pattern is a purely aesthetic and subjective choice and one can debate all day long about whether one "likes" or "dislikes" the look.

but ...

... the fact that the panels LOOK LIKE they have geometry but actually don't is another story to me. This makes me feel like someone is trying to trick me and there is a level of dishonesty that might express a less than positive reflection of the institutions values.

That is what architects should be paying attention to when it comes to choosing materials and such. Does this choice reflect the values of the end-user?

I do not know what happened in the process, but I hope that even if the client pushed the designers into this choice, that the design team did their best to urge them in other directions.

Regardless of everything above, ... the project is at least interesting and I think the school will be proud in the end.

cca
 
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cca said:
... the fact that the panels LOOK LIKE they have geometry but actually don't is another story to me.
cca
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I think that's a better articulation of my feeling towards this. I see Marcel Breuer if I squint my eyes enough. Then I open them to realize it's not.

I am curious about the interior for sure. Many times the box is not the sum of its parts.
 
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