AvalonBay Tower (Jacob Wirth's) | 45 Stuart Street | Downtown

I wish all thse new apt towers were in the 30-40 story range they're all a bunch of stumps when view from the common and else where :/
 
mdd said:
What do you mean by "organic?"
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I'm not an architect, so please forgive me if I use such words without precision. I mean "as a whole form", as compared to a series of disjointed forms. For example, this building is a fine piece of camouflage for a bunch of boxes, rather than one finely formed shape.

I was looking at a model of Lutyen's design for Liverpool Cathedral the other day and thought "my, what a fine form". My emotional response to 45 Stuart is different, more of "my, what a fine disguise".

Not that I dislike the building at all. In fact, had lunch at Montien today and was struck by how it does not (yet) intrude on the 100 year old plus brick buildings around it. And the various skins on it are interesting.

But I'm not a fan of the architectural style of saddlebags, big butts, and various excrescences. I haven't liked it ever since Stern introduced it to us on Boylston Street in the 80's. I think this building is better than Stern's because it makes me smile!
 
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I am obsessed with this building, even with the 80's-ish office tower piece on it.
 
Of all the new buildings going for the we-look-like-multiple-buildings-but-are-really-one look this one pulls it off the best. As much as I like what is going up in the Fenway it is starting to feel a bit clownish with SO much variety. This nails it. It's simple and it doesn't try to be in your face about it; the proportions are just right and while the horizontal section might be stronger if it used a different color skin it certainly works well as it is. The Fenway stuff tries way too hard and I'm getting quite bored by it.
 
I like this one, but I think it's run the whole misaligned window thing into the ground.

Time to move on to something else.
 
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I am absolutely in love with this building. On a side note, I wonder if they could use the edges of the building to use lighting all the way up to the top and have an interestingly lit crown.
 
Even if the ground floor of this is the worst possible thing ever, you can basically see it's nothing more than a single storefront. Other than that this project has so beautifully maintained the fine-grained neighborhood fabric. Should be a model for similar high-rises.
 
aaaaaa said:
^Office tower living.
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Hahaha, now I see a generic office tower butted up against a modern take on 75 Rockefeller Plaza.

Not ugly, just...would I be wrong in saying it has a confusing styling for a residential building...or is there even a design vocabulary for that anymore?
 
DigitalSciGuy said:
Not ugly, just...would I be wrong in saying it has a confusing styling for a residential building...or is there even a design vocabulary for that anymore?
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I know I have beaten this into the ground, but I would rather have some high-quality confusion than a Kensington, Archstone, Grandmarc, Waterside Place, or much of the other garbage we have gotten recently.

Hopefully Nashua Street Residences' materials are on par with this! That's going to be a goofy building.
 
CSTH said:
Wave of the future ... how long until the first Financial district retrofits?
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Pittsburgh is actually doing this. Alot of the empty office towers downtown are being retrofitted into residential or hotel.
 
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