Back Bay Garage Tower | Dartmouth and Stuart | Back Bay

How any architect can pass this as a "good design" is just a reminder that architects live in an entirely different world from the rest of us. But holy moly is this an awful design. One landscraper isn't enough, let's stack six of them and have them offset just slightly.
 
Totally agree. Architects really do live in a parallel universe. The buildings they like I often scratch my head about and say "huh?!"
 
I very much like the addition of a Stuart St. entrance for the station. That's kind of a big improvement.
 
I'm not going to totally defend architects here but more of this design is based on the needs of the developer who is responding to changes in the economy. Architecture is a "nice to have" luxury these days.
 
It's convenient to blame architects but they're just under the employ of the developers. The developers are mostly concerned with getting the project built and making money on it. Those are the constraints they hand to the architects.

The developers usually have a pretty good read on what will and will not work in Boston which is a cultural problem. The cost of "missing" with a proposal is astronomical too because you basically have to go back to the drawing board and retry which can add years to a project.
 
meddlepal said:
The cost of "missing" with a proposal is astronomical too because you basically have to go back to the drawing board and retry which can add years to a project.
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1 Bromfield is a great example of this. The podium and street treatment were poor, and they should have assimilated the Payless building into the 700'+ proposal. However, instead of trying to make it work, the BPDA gave blanket criticisms such as "too tall." So even though it fit under the FAA guidelines, didn't cast shadows on the common, and was diagonally across from a 685', apparently it's the height that was the problem. It blows my mind that they are proposing a tower within 5 minutes of all 4 subway lines that is basically on par with the largest buildings being proposed in Somerville or at the Bayside Expo site.

There is too much inconsistency, particularly over height, and it leads to shorter, fatter wall-like buildings all across the city. This one is particularly egregious. Like 888 Huntington, it's another subtraction-by-addition scenario. It will completely block out the Hancock from many high profile angles, just like 888 Huntington completely blocked out the captivating view of the Pru and 111 Huntington from Boylston Street. If they set the tower back a bit, made it about 2/3 as thick but 50% taller, it would play nicely with the Hancock and better fit into the Back Bay. Instead for some reason the Back Bay has 3 fantastic towers, plus 111 and Old Hancock, then a 350-400' plateau of complete junk. It always struck me as ridiculous, but it's playing things safe to only propose at the same height as other nearby buildings. We see this all across the city, particularly in places where it isn't necessary. The North Station blob and Kendall blob are the worst offenders, but let's face it, we are Blob City, USA.
 
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HenryAlan said:
I very much like the addition of a Stuart St. entrance for the station. That's kind of a big improvement.
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There is one there now, but it is beyond bad, and closed on weekends. This is MAJOR improvement.
 
meddlepal said:
It's convenient to blame architects but they're just under the employ of the developers. The developers are mostly concerned with getting the project built and making money on it. Those are the constraints they hand to the architects.

The developers usually have a pretty good read on what will and will not work in Boston which is a cultural problem. The cost of "missing" with a proposal is astronomical too because you basically have to go back to the drawing board and retry which can add years to a project.
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I had the opportunity to review an array of materials and palette for a proposed building by a starchitect. I told him, since it wasn't my money, that I'd pick the most expensive set of materials, Italian marble and real bronze.. And I also suggested he do a rendering of the west façade at sunset, for that golden glow.

The most expensive design was rejected by a public review body as too monumental. The developer was willing to spend the money. I've also seen a public review body reject a residential reconstruction as looking too expensive compared to its neighbors. Too much display of wealth.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
I'm not going to totally defend architects here but more of this design is based on the needs of the developer who is responding to changes in the economy. Architecture is a "nice to have" luxury these days.
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Yup, client needs come first. And Boston Properties is taking a pretty big leap of faith with this in this tough economy and on a air-rights project, no less. Boston Properties generally puts up quality projects so I will give them the benefit of the doubt, but to be honest, yeah, the renders are not that great.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
I'm not going to totally defend architects here but more of this design is based on the needs of the developer who is responding to changes in the economy. Architecture is a "nice to have" luxury these days.
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Im confused, why does the developer need the awkward stacking effect?
 
stick n move said:
Im confused, why does the developer need the awkward stacking effect?
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Technically? They don't. They could propose a boring mid 80's ribbon rainbow box office land scraper if they wanted. The problem is they need various stakeholders to sign-off on their proposal including neighborhood groups and BPDA. You can only get away with so much garbage before your proposal becomes impossible to get through the approval process due to the collective "Bleeeeugh".

So you do some minimal "architecture". Add angles, rotate boxes slightly. Break up the boring wall. It's more or less the same but now it's visually "interesting".
 
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The improvement to the Back Bay station neighborhood is significant, and it definitely makes this much less of a "passing through" block.

From the user-experience: right now, you leave BBY station, walk past Dunks out the door to see... a grand view of blank-wall mall entrance, and a giant parking garage. Hard not to go up from this baseline.
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Vagabond said:
From the user-experience: right now, you leave BBY station, walk past Dunks out the door to see... a grand view of blank-wall mall entrance, and a giant parking garage. Hard not to go up from this baseline.
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Yeah, but you also see a dramatic view of the Hancock looming above everything. I would say that blocking such a classy building with a stack of blocks is both a visual and mental downgrade.

Again, I return to the lost vista of the Pru + 111 Huntington from across Boylston Street. The same viewing location now feels underwhelming, and the city actually feels smaller because of it. Knowing what I used to see, vs what I see now, is a huge disappointment.
 
Vagabond said:
View attachment 8152View attachment 8150

The improvement to the Back Bay station neighborhood is significant, and it definitely makes this much less of a "passing through" block.

From the user-experience: right now, you leave BBY station, walk past Dunks out the door to see... a grand view of blank-wall mall entrance, and a giant parking garage. Hard not to go up from this baseline.
View attachment 8153
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Agreed. It’s a step up. Not sure what else people want?
 
meddlepal said:
Technically? They don't. They could propose a boring mid 80's ribbon rainbow box office land scraper if they wanted. The problem is they need various stakeholders to sign-off on their proposal including neighborhood groups and BPDA. You can only get away with so much garbage before your proposal becomes impossible to get through the approval process due to the collective "Bleeeeugh".

So you do some minimal "architecture". Add angles, rotate boxes slightly. Break up the boring wall. It's more or less the same but now it's visually "interesting".
Click to expand...

Rotating the boxes slightly is simple from a design perspective, but structurally it makes this tower much more complex and expensive. For the money being spent they could have built something pretty nice. The sudbury is a perfect example of something simple yet stunning, more complexity doesnt = better design. This is a flashy turd. Theres no reason we couldnt have gotten something better than this, and theres no inherent reason they have to go with slightly rotated boxes.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
I'm not going to totally defend architects here but more of this design is based on the needs of the developer who is responding to changes in the economy. Architecture is a "nice to have" luxury these days.
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That would be true if the "stack of storage container" look didn't take so much extra effort and design to look so ugly. Ugly and plain is far cheaper.
 
Since this thread is active, you folks are the only people who might know... there is a loud continuous "horn" noise at the intersection of Stuart and Dartmouth; what is it and where is coming from!? I'll pay to have someone jack hammer whatever it is, and I'll approve of any project that kills it. I can hear it now😠 I apologize for the digression.
 
I really wish theyd design in a pass through to connect a possible future pike air rights greenway to the southeast corridor park.

This would create one continuous green bike/pedestrian corridor that travels from mass ave OL stop all the way to ink block... and could go even further connecting to the RK greenway. This would create a greenway from mass ave to north station. Why this vision has never been mentioned in any official documents as a future possibility blows my mind.
 
Does anyone out there have an inside knowledge as to what is going on with this project? My conjecture (and I may be very wrong) is at this time that the project has been indefinitely "mothballed" just like the nearby residential skyscraper/high rise tower that would have been built by the SIMON Company over the Copley Plaza Podium right across the street. Maybe COVID has impacted the start of the project, but from my occasional visits to the Central City of Boston (Back BAY more specifically), I have yet to see any indications of a forward progress on initiating the construction of the Back Bay Station redux. I realize that the South Station Tower development over South Station took an extremely long time to get going due to Air Rights concerns, and dealing with the nearby very large US Postal Service presence directly adjacent to the site, etc. etc. etc., but is is clear that the far larger South Station development is currently on a hurry-up-and-wait pace of construction and the main skyscraper entailing PHASE 1 of this development is "pumping steel" and seemingly getting getting taller each day. Still, despite the non Federal Government whiners at the Church in the adjacent Copley Square who managed to extort "anti-shade damage" money out of the developers of this BACK BAY STATION project (which of course was pure nonsense, but more importantly was finally (?) settled according to now archived newspaper articles concerning the subject), this somewhat smaller transit-related project apparently is in a suspended animation stall mode. Please also note that the directly adjacent RAFFLES Hotel Construction Project is well under way. So, what gives with this Back Bay Station Project? Please advise, anyone who has knowledge with regards to the Back Bay Station Project. Thanks.
 
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