Best New Development Nominations

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I'm in total agreement with Justin regarding the Mandarin.

FP3 is also a great project. Sensitive to its surrounding fabric, yet unmistakably contemporary. Hopefully this project is used as a model for future Fort Point development. And next time you hear a developer or architect whine about how it just isn't possible today to do good-looking brickwork anymore, just point them to this one.

Also worth mentioning IMO, for their dramatically beneficial transformative qualities are 1330 Boylston and 303 Third St. in Kendall.

1330 Boylston, following in the footsteps of Trilogy, continues the urbinization of that bleak, autocentric strip of the Fenway. Both Fenway buildings are a result of smart new zoning, which has come under frequent attack by the owners of the Redsox. This zoning should not be scaled back, nor should development of this stretch of Boylston be slowed. To surrender the future of this area to a single, self-interested business owner would be an utterly disgusting tragedy.

"Kendall Square" has become a term of derision, and rightfully so. But there seems to be some indications that people have become aware of Kendall's shortcomings and are finally at least making attempts to remedy them. 303 Third is one of those attempts and it's exactly what the area needs. Get lots of people living there and some of the other things will start to fall into place all by themselves.
 
Was there a street wall on that side of Boylston before?

No.

Wasn't it a rail yard? Maybe this is actually an act of street wall creation.

Yes. There were never buildings on the south side of Boylston before the Prudential Center was built. I think the only building on the entire Pru property before 1960 was Mechanics Hall on Huntington Ave.
 
FP3 is complete and occupied.

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FYI the lobby woodwork is re-milled old growth Doug Fir reclaimed from the original buildings. The lobby is also a gallery.

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What else besides the lobby is on the ground floor? Does the split-level configuration at sidewalk prevent other uses. How did they get by without a wheelchair ramp? Lift?
 
There is also a restaurant and bar by Barbara Lynch.
 
FP3 is complete and occupied.

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FP3 is easily the best project in Boston to open in the last year. It is bold, exciting and urban, and yet fits in very nicely with its context.

The Apple Store is decent aswell, although a glass cube in my opinion is less modern and less interesting than the massing and compositional interplay of FP3.

Battery Wharf is a very nice project and helps activate the waterfront, urbanistically it works very well by breaking the project into 4 smaller buildings with view corridors to the water and especially the slot with the view to the Bunker Hill monument. Not a vey adventurous design, but nice materials, well-built and great contextually.

Mandarin does a good job of rebuilding the street edge, but the massing is blocky and banal and the materials and detailing are insipid.
 
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