Broad Institute Expansion | 75 Ames Street | Cambridge - Kendall Sq

Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

davem said:
Either way, it butchers the relationship between the two halves. Instead of two beautiful facade types interacting with each other in a logical way, you detract from both by having one pockmark the other in addition to the traditional relationship.
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I'm sorry, you said something about beautiful facades? Where are they? I'm thinking you must have been intending to post in a different thread. Not that it particularly matters, since skin is not architecture, but the outside of this thing is dreadful. Someone complained about being annoyed by the opaque panels of curtain wall not aligning, which was subsequently rectified, in an earlier post; there is a lot I am annoyed by when I look at this thing. The materials, the misaligned spandrel glass between punched openings and curtain wall sections, the horrible flatness of it all, the fact that they spent all this time creating this undulating mechanical screen and can't even properly detail its junction with the curtain-walled tower, and that, as usual, it looks like a mash-up of several buildings. It's clumsy, and it's the usual Elkus garbage.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

resisttheist said:
I'm sorry, you said something about beautiful facades? Where are they? I'm thinking you must have been intending to post in a different thread. Not that it particularly matters, since skin is not architecture, but the outside of this thing is dreadful. Someone complained about being annoyed by the opaque panels of curtain wall not aligning, which was subsequently rectified, in an earlier post; there is a lot I am annoyed by when I look at this thing. The materials, the misaligned spandrel glass between punched openings and curtain wall sections, the horrible flatness of it all, the fact that they spent all this time creating this undulating mechanical screen and can't even properly detail its junction with the curtain-walled tower, and that, as usual, it looks like a mash-up of several buildings. It's clumsy, and it's the usual Elkus garbage.
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I want to argue with the above post, but I can't. I want to defend the design, but I cant. I want to defend the designers, but ... alas, they own this thing from the ground up. Its a shame, but it really is the physical expression between the relationship between money, developer, and designer. You get what you pay for, and it shows the amount of thoughtfulness given, or not given. I wish this kind of building where the exception ... but it is not.

cca
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

Have to agree with the above 2 posts. The positive is that it creates a good streetwall and has the height and square footage that should be more of a norm in Kendall. But as designed it's morbidly obese. I'm sure the space could have been shaped and distributed differently to lessen the bulk somewhat and the outside could certainly have been designed less generically but Elkus has thrown up just another of their mediocre containers.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

The floorplates are that large for a reason. This is a top-tier lab building. The MEP (mostly HVAC) takes up so much floor space on every floor, it's not even funny. Labs need large square floorplates. Let's not also forget that this building is built in front of and then on top of the CC West Garage and is actually half the size of the building you see on the skyline until you get past the 6th floor.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

I think this building actually symbolizes Kendall pretty well. There are tons of large lab buildings in this area in the 6-10 story range with completely crazy, nonsensical mishmashes of designs. They are much more visible (and noticeably large) from street level, especially with their huge floor plates, but otherwise are mostly hidden by Kendall's mass. This is just the largest and proudest of the beasts.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

DZH22 said:
I think this building actually symbolizes Kendall pretty well. There are tons of large lab buildings in this area in the 6-10 story range with completely crazy, nonsensical mishmashes of designs. They are much more visible (and noticeably large) from street level, especially with their huge floor plates, but otherwise are mostly hidden by Kendall's mass. This is just the largest and proudest of the beasts.
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Sure, sure, but every new building is a opportunity to start to counter act that. A designer who is worth their salt can make laboratories that are urban, human, and address design at multiple scales. Colleges and universities do this pretty well. Why not this one? Because the developer felt they only needed to build a building up to the standards of the context, even though the context is dreadful. I like the comment that it is just a container. That is a good way of saying that it is a weak wave at architecture, and a lost opportunity to set a precedent for how one SHOULD address this kind of building in this kind of context.

cca
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

The whole freaking ground floor is retail. The "lobby," if you can even call it that, is a little hallway that leads to the elevators. That's it. I don't know how much more urban you can get.

The Broad gave Elkus a ridiculously complex program to put into a new tower, including a self-sustained vivarium with its own MEP floor/systems. Intricate massing was not appropriate here for this building. It only would have reduced usable space/the program. The hallways are at absolute minimum allowed width to allow for the proper lab and lab support office sizes.

cca, when a client comes to you and says I need x square feet of program space, do you say "I'm sorry I can't provide this for you because I need to articulate the massing and doing so would require me to build above the economical limit of 15 stories for lab buildings thus costing you much more money."
 
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Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

datadyne007 said:
cca, when a client comes to you and says I need x square feet of program space, do you say "I'm sorry I can't provide this for you because I need to articulate the massing and doing so would require me to build above the economical limit of 15 stories for lab buildings thus costing you much more money."
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My clients don't come to me with that attitude because they see that my work does everything it can to balance ALL issues that face a building in all if its contexts including program, budget, physical context, sustainability, and expression.

Somewhere either the client, city, or designer has acted irresponsibly buy putting too much priority on one of those criteria over the others. I would say the same about a Frank Gehry building in that it puts too much priority on the architects personal expression.

All I am saying is that this effort is out of ballance.

cca

Ps. Good design does not have to cost more. It just takes being smarter on the design side.

Pps. Also ...what I know is that because it is a wet lab building with a vivarium, the percentage of cost of the building and its systems and the exterior cladding is 1% cladding, 99% everything else. Good exterior design would not have cost the developer almost anything against their pro-forma.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

Would you mind showing me some examples of successful lab buildings that you feel are architecturally worthy? I'm curious.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

I will answer you in PM, no need to derail this thread any longer.

cca
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

cca said:
I will answer you in PM, no need to derail this thread any longer.

cca
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I want to see too! Start a tread in General Arch?
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

Lol, that was exactly what I told cca and that it would not be a derailment in the slightest sense compared to the trajectory some of the other threads on here have followed recently.


I do have to say, you guys probably won't like one of the examples he gave.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

datadyne007 said:
The floorplates are that large for a reason. This is a top-tier lab building. The MEP (mostly HVAC) takes up so much floor space on every floor, it's not even funny. Labs need large square floorplates. Let's not also forget that this building is built in front of and then on top of the CC West Garage and is actually half the size of the building you see on the skyline until you get past the 6th floor.
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In general the HVAC on each floor should be able to be contained in the core (a bit bigger core maybe, but not so much that the floor plate needs to be ridiculously huge.) The equipment that takes up a lot of space is in the gigantic mechanical levels and interstitial floor that I believe this building also has.

Being a lab is not an excuse to be fat, the amount of programming squeezed into the available space, with the height limit is to blame.

I have worked on some very complex labs that do not have huge floor plates is the point I guess.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

SeamusMcFly said:
In general the HVAC on each floor should be able to be contained in the core (a bit bigger core maybe, but not so much that the floor plate needs to be ridiculously huge.) The equipment that takes up a lot of space is in the gigantic mechanical levels and interstitial floor that I believe this building also has.

Being a lab is not an excuse to be fat, the amount of programming squeezed into the available space, with the height limit is to blame.

I have worked on some very complex labs that do not have huge floor plates is the point I guess.
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Remember that since the lower levels are in front of the parking garage, the giant core takes up most of the floor space on those lower levels and reduces the available square footage.

The height limit is not actually because of zoning, it's because when labs go higher than 15 stories, they just aren't economical anymore.

How tall were those labs you worked on? What was the program square footage?
 
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Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

This is no top-tier lab building; it may be a top-tier-lab building. Who knows, perhaps this will actually be a fantastic space for scientific research and will provide its scientists with the best of amenities, functional, social, psychological, etc. However, judgment of this measurement of success is not within the scope of discussions on this board. I don't think any of us here are really able to make those kinds of judgments anyway, not being scientists and all.

Instead, we are talking about this thing from the outside, which is what a majority of the threads here do. Fine, from that perspective, this thing merely takes up a lot of space in an urban milieu I happen to inhabit from time to time and its presence does not add anything in terms of delight to being there. Streetwall? Great, what can I do with it? Saying that the entire ground floor is retail does not count either. I can enjoy this building's benefits if I want to go buy something? This has nothing to do with architecture or urbanity.

It is fine in fact that this building might just be a reflection of the very atmosphere or character of the Kendall Square neighborhood but, as others have said, that should not be an excuse to not somehow challenge those expectations.

I think cca could not be more correct in suggesting that architecture needs to balance all the issues surrounding the design of a building and this one simply doesn't. Elkus got a ridiculously complex program? Broad should have gone with a firm capable of working with that then.

I will also add to the requests that cca share the mentioned examples of successful lab buildings. This is what having conversations about architecture is about. Even if it is in a general thread, it would actually be a worthwhile conversation; there's only so many times we can go around talking about the results of this one.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

resisttheist said:
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Streetwall? Great, what can I do with it? Saying that the entire ground floor is retail does not count either. I can enjoy this building's benefits if I want to go buy something? This has nothing to do with architecture or urbanity.
...
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wut?

Streetwall and public access have everything to do with architecture and urbanity.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

datadyne007 said:
Remember that since the lower levels are in front of the parking garage, the giant core takes up most of the floor space on those lower levels and reduces the available square footage.

The height limit is not actually because of zoning, it's because when labs go higher than 15 stories, they just aren't economical anymore.

How tall were those labs you worked on? What was the program square footage?
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Point one is only related to this building. I was just making a blanket statement that being a lab doesn't mean you need to be fat.

In this case I was pretty sure the height is driven by the location, and they needed to get a variance just for the height it is, but correct me on that one if I'm wrong.

I mentioned this in another thread and understand that ducts get bigger as the building gets higher, but as seen at Vertex the opposite approach is taken. Put the labs on top, and the offices below. But, the suits wouldn't like that, even though it's the lab grunts who are making them rich.

I have worked on labs of varying heights. 610 Main street (Pfizer) is a pretty decent height to width ratio for around here, that's 6 floors of lab above the ground floor. I did Broad part one at 7 CC. Working on another now that is about 250k sf, and will be s floors plus mechanical levels (but, that one is pretty fat and limited by zoning again.)

You might be right on that 15 storeys thing, but 15 storeys of labs is well over 200 feet plus mechanicals that would push it close to 300 feet. That's a big frikken lab building. The only one of that height that I could think of, is the CLS. Which is a pretty decent building to look at overall.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

resisttheist said:
I think cca could not be more correct in suggesting that architecture needs to balance all the issues surrounding the design of a building and this one simply doesn't. Elkus got a ridiculously complex program? Broad should have gone with a firm capable of working with that then.

.
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Be that as it may. They liked the work Elkus did enough on the first building to work with them again on the second one. I do think if Elkus is the architect on some of these, they should hire or consult a lab planner, but that doesn't change the building we see from the outside.
 
Re: 75 Ames St. (Broad Institute Expansion) Kendall Sq.

fattony said:
wut?

Streetwall and public access have everything to do with architecture and urbanity.
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Sure, the streetwall is necessary for shaping the urban space of a street, but what exactly is so successful about this particular street to begin with? This building doesn't do anything to improve this as a place to be. As for the second part, I happen to disagree with Rem Koolhaas' assertion that the trappings of capitalism are the only real remaining social and civic provisions. That's what ground floor retail equates to: shopping. That, in my mind, is not architecture. There are plenty of options for public amenity that don't require one to go shopping.

If the work carried out within results in thousands of cures for dreadful diseases, then the building will have done its good. Unfortunately, it is not going to give back in any other areas.
 
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