BU Data Sciences Center | 665 Commonwealth Avenue | BU Central

kmp1284 said:
I wouldn't be opposed to 45 Worthington if it resurfaced but shitting on a vibrant and desirable neighborhood isn't the way to win followers for your crusade.
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You more than most of us have experienced better urban planning than this sleepy part of the Metro.... the aestetic is especially spectacular with the natural, (current) progression of the High Spine on Huntington... outward toward Longwood, JP & Brookline Village.

A tower right there will not be taking a crap on Mission Hill, but rather, will add to and edify its urbanity as a dense centerpiece with minimal impact. The key is building it with parking held to near zero, and at an extreme pricetag.

This 'taking a crap' narrative has been used too easily... The irony in your post is; the metaphor is fitting for the BU Science Bldg.... which at best is just the latest selfish whim from BU, eerily similar to the thinking of the Early '60s West End..... This building is far to anger-inducing, and polarizing to merit serious consideration for construction.

It's especially sad, when BU has the recources to command world class designs, and work toward the creation of an iconic neighborhood.

The construction of this morbid, gratuitous "thing" would be another nail in the coffin for BU--when it seemed they just might be turning a corner.
 
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Re: BU Data Sciences Center | 665 Commonwealth Avenue | Kenmore Square

FK4 said:
There's parts of Boston that don't have neighborhoods. Ever since the Germanic impulse to categorize everything, under the (false) assumption that all things can be equalized and organized into similar component bits, we've been going more and more hog wild in the West with defining every last little bit of everything... including neighborhoods. Hence, people going ballistic when you try to explain what "Chestnut Hill" is, since God forbid there is a geographic entity that actually dares to span three separate municipalities. I think it's probably even worse in New England, since we don't have unincorporated territory and everything actually is divided up into some town or city.

But the reality is that some places are neighborhoods, but in other areas, the intersection, square, or local institution dominates people's on-the-ground conception of where they actually are. Longwood Medical Area used to be Roxbury, but nobody would call it that now. Oddly enough, Allston as an entity has a pretty hazy history and only developed in anyone's mind as a place designation after a whimsical railroad station name. Even growing up, I always heard of "Allston-Brighton" and it wasn't until my teenage years when I spent time there that I developed a conception of Allston as a really separate place. It would be interesting to know what "Allston" meant before the rise of the college neighborhood - what did people think of when you said that name in 1945? The college neighborhood thing, plus the 1980s chamber of commerce "Allston Village" have markedly increased the presence of this place as an entity.

Anyway, 02135/02134/02115 "borders" or not, I think most people who live around here (I mean north Brookline and Allston proper, whatever that is) would say Allston ends somewhere around Packard's Corner. Plus, most people probably don't know a decent chunk of BU was part of Brookline and was only taken to establish a connection to Brighton... so it's hard to really, technically, call it Allston. They wouldn't call it Kenmore - Kenmore isn't really a neighborhood either, it's just Kenmore and the few streets around it. I suppose if you pinned them down, they might say BU is technically Allston, but would never call it that. It's just "BU". No neighborhood.
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FWIW when I was a student and people used to get stuff from universities by mail, something like a school profile booklet that was sent to my house said that BU was located in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, implying that Back Bay and Allston met around Kenmore Square...

What do the street signs say for the residential parking???
 
Re: BU Data Sciences Center | 665 Commonwealth Avenue | Kenmore Square

Rover said:
FWIW when I was a student and people used to get stuff from universities by mail, something like a school profile booklet that was sent to my house said that BU was located in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, implying that Back Bay and Allston met around Kenmore Square...

What do the street signs say for the residential parking???
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It has been a few years since I had my permit, however mine was specifically for Bay State Rd and I remember it did not apply to West Campus because that was an Allston permit.
 
The "the building mass references the scale of its context" slide is the stupidest thing I have ever seen.
 
The architects are in town today, presenting to BU's Board.
 
jass said:
The "the building mass references the scale of its context" slide is the stupidest thing I have ever seen.
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Agreed. It's a trope straight out of a sophomore year studio in architecture school. Look! I took the buildings next to mine, flipped them on their side and stacked them to make my building!
 
Upon looking at this a second time, this isn't too bad from close up. It still looks out of place from far out.
 
"The design prioritizes a human scaled,
walkable experience within the
ground floor and along Commonwealth
Avenue. "


um......no it doesn't?
 
datadyne007 said:
Agreed. It's a trope straight out of a sophomore year studio in architecture school. Look! I took the buildings next to mine, flipped them on their side and stacked them to make my building!
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They read too many Rem Koolhaas monographs.
 
It certainly is something new for the city.
 
DAVE said:
"The design prioritizes a human scaled,
walkable experience within the
ground floor and along Commonwealth
Avenue. "
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The hell it does.

Lets spike the distopian bullcrap to push a mistake.
 
DAVE said:
"The design prioritizes a human scaled,
walkable experience within the
ground floor and along Commonwealth
Avenue. "


um......no it doesn't?
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I’d argue it does. Take a closer look at the ground floor plans, which show active plazas on the west and south sides of the building, a pedestrian passageway on the east side, and a courtyard on the north side of the building. The parklet just north of the center on Granbury will also be upgraded to create a stronger connection.

 
Wonderful. Boston is long past due for an enema that clears out its suffocating design provincialism. This is that corrective.
 
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