Two Congress | Bulfinch Crossing East Parcel | West End

I like their design study better but one thing that the Central Plaza can teach us is that concave forms are MUCH better at defining space then convex forms. I don't get why you'd put a convex façade facing the park.

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A lab needs large floor plates to amortize the air handling and utilities. Splitting the mass wouldn’t work.
 
I like their design study better but one thing that the Central Plaza can teach us is that concave forms are MUCH better at defining space then convex forms. I don't get why you'd put a convex façade facing the park.

That's a great observation, but I'd rather enclose Congress Street than the Greenway. This building can't do much to define a space as wide as the Greenway.
 
They also make the mistake of providing their initial design study. Should have stuck with this one, folks:
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Seriously, do they not have eyeballs? This version is a billion times better than that jumbled disaster theyre proposing now. Hopefully the normal VE circle of life brings it back. I REALLY hope so, we dont need a mega turd front and center on the skyline and greenway.
 
Not a big fan and I think it's too tall for the location. I'd much rather they added 100' to office tower and removed 50 here.
 
That's a great observation, but I'd rather enclose Congress Street than the Greenway. This building can't do much to define a space as wide as the Greenway.

I am all for enclosing Congress and while this cant do much for defining the Greenway the concave, or a well textured/stepped back option, would be a lot less hostile.
 
The pile drilling rig working in the midst of the demolition has some strong Penn Station demolition vibes, with the key difference that Penn Station was a worthy piece of the urban fabric.
 
Are they actually tearing down this hog in its entirety, or just removing the upper office floors added on after original construction?
 
BCDC: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/0rttlslydav9hob6h7vioehdtd3b9fhu

There's a lot of walkthrough renderings in the link. The MBTA seems to prefer stand-alone headhouses to integrated ones, and I'm not sure why - it seems like it would be better to let a developer or landlord handle maintenance of the shelter and potentially even elevator and escalator repairs under contract.

Also, those pergola-style shelters over the bus station will be useless. Build real shelters or no shelters, but don't lie to us.

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I might be a bit slow, but it's interesting to note that the image above shows that a car lane of Fitzgerald will be dropped as part of this project, if the image above is correct.

I wonder why the bike lane will be on the traffic side of the trees, rather than separated from the traffic by the trees.
 
I might be a bit slow, but it's interesting to note that the image above shows that a car lane of Fitzgerald will be dropped as part of this project, if the image above is correct.

I wonder why the bike lane will be on the traffic side of the trees, rather than separated from the traffic by the trees.

They mention in the slides that the trees may end up being a sidewalk rather than trees.
 
They mention in the slides that the trees may end up being a sidewalk rather than trees.

Didn't even occur to me that such a pedestrian path was missing. Such is the pitfall of viewing things from bird's eye view... and not walking through that area recently.

That being the case, I'm definitely of the opinion that a sidewalk should be there. As a pedestrian, the bus area always feels pretty unwelcoming.
 
The subway head house is almost invisible in these renderings and has no orange/green signage in accordance with T design standards. I can only assume that is an oversight of detail and the T will chime in at some point to provide guidance.
 

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