Cambridge Crossing (NorthPoint) | East Cambridge/Charlestown | Cambridge/Boston

Some views from the new Sanofi building

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Hope the remaining buildings won't all be glass boxes like these. Looks like an office park made of ice cubes.
 
xec said:
Hope the remaining buildings won't all be glass boxes like these. Looks like an office park made of ice cubes.
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I agree. Also. the uniform sawed-off height really brings down (no pun intended) the look of the complex. It would have been nice as well to have some common architectural themes across the buildings, instead of a bunch of individualistic quirky oddballs, reminding me of the intergalactic bar in the first Star Wars movie with a motley collection of odd alien creatures. Maybe over time, age and weathering might actually make all this incongruous mess look a bit easier on the eyes.
 
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Charlie_mta said:
It looks pretty good in that render, a lot less glassy and flashy looking. Some more pronounced height and shape variability would have helped. Instead of all the buildings being just a horizontal rectangle, the addition of several taller towers in the mix would have livened it up.
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I agree, it looks really dense in that render, guess Cambridge needed the tax dollars and probably the best place to put it.
 
Charlie_mta said:
It looks pretty good in that render, a lot less glassy and flashy looking. Some more pronounced height and shape variability would have helped. Instead of all the buildings being just a horizontal rectangle, the addition of several taller towers in the mix would have livened it up.
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As I have noted many times in this thread, DivCo gave up on height when (after several attempts to break the triple shelf barrier restriction with the City of Cambridge) their requests were denied. TBH, I think a lot of folks in the City's management thought they could punt the site decision years down the road since it was unlikely that DivCo would be able to construct more than one or two leased structures in a few years. After seven completions, four deliveries, one apartment building nearing completion, and another lab about to receive its floor mat and cranes, man, did the City get that wrong...

Regardless of height, these buildings are repopulating steadily, with increased Philips traffic, lines at Lamplighter and Tatte sometimes out the doors on weekdays, and a pending Sanofi delivery within days. The park is much improved from when I moved here, and *most* residents are quite happy with the densification (only, perhaps, craving a city TJ's that often pops up in our surveys).

And, inasmuch as we *might* have had something to do with it, a group of us did complain to DivCo about some of the early building plans as derivative. Those structures (W, G, & H) have improved. They're not beacons of architectural splendor, but some have some appealing characteristics noticeable from street level.
 
ivyhedge said:
As I have noted many times in this thread, DivCo gave up on height when (after several attempts to break the triple shelf barrier restriction with the City of Cambridge) their requests were denied. TBH, I think a lot of folks in the City's management thought they could punt the site decision years down the road since it was unlikely that DivCo would be able to construct more than one or two leased structures in a few years. After seven completions, four deliveries, one apartment building nearing completion, and another lab about to receive its floor mat and cranes, man, did the City get that wrong...

Regardless of height, these buildings are repopulating steadily, with increased Philips traffic, lines at Lamplighter and Tatte sometimes out the doors on weekdays, and a pending Sanofi delivery within days. The park is much improved from when I moved here, and *most* residents are quite happy with the densification (only, perhaps, craving a city TJ's that often pops up in our surveys).

And, inasmuch as we *might* have had something to do with it, a group of us did complain to DivCo about some of the early building plans as derivative. Those structures (W, G, & H) have improved. They're not beacons of architectural splendor, but some have some appealing characteristics noticeable from street level.
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Sanofi started this day last week. Not sure of the numbers there but definitely in the hundreds.
 
I hope they put a flatiron shaped building on the old leachmere station plot.
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I wonder if they will consider these two parcels as an extension of cambridge crossing or as east cambridge. This would probably determine whether they try to build medium rise or low rise buildings. It would be cool to see what a modern flatiron could look like, plus they need the space.
 
Doesnt boston sand n gravel have some sweetheart deal in perpetuity on the land there due to the state taking some land for the big dig project?
 
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