Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

There's a lot of site work going on 2 sites across Binney from each other.
So I'm thinking construction has started on these:

50 Binney St. - some renderings are here: http://www.tocci.com/2010/09/50-binney-street/

270 Third St. - could not find any renderings, only description:
85', 8 floor residential/ground floor retail
 
Very much looking forward to 50 Binney! Is this currently the most substantial building Cambridge is working on outside of Northpoint?
 
50 Binney looks beautiful, especially given its heft. I look forward to watching it rise.

I double checked the location of this- its seems the building will stand out from the Boston side of the Charles pretty well, too. Exciting!
 
50 Binney Street Renderings (Mirrored)

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The curvy end of this is fun but the rest is standard issue institutional box, average as can be. What would a firm like Morphosis have done here? Something intriguing to be sure.
 
Brad Plaid said:
The curvy end of this is fun but the rest is standard issue institutional box, average as can be. What would a firm like Morphosis have done here? Something intriguing to be sure.
Click to expand...

I like that the heavy vertical lines break up the block without resorting to the multi-facade mashup game. It is simple, but effective. I'll agree the curvy end is "fun", but it borders on gimmicky, IMO. It doesn't interact with the rest of the building or the site or anything. Its curvy stuff for the sake of curves. Thanks for shaking things up, but next time try harder.
 
Why in gods name would Thom Mayne touch a project like this? It is not his environment and would not be able to be "Thom Mayne" given the project type, client, and building environment (not in the meteorological sense).

cca
 
^Not that he ever would do this but the point is he'd be thinking a lot more out of the box than most local architects, who despite knowing of great buildings happening all over the world, continuously default again and again to this kind of provincial banality. I suspect this is an Elkus project and they are prime offenders. This only adds to Boston's rep of timid, milquetoast architecture.
 
fattony said:
I like that the heavy vertical lines break up the block without resorting to the multi-facade mashup game. It is simple, but effective. I'll agree the curvy end is "fun", but it borders on gimmicky, IMO. It doesn't interact with the rest of the building or the site or anything. Its curvy stuff for the sake of curves. Thanks for shaking things up, but next time try harder.
Click to expand...

I'd prefer the curves be what the rest of the building responds to, not the other way around. Maybe the contextualism pendulum has gone too far and needs to back up some. A bit of blobitecture here declaring independence from what's around it would be a refreshing change of non-conformity.

Would also love to see that newish, awful Mormon church across the street go away. It's a poster child for everything wrong with cheap looking historicism.
 
The mirrored ceilings and random neon lights are gone! CambridgeSide's food court is finally leaving the 80s! Food court is in the process of being remodeled. The mall still remains 80s chic as of now.

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