Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

FK4 said:
Yeah, it's a 128 office park building. Pretty horrible. The one thing that's good is when you're right there it doesn't seem so bad because the waterfall is so prominent and there is a bar inside.
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The overall pedestrian experience out front is pretty decent, especially with that park and the pathway to the Zakim and into Boston/Charlestown. Walking from North Point park though, you realize what an atrocity this thing is as architecture. It's pure utilitarian square footage. I'm sure it's a wonderful place to work and stay inside of but man did they screw the pedestrian and North Point residents with this turd of a design. What a waste of a prime parcel.
 
FK4 said:
Yeah, it's a 128 office park building. Pretty horrible. The one thing that's good is when you're right there it doesn't seem so bad because the waterfall is so prominent and there is a bar inside.
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FK -- Nonsense!!!

There are only a few buildings on Rt-128 which are close to the height of the EF building -- the typical relatively New Gen Rt-128 building is 5 to 8 stories older ones closer to 2 to 3

More significantly you can essentially only access the vast majority of RT-128 office Parks from a car in a parking lot -- you can walk quite easily from either Science Park or North Station to EF or ride a bike
 
I seriously don't mean to sound like a jerk, but could one of the naysayers describe or provide an example of what would have been better, yet, more suitable here?
 
"Prime parcels" do not sit next to a highway ramp, railroad tracks, and a very large concrete mix plant.
 
stellarfun said:
"Prime parcels" do not sit next to a highway ramp, railroad tracks, and a very large concrete mix plant.
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"Prime parcels" do sit next to a beautifully manicured park, in one of the most booming business districts in the country, just a short stroll from a major regional transportation hub with access to multiple commuter rail and rapid transit lines, with waterfront views at the mouth of the Charles River.

See what I did there?
 
While I don't like this building as a great piece of architecture, that's true of 85% of what's being built today throughout the cities. There's only so much that can be done with modern architecture, short of the variegated surfaces that sometimes give me a headache, like optical illusions can. I agree that this spot is NOT as prominent as some think. While on 93 you don't even notice it, unless you're a passenger, any more than the incomprehensible billboard messages. In the park one's focus is on the first couple of stories and the waterfall. From a distance, the building blends into the general landscape background in an appropriate way. Save the fancy stuff for the Northpoint housing development, which could take a clue from the Trump apt. towers lined up on Manhattan's west side.
 
type001 said:
I seriously don't mean to sound like a jerk, but could one of the naysayers describe or provide an example of what would have been better, yet, more suitable here?
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Depends on who you ask.

Some people here would answer Champs-Élysées except denser.

Others would argue for Burj Khalifa but taller.
 
bigeman312 said:
"Prime parcels" do sit next to a beautifully manicured park, in one of the most booming business districts in the country, just a short stroll from a major regional transportation hub with access to multiple commuter rail and rapid transit lines, with waterfront views at the mouth of the Charles River.

See what I did there?
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And which sides face the the park, have a riverfront view, and which sides abut five lanes of a big sweeping highway ramp, the railroad tracks, and the concrete mix plant? Are we talking paying for aesthetics for skateboarders?
 
ok then I take back my last post, clearly others here know more about this parcel and have a more credible opinion on the matter.
 
Is it specifically the alternating color bands that folks find so objectionable? Because that is/was a popular motif for suburban office buildings?

I think the worst part of this building by far is the lame gimmick.

The glass here is spectacularly transparent. I'm no expert, but I think Millennium Tower is its only rival in that regard. After sundown you can practically read the white board in a conference room from I93.
 
aaaaaa said:
If only...

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What did it look like before the hurricane hit? ;)
 
It's worth pointing out that the committee did, in fact, vote to advance the proposal.

My favorite part, now that you've taken the woman literally begging on her knees (no explanation for why she doesn't like the proposal in the article, oddly):

“This is going to make millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars, and nobody has had a million put into community benefits. I don’t get it.”

Then you don't get capitalism, sir.
 
More IBM for Cambridge

accidentally found while searching for something on BBJ about Amazon

IBM quietly moves security division HQ from Waltham to Cambridge
Mar 4, 2015, 1:30pm EST

Stewart Woodward
Brendan Hannigan is general manager of IBM Security, based in Cambridge.

David Harris
Associate editor, Digital-
Boston Business Journal

Without much fanfare, International Business Machines Corp. has officially moved its security division's global headquarters from Waltham to Cambridge.
IBM (NYSE: IBM), which has two floors in a five-story office building on Rogers Street in East Cambridge dedicated to security, moved an undisclosed number of employees to Cambridge. The Cambridge office contains a mix of jobs that include executive leadership, marketing, strategy, product strategy and head of consulting, according to Brendan Hannigan, general manager of IBM Security.

"IBM has always had roots here, in this particular location, ever since it purchased Lotus," said Hannigan (IBM acquired Cambridge-based software firm Lotus for nearly $4 billion in 1995).

Hannigan said the main reason for the move was to find a location that was convenient to employees who had been working in Waltham and out of an office for Boston-based security software firm Trusteer, which IBM acquired a year and a half ago for close to $1 billion. Trusteer's technology focuses on advanced malware and fraud protection software.

"We wanted to get the Waltham team and the Trusteer team together," Hannigan said in an interview.
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Is there an incipient connection between Watson Health and IBM Security?

Inquiring Minds want to know?
 
I get the feeling that with IBM now being more idea based than product based, it makes more and more sense to be where the ideas are seen as originating.

They used to be big Blue, and everyone knew they were there. Now, they are marketing themselves different, and being more visible as a mover shaker rather than a backbone. Need to be more visible as a mover shaker.
 
SeamusMcFly said:
I get the feeling that with IBM now being more idea based than product based, it makes more and more sense to be where the ideas are seen as originating.

They used to be big Blue, and everyone knew they were there. Now, they are marketing themselves different, and being more visible as a mover shaker rather than a backbone. Need to be more visible as a mover shaker.
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Seamus -- you're onto something there to contemplate as it will dominate the next few decades

As I see it there is a major-league competition beginning to shape-up for the leadership of the Knowledge Economy

A number of companies and alliances originating from different starting points and sort of wandering for the past few years are now focusing toward the same still fuzzy target -- that so far still goes by a number of buzzwords connected with "Big Data" Clouds, Connected Devices, and the Internet of Things / Everything

The key relevance here is that -- like moths to an LED flame bulb they are inexorably drawn to the intersection of Main and Vasser in Cambridge

A lot of them are already either here [aka Kendall / MIT existing clusters], are already relatively near [Greater Boston], or will soon be so including:

  • IBM
  • MicroSoft
  • Google
  • Cisco
  • Apple
  • Oracle
  • Facebook
  • Amazon
  • HP
  • might be one or two more in the US
  • there are a handful of foreign players including Samsung, Nokia
 
IBM Security and Watson Health are not directly related. The space occupied by Security is full. Security moved into space that IBM has had going back to the Lotus acquisition. They sold the Lotus buildings and leased back a couple of floors several years ago. Watson Health will need to go somewhere new.
 
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