Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

Stellar - sort of confused as to how that article using Columbia's building doesn't prove that it's possible to build vertical labs vs. otherwise?

Key quote:

Vertical separation allows the mechanical systems for laboratories to be zoned separately from those for offices, with fewer air changes in the office areas. Locating offices and workstations in areas that are designed for laboratories greatly increases overall energy consumption and carbon emissions.
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Seems to support vertical labs.
 
czsz said:
Stellar - sort of confused as to how that article using Columbia's building doesn't prove that it's possible to build vertical labs vs. otherwise?

Key quote:

Seems to support vertical labs.
Click to expand...

A key take-away was the discussion of the numerous hoods that are used in labs these days. The more labs you have, the more individual hoods. Vertically stack labs and the upper floors of such buildings would become nothing but mechanical space and duct work snaking to the roof. The roof of the Northwest Corner Science Lab at Columbia, which is a low-rise ny NYC standards, is a small forest of hood exhaust stacks. There are eight labs in that building which have zero metal in them because of the acid fumes.

Also apparently, the desired floor to ceiling height in a lab is at least 15 feet. So the higher the building, the greater the amount of 'empty' or wasted space.
 
Does anyone know how many sq miles make up silicon valley. There seems to be a perception that places like the seaport are far from the center(Kendall Sq). I would bet that by silicon valley standards it's not.

When will Lynn be a high tech center? Came close a few years ago in the early internet days. If i'm right the is a huge anount of commercial space in Lynn. Cambridge is way over priced these days.
 
BostonObserver said:
Does anyone know how many sq miles make up silicon valley. There seems to be a perception that places like the seaport are far from the center(Kendall Sq). I would bet that by silicon valley standards it's not.

When will Lynn be a high tech center? Came close a few years ago in the early internet days. If i'm right the is a huge anount of commercial space in Lynn. Cambridge is way over priced these days.
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Depending on whether you're taking a concentrated or expanded picture of Silicon Valley, the land area ranges from 337 square miles to 574 square miles...so yea, from Kendall to the Seaport isn't far geographically...hopefully Boston can keep marketing the Seaport as the "Innovation District", but I think they need to do it in a smarter way. I know people here aren't thrilled with the strategy of giving tax-breaks, but I have no problem with it if it's done properly. From a residential standpoint, I think it would be good to give incentive to developers for building non-luxury residential units. I know they're trying to start something like that with the micro-units, but I think they need to do more.

I know my next thought will never happen, but shrinking down some of the blocks and creating more parcels for development could allow for smaller projects that could house start-ups, instead of these mega blocks which require large square foot leases.

Ultimately, if the Seaport is going to become a successful neighborhood, we need to allow it to grow into one organically. We need smaller developments aimed at smaller companies (and less affluent people) with smaller bottom-lines (and less disposable income). If the area can attract these companies and people, then the neighborhood will be able to grow with them and eventually become the tech/innovation district that the city desires. It's really not that complicated.

Instead, we're in the midst of plopping down a bunch of mega-block developments and so far the area is a soulless disaster. It'll probably continue to be this too since there's no way in hell Mumbles will do anything to change the situation.
 
BostonObserver said:
Does anyone know how many sq miles make up silicon valley. There seems to be a perception that places like the seaport are far from the center(Kendall Sq). I would bet that by silicon valley standards it's not.

When will Lynn be a high tech center? Came close a few years ago in the early internet days. If i'm right the is a huge anount of commercial space in Lynn. Cambridge is way over priced these days.
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The distance from South San Francisco (near the airport) to San Jose is 40+ miles, and a bit of the Valley extends south of San Jose to Los Gatos and Campbell, and east to the East Bay.

All of Santa Clara county is considered to be in the Silicon Valley and it is about 1300 sq miles which is more than the state of RI.
 
^ Pretty sure no one considers Gilroy, say, to be Silicon Valley, not to mention the foothills from which the physical Valley is created in the first place...
 
blade_bltz said:
^ Pretty sure no one considers Gilroy, say, to be Silicon Valley, not to mention the foothills from which the physical Valley is created in the first place...
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Garlic-loving geeks live in Gilroy.

The 'Valley' loosely defined stretches along urbanized areas from San Francisco County through San Mateo County to Santa Clara County, with tendrils eastward to several communities in Alameda County (e.g., Emeryville), and southwestward to several communities in Santa Cruz County.

Getting back to why hood exhaust constrains going vertical in lab buildings; the mechanicals on the roof top to suck air up from 250 feet below become oversized and more expensive to operate. So the design question becomes, 'Why bother?' It's not as if Kendall is the last plot of land on the planet where these research buildings can go.
 
stellarfun said:
If you want Volpe to move, who is to pay for the cost of its new building: The city of Cambridge? A developer who wants the land that Volpe currently sits on? the American taxpayer? Goody Clancy?

As for 30 story buildings housing laboratories or tech space, I don't know that buildings of this height for such purposes exist anywhere. And I suspect there are very good design and construction reasons for why that is. Besides, if clients wanted such buildings, that's what would have been built. Instead.......

Eat your heart out Cambridge. This is Google's new space in Los Angeles, housing about the same number of people it has in Cambridge.

binoculars.jpg


Apple goes horizontal rather than vertical.
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Stel -- that's LA -- they also have a large doughnut mounted on the top of a tall pole that rotates as you drive by on the freeway

Let's put it in perspective -- LA would give blood by the bucket from the mayor on down to have Kendall Sq's occupants
 
tmac9wr said:
Depending on whether you're taking a concentrated or expanded picture of Silicon Valley, the land area ranges from 337 square miles to 574 square miles...so yea, from Kendall to the Seaport isn't far geographically...hopefully Boston can keep marketing the Seaport as the "Innovation District", but I think they need to do it in a smarter way. I know people here aren't thrilled with the strategy of giving tax-breaks, but I have no problem with it if it's done properly. From a residential standpoint, I think it would be good to give incentive to developers for building non-luxury residential units. I know they're trying to start something like that with the micro-units, but I think they need to do more.

I know my next thought will never happen, but shrinking down some of the blocks and creating more parcels for development could allow for smaller projects that could house start-ups, instead of these mega blocks which require large square foot leases.

Ultimately, if the Seaport is going to become a successful neighborhood, we need to allow it to grow into one organically. We need smaller developments aimed at smaller companies (and less affluent people) with smaller bottom-lines (and less disposable income). If the area can attract these companies and people, then the neighborhood will be able to grow with them and eventually become the tech/innovation district that the city desires. It's really not that complicated.

Instead, we're in the midst of plopping down a bunch of mega-block developments and so far the area is a soulless disaster. It'll probably continue to be this too since there's no way in hell Mumbles will do anything to change the situation.
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Tmac -- small companies go into old wharf buildings, older office parks or cheap conversions by smaller developers seizing the opportunity.

Only the big companies, fluff-ball start-ups which are more marketing hype than substance (a West Coast Specialty) or the newly public ones, have the money for the big, high profile signature buildings. Thus Novartis hires Maya Lin while Vertex just sprawls along through 8 or 9 smaller old industrial buildings until it hits the jackpot.

One of the reasons why there are nearly 200 start-ups near to MIT is the availability of the old industrial buildings in Cambridge with a few million sq ft of cheap and flexible space -- tear them down and you'll lose the real start-ups. Luckily for us all there is still a ring of the old, semi-slummy Kendall buffering the residential parts of East Cambridge and Cambridge near Central -- so the growth can still continue for another decade or so.

similarly, the SPID has promise to grow with a few high profile companies in the new buildings and still there is plenty of room in the old Wharf buildings for many many start-ups to grow and develop.
 
czsz said:
Stellar - sort of confused as to how that article using Columbia's building doesn't prove that it's possible to build vertical labs vs. otherwise?

Key quote:



Seems to support vertical labs.
Click to expand...

CZ -- Koch Integrated Cancer Center, Broad Institute expansion, Novartis, Biogen's new lab, the MIT Pfizer on Main, the Skansa, -- these are the absolute state of the art in bio-lab building design -- no one is scrimping on any of those

Look at the top of a recent MIT building on or near Vassar St. -- the whole roof is chimneys -- vents from fume hoods. Because of ventilation constraints, lab buildings taller than about 6 to 8 stories would waste so much structural volume on air handling that it becomes financially questionable unless there just is no land for a footprint. That's probably one of the reason's that Vertex's new complex in the SPID is split into two buildings with lab, office, conference rooms in each -- not lab in one and office in the other
 
Globe also has an article today (behind its subscription wall) on poor wireless service in Kendall. Problem is not distance from the signal tower or tall buildings blocking the signal, but too much demand: too many geeks using too many mobile devices. Result: dropped calls, interrupted emails. missed calls, etc. Carriers decline to comment on problems, reflects poorly on their service reputation. The 'cloud' is only good if you can access it whenever you want.
 
the new apartment tower near genzyme--(watermark 2?)-- is going up. Cranes been there for about a week and got 1 floor+ of steel already. I think it will rise fast as they arent digging anything out for a garage. just ripped up the surface a little and going up quickly from there.
 
Same problems with cell service in downtown Boston. Lots of dropped calls and absurdly slow data connection.
 
cden4 said:
Same problems with cell service in downtown Boston. Lots of dropped calls and absurdly slow data connection.
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cd -- that's the nature of radio at the frequencies of interest (around 1 GHz). At the frequencies used for cell phones, the wavelengths are short and the radio signals do a lot of bouncing off of things, while traveling in straight lines. The result is that there can be multiple paths between the transmitter and the receiver in some places the waves add positively and in some places the waves cancel resulting in an abundance of dead zones where the call can be lost. The challenge for the provider in cities is to have lots of very small scale cells, so that a moving vehicle will rapidly move through the dead zones. Of course for people on foot or sitting on a bench, if you are in a dead zone you will stay there until you move around. The other problem at these borderline microwave frequencies is that the waves don't do a very good job penetrating walls. So an AM radio might work fine inside a building (frequencies are hundreds of times less so the wavelengths are hundreds of times greater) but your cell phone or WiFi might not work at all or be degraded. However, the shorter wavelengths will penetrate windows quite effectively so the big glass boxes are practically transparent.
 
I'd be amazed if it gets build.
The lab building, on the other hand is much more likely...
 
NIMBYs are whining about the height and loss of green space already...
 
NIIMBY in the comments:

At what point is Hugh Russell or the City Council or whoever is spouting the official line going to have to expand the park universe to the entire neighborhood or even the entire city so as to continue to minimize the amount of park space we’re losing to more and more and more towers?
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What universe is this person living in where so many parks are being torn up for towers in Cambridge?
 
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