Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

I don't believe this ever had its own thread, but Harvard's now-completed reconstruction of Holyoke Center in Harvard Square gets a big thumbs up from Robert Campbell.

The old Holyoke Center was full of ingenious and thoughtful architectural ideas. But few people loved it. Seen from outside, it was a hulking 10-story box of gray concrete. Inside, you navigated a rather noir pedestrian street, a so-called arcade lined with shops that never seemed to thrive.

The simplest way to describe the new interior is to say that Harvard has set off a spatial explosion that has blown every element high and wide. The former arcade is doubled in height and now opens in every direction to other spaces that sometimes open to further spaces beyond them, as if we were in an infinite setting by Borges.

....style of the old Holyoke Center is Brutalism. Josep Lluis Sert was dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design from 1953 to 1969. Besides Holyoke, he designed Harvard’s Science Center and Peabody Terrace, a residential complex.

...The principal architect for the Smith center was Andrew Barnett of the British firm Hopkins Architects, working in tandem with the Cambridge firm Bruner/Cott Architects. The latter has become something of a specialist in the tricky art of maintaining the concrete in Boston’s Brutalist-era buildings.
Click to expand...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/ar...open-public/NhHmtj7zO6y8wcJkDJJObI/story.html
 
Smith Center redo got it right. It's open, welcoming and has a nice roof deck too along with a much improved front patio. Will be a great indoor space in the winter. Now they need to do the same to the main lobby of the rather gruesome Science Center (the patchwork renovations done so far, though nice, don't go far enough to get rid of the gloom.)
 
Smith center is ... fantastic in every way. They paid for what they got and they got a lot.

cca
 
Cambridge City Council will consider new zoning rules allowing developers to receive increased density in exchange for affordable units:

http://www.cambridgeday.com/2018/09...es-bigger-towers-imagined-for-overlay-zoning/

My favorite part:

“Our tree canopy right now, it’s actually declining … and part of the reason is that we’re trading trees for buildings,” Zondervan said. “If we’re purely looking for the miracle goal of more housing, there are more sites to develop. There are one-story buildings on Massachusetts Avenue that could be 20-story buildings and we could numerically add tons of housing without decimating our tree canopy.”
Click to expand...

Preach.
 
Wasn't really sure where to put this (Mods please feel free to move it):

Bloomberg has a really nice feature article on the real estate revolution of Kendall square / the growth of Cambridge as a major global biotech hub:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...birthed-a-biotech-boom-and-real-estate-empire

...Cambridge now competes with midtown Manhattan as the priciest commercial real estate market in the country. Average office rents in the third quarter were $82.23 a square foot, according to commercial real-estate firm CBRE Group Inc., just a hair behind $82.51 a square foot in midtown. East Cambridge, where Kendall Square sits, is more expensive than its New York counterpart on average, CBRE said, and laboratory space in Cambridge rented at an average of $85.10 a square foot in the quarter.

At 3.6 percent, Cambridge has the lowest vacancy rate of the major downtown markets in CBRE’s report, compared with a national average of 10.5 percent....
Click to expand...
 
No pictures but the Target in Porter square looks days away from opening up. They have finished refurbishing the plaza in front of it and have taken down the construction paper from the windows. All the shelves are stocked now too.

On a side note, the PotBelly Sandwich shop next door and Bruegger's Bagels across the street closed down a couple of weeks ago.
 
Blackdog said:
No pictures but the Target in Porter square looks days away from opening up. They have finished refurbishing the plaza in front of it and have taken down the construction paper from the windows. All the shelves are stocked now too.

On a side note, the PotBelly Sandwich shop next door and Bruegger's Bagels across the street closed down a couple of weeks ago.
Click to expand...

I'm surprised that Potbelly lasted as long as it did. I lived over by there five years ago when it opened and I hardly ever saw anybody in there. I guess it finally caught up with them.
 
mdd said:
I'm surprised that Potbelly lasted as long as it did. I lived over by there five years ago when it opened and I hardly ever saw anybody in there. I guess it finally caught up with them.
Click to expand...

Agreed. And between Bagelsaurus, and Davis Square Bagels and Doughnuts within walking distance, I'm surprised Bruegger's is still there - not only is the quality crap (bagels and sandwiches at all three places are comparable in price but DSB+D and Bagelsaurus are better in every metric), but the service is crap too. Speed (Bagelsaurus especially has lines and sells out - DSB+D is usually pretty quick) is the only thing they have going for them.
 
mdd said:
I'm surprised that Potbelly lasted as long as it did. I lived over by there five years ago when it opened and I hardly ever saw anybody in there. I guess it finally caught up with them.
Click to expand...

Agreed, went in there a couple of times for a quick sandwich but it was always underwhelming and no one was in there. Hopefully something good replaces it.
 
Blackdog said:
Agreed, went in there a couple of times for a quick sandwich but it was always underwhelming and no one was in there. Hopefully something good replaces it.
Click to expand...

I assumed that Target be taking over that space.

Lrfox said:
Agreed. And between Bagelsaurus, and Davis Square Bagels and Doughnuts within walking distance, I'm surprised Bruegger's is still there - not only is the quality crap (bagels and sandwiches at all three places are comparable in price but DSB+D and Bagelsaurus are better in every metric), but the service is crap too. Speed (Bagelsaurus especially has lines and sells out - DSB+D is usually pretty quick) is the only thing they have going for them.
Click to expand...

I love Bagelsaurus, but a breakfast sandwich and coffee there can easily run you $12 (or more). Brueggers was definitely separated on price.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top