Charles Place | Harvard Square | Cambridge

Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

How are they going to hide the hideous vents from the substation?
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

vanshnookenraggen said:
I'm torn. The current building is steeped in character and helps Harvard Sq be what it is. On the other hand the new building would allow for more retail and more feet on the ground (hotel? apartments?) It doesn't look bad and it isn't like the current building is a landmark.
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+1 Maybe change the color of the building.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

stellarfun said:
Harvard becoming a tenant may reflect Harvard's move out of the Holyoke Center (now re-named the Smith Campus Center) so it can be renovated and re-purposed.

Smith Campus Center construction starts in 2016,
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/11/architect-donor-named-for-holyoke-campus-center/
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Very much the case. There are regular discussions in Smith Campus Center on relocation of a number of large teams who occupy whole wings/floors, and whose work requires close proximity to Harvard Yard (Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, e.g.). Just as the Harvard Inn is to be used for flex space for students displaced from renovating River Houses, there will be a need for flex spaces in the coming years as Smith Campus Center gets renovated.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

Groundbreaking yesterday. Also mentions future use of the Conductor's building.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/2/27/construction-governor-auburn-development/

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/2/19/65-million-redevelopment-project/

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0218114mtauburn.jpg
 
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Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

this building was mostly torn down this morning was on the bus couldnt get a pic fast enough!
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

I can't figure out how the trolleybuses coming out of the tunnel at Mount Auburn are able to reverse to go back into the tunnel. This project seems to have (permanently?) removed the overhead wire's turnaround loop.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

It's definitely crazy with the turnaround out of service and all the trackless trolley replacement service.

The MBTA is currently replacing the route 72 trackless trolleys with diesel buses on account of the turnaround being temporarily removed and sewer work along Huron Ave. The other bus routes are using University Road to get back on Mt. Auburn and eventually to the tunnel. The route 73 trackless trolleys have also been replaced with diesel buses due to road construction in Belmont.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

Will the turnaround come back? It looks to me like the road that contained the turnaround has been removed and built upon.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

Ron Newman said:
Will the turnaround come back? It looks to me like the road that contained the turnaround has been removed and built upon.
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It's coming back, I think they are just using it for staging, and likely some heavy utility work. The skinny MBTA building is being reused as well, IIRC.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

^ That descriptor seems to be all that can get built in Cambridge in the last 25 years or so.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

it's contextual and human scaled. it will be one of those new developments that 2 years after completion feels like it has always been there.

That's not a bad thing.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

choo said:
it's contextual and human scaled. it will be one of those new developments that 2 years after completion feels like it has always been there.

That's not a bad thing.
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+1.

I fully agree. From the render, it looks like a good filler type building within the scale and style of that area. It definitely has a nice curve at the corner, uses some different colors and is not a boxy monolith. Further, the render shows good pedestrian attraction - - definitely showing retail/restaurant and not a fortress that hollers "go away'. Proof will be in the (hasty?)pudding . Hopefully, not VE'd, etc.

What do some people expect for Harvard Square? The DTX Millenium Tower?
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

Brad Plaid said:
Dreary. Uninspired. Lazy. Lump.
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I don't see a single thing to complain about this building. My god - what did you honestly want to see here? Another Stata Center or something that looks like a seagull sculpted out of seafoam? This is certainly not jaw droppingly gorgeous, but it is handsome, contextual, and an improvement upon what was there before.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

Seeing that it's Brad, I suspect he wanted a concrete boot stomping on a human face.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

There was some really cutting edge stuff put up in the 60's in the Harvard Square area, but the works in the last 25 years are just bland brick museum pieces. This latest work is just another safe, boring and ugly place holder, until some future decade when Harvard Square regains the daring vision and diversity it once had.
 
Re: Charles Place, Harvard Sq, Cambridge

Boston can barely handle building the kind of "safe and boring" buildings that are supposed to make up the bulk of the city. We're still fighting over minimum parking requirements and trying not to have blank walls, and against other bone-headed mistakes of the "urban renewal" era, the 60s. We can't even manage to build anything half as decent as was done in the 19th century. What do you expect?

We need to relearn how to walk before we can relearn how to run.
 
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