Fan Pier Developments | Seaport

Boston 02114 NICE shots as usual. U have a fine i and thank u for the great updates. This area is mediority in epic proportions. What chutspatz. All that precast and ugly boxes. I would rather the football stadium there, but perhaps that is sopomoric to say. Better to keep the fish boats and fish markets than phony baloney offices and yacht basin for self annointed privliged classes.
 
bostonbred said:
Boston 02114 NICE shots as usual. U have a fine i and thank u for the great updates. This area is mediority in epic proportions. What chutspatz. All that precast and ugly boxes. I would rather the football stadium there, but perhaps that is sopomoric to say. Better to keep the fish boats and fish markets than phony baloney offices and yacht basin for self annointed privliged classes.
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Ouch.

Sophomoric. Privileged. Mediocrity. Anointed. You. Eye.

Even the non-privileged classes have spell check. Get into it. It makes your arguments have a foundation of legitimacy.

Now to the point. In any given development there will be the bad and the good. This area is shaping up based on the economics that drive it an nothing more. Developers must develop cheap, high rent superblocks. That is the world we live in because that is what makes these companies money. Until the paradigm changes, things like the Boston Wharf Company district will never happen again.

Design wise, I would call it thoughtless, and irresponsible to the context (that one hopes to create here), but not surprising given the price of the land, and the proformas that are trying to be met.

I wish for better.

cca
 
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cca said:
Ouch.

Sophomoric. Privileged. Mediocrity. Anointed. You. Eye...
Even the none privileged classes have spell check. Get into it. It makes your arguments have a foundation of legitimacy...
Design wise, I would call it thoughtless, and irrisponcible...
cca
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I will try to be less irrisponcible in my spellin.
 
Yes. I try to comment on project, not make personal attacks on other posters.
 
bostonbred said:
Yes. I try to comment on project, not make personal attacks on other posters.
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Take this to private messages then. I will gladly continue to discuss what constitutes and attack.

Sorry for the disruption.

cca
 
cca said:
Take this to private messages then. I will gladly continue to discuss what constitutes and attack.

cca
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No, do it here! Can't wait to see the outcome of this battle of the grammarians!
 
Sorry Toby, that won't happen. I apologized already for being a jerk about the spelling thing.

What is more interesting to me is why people make judgments on design, but this building will fill up with plenty of people who will be proud to call it home. Why would a developer do more when they have no obligation to address concerns that their proforma can't cover.

Until people stop buying things, it will continue to be produced.

I like this discussion. I would love to hear the other argument.

cca
 
Pity. I like a good scrap! Anyway, you are quite right about economics dictating the shape of the buildings. (I think we might have had a bit of a discussion about the economics of floorplates on the Shreve thread.)

p.s. I just noticed. Post number 1300!
 
I think SBW is the perfect place to discuss this because this is what happens when huge swaths of undeveloped land gets "masterplanned" based on a single owner/developers scheme as opposed to the built environment growing "organically" through multi-own blocks, buildings being in-filled, and buildings being adaptively reused.

Everyone can point at Kendall Square and say how dreadful it is, but even though that is a truism that every developer, masterplanner, and designer knows about ... the pure economics fate these types of areas to the same end. Superblock blahs.

Does anyone think that the superblock can be controlled?

cca

Ps. I would lose any fight that requires me to spell and use perfect grammar. I was upset at something else entirely and was being petty. I do however like to start scraps about issues of the built environment and design. Bring it on. :)
 
I think most people understand the economics of the situation. We are mostly just bitch about it while a few brave souls trying to find a better way.

The worst thing we can do is simply give up and just accept things the way they are. We will never see things get better that way.

And Toby, the internet is a big place, you can find many a good scrap around without looking too hard. We need a few decent places too. :)
 
So ... my uneducated theory is this. When the fabric of the city is too regular, or of a scale that promotes indifference we find this dreadful. Kendall Square's superblocks do not have any richness because there is one streetface expression for an entire block until you get something else to look at. It is best at 40mph in a car.

Back Bay Boylston Street is better but still lacks the richness we desire. It is best experienced at 20mph.

Newbury is what we all desire a street to be regardless of its rents. It is a 3mph street.

I will go out on a limb though and suggest a building that does mitigate this issue well. (I am going to get roasted for this one I am sure... but stick with me)

Holyoke Center does a good job of maintaining street activity, encorporating pedestrian flow through the site, and make great use of very minimal public space. It's a small super block but a super block still.

How does this get done today? I suggest that without requiring blocks to be zoned to make it difficult to develop an entire block could be one way ...but most would suggest that this is interfering in private business too much. Does anyone believe that this type of zoning is a possibility?

cca
 
Stat,
Don't worry. This board isn't very scrappy in a bad way. Even a year ago when a couple of folks seemed to be threatening a fistfight, it wasn't so bad. Funny actually! And everyone kissed and made up.

CCA,
Your "handle" reminds me of the stylized CCC on the side of the wonderful 50's and 60's Chris Craft Constellations. I agree with you that the only way to slay the superblock dragon is to make it profitable for developers to subdivide large parcels. Which, of course, means that to overcome the economic inefficiencies of smaller floor plates, you would have to allow a much greater building height on smaller parcels. Which then would necessitate step backs as the height went up to allow for light. Hey, isn't that the Manhattan zoning code from the 20's?
Can't have that!
 
Someone needs to invent a virtual boxing plugin that works on forums so that we can have real forum fights haha. Internet forum memberships would skyrocket.

I do wonder though, how we convince developers to build small? It just seems tough to do...perhaps we [meaning some governing body that I actually have no right to call "we"] need to divide up properties into smaller parcels but im sure some legal mumbo jumbo prevents that from happening.
 
Patriots_1228 said:
I do wonder though, how we convince developers to build small? It just seems tough to do...perhaps we [meaning some governing body that I actually have no right to call "we"] need to divide up properties into smaller parcels but im sure some legal mumbo jumbo prevents that from happening.
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Easy. We could zone for them. Allowable building height ranges are already specified in the zoning code for every single parcel in the city. Yet, building footprints are virtually ignored.

Why dont we pay attention to footprints the same way we do for height when the former has as much impact (I'd argue, far more) as the latter?
 
I assume that your last sentence is sarcastic? Or not? I think it would be more like Manhattan if the real estate was as limited, however, SBW is not so constrained at the moment and would need a heavier hand to make its street faces varied enough to be considered a rich experience.

I guess what I desire is a way to allow parcels to "grow" in an aggregated way which would make the pedestrian experience something worth experiencing.

Could the city dictate footprints but give tax incentives to help offset the inefficiency? Or could someone figure out someday that the reason everyone wants a store on Newbury Street is that its wonderful ... and figure it out for themselves?

cca
 
cca said:
I assume that your last sentence is sarcastic? Or not? I think it would be more like Manhattan if the real estate was as limited, however, SBW is not so constrained at the moment and would need a heavier hand to make its street faces varied enough to be considered a rich experience.
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I wasn't being sarcastic. I'd like to hear the argument that height limits are more necessary than lot-size limits. How does height have a greater impact on the city than building lot sizes? I feel that it is width, not height that is the real enemy of good urban design. This is where scale really matters.

Also, as far as exerting an unreasonably heavy hand, the zoning code and other building codes exert a very heavy hand already--much to negative effect. Lot size limits would at least provide a benefit to the city.


Could the city dictate footprints but give tax incentives to help offset the inefficiency? Or could someone figure out someday that the reason everyone wants a store on Newbury Street is that its wonderful ... and figure it out for themselves?
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Does the city give tax incentives for creating other inefficiencies through zoning, like mandating single-family houses on huge lots, or single-use zoning , or low height limits, or minuscule FARs, or parking requirements, or open space requirements, etc. ?
 
briv said:
Easy. We could zone for them. Allowable building height ranges are already specified in the zoning code for every single parcel in the city. Yet, building footprints are virtually ignored.

Why dont we pay attention to footprints the same way we do for height when the former has as much impact (I'd argue, far more) as the latter?
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Briv, your dead on. 100%. But it seems a bit tough to argue for some zoning laws while banishing others with height restrictions. Chiafaro has got me to thinking: is there one persona who could do it? Does it have to be a mayor?

I'm just curious on how we "cure" Boston's obsession with low height and blandness when it seems (to me) to be crippling the city? Crippling might be strong, but its not a whole lot off, IMO.
 
briv said:
Easy. We could zone for them. Allowable building height ranges are already specified in the zoning code for every single parcel in the city. Yet, building footprints are virtually ignored.

Why dont we pay attention to footprints the same way we do for height when the former has as much impact (I'd argue, far more) as the latter?
Click to expand...

Footprints are essentially dictated by property lines and required setbacks. Developers will maximize their footprints and FAR regardless, so specifying footprints would not only be difficult, but also pointless.

There are two curses on Fan Pier: first is the FAA height limit. The site is a planned development (sets its own zoning - no height limit), but the feds govern. Because of the FAA height limit, all the buildings will be squat in proportion. Second, is the fat-block masterplan of the Pritzker family, who was apparently not concerned about creating a Back Bay type neighborhood here. Fallon inherited the plan and its entitlements, so the super block was not his idea.

This is a background building and the precast is an unfortunate choice of material. However, walking around this building as a pedestrian, I was pleasantly surprised. It actually has a 2 story podium in human proportions, and the glass curtainwall facing the park seems appropriate and modern. Considering the fact that the precast side will be blocked by future buildings, it will not look as bad as it does today (5-10-20 years from now?).
 
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