Gov't Center Station Rebuild

[JeffDowntown]

Funny how requirements like this have unintended consequences. So instead of having an entrance that MOST people can use, we get no entrance for anyone. I know that's not the spirit of the law, but that's how it goes when the T doesn't have money to put elevators everywhere.

There was a similar situation with the Community Path Extension where folks asked if there could be a staircase up to Lowell St from one side (there is already a staircase and ramp planned for the other side.) It was decided that no there cannot be a second staircase because there would have to be a second ramp too (which there is neither physical space nor a budget for.) So yeah...

Somewhere in here there needs to be someone inserted to break the bureaucratic insanity.

There is a difference between the "spirit of the law" and the "letter of the law"

 

[AdamBC]

Had a chance to see it in person this weekend, it will be a huge improvement and has a more modern feel than most anything else in the area. Will be a good 'welcome' for people coming in from the airport.

 

[Jahvon09]

I wonder if the façade was wind-proof-tested.

 

[Downburst]

 

[Arlington]

The low-res construction progress photos for June are now online:
http://mbta.com/riding_the_t/default.asp?id=26899

 

[BeeLine]

https://flic.kr/p/tRPB6v
https://flic.kr/p/uw5xs7
https://flic.kr/p/tRwWEL

I just have one question. When will the MBTA employ an ARCHITECT?
Another reason the plaza is a joke.
We have traded a pile of bricks for a glass boxcar.

Yes, more cynicism.

 

[underground]

I love that the head house is simultaneously an over designed glass palace signaling MBTA excess and an under designed cynical pile of shit signaling that the MBTA needs to employ an architect. Is there any opinion on the spectrum that we haven't covered yet? 5 bux to whoever can think of one.

 

[MBTAddict]

I love that the head house is simultaneously an over designed glass palace signaling MBTA excess and an under designed cynical pile of shit signaling that the MBTA needs to employ an architect. Is there any opinion on the spectrum that we haven't covered yet? 5 bux to whoever can think of one.

I kinda like it.

 

[underground]

I straight up like it.

 

[Equilibria]

I straight up like it.

It doesn't really matter if people like it (I do) - it's doing a job. If you go to the MBTA's terrible low-res picture site, you can see in one of their June pictures how the Green Line platform is now bathed in natural light to a pretty significant degree. That's what the light tower is for, and it works.

 

[BeeLine]

It doesn't really matter if people like it (I do) - it's doing a job. If you go to the MBTA's terrible low-res picture site, you can see in one of their June pictures how the Green Line platform is now bathed in natural light to a pretty significant degree. That's what the light tower is for, and it works.

Agree with your point but couldn't they do it with a little style?

 

[JeffDowntown]

Agree with your point but couldn't they do it with a little style?

Light tower with architectural style: Louvre Pyramid

Light tower with banal T functionality: Government Center Sarcophagus

 

[MBTAddict]

It doesn't really matter if people like it (I do) - it's doing a job. If you go to the MBTA's terrible low-res picture site, you can see in one of their June pictures how the Green Line platform is now bathed in natural light to a pretty significant degree. That's what the light tower is for, and it works.

Would the effect have been less with a shorter structure?

 

[underground]

Louvre Pyramid would be a great idea if they REALLY wanted to be accused of building glass palaces. I mean, if the complaints are already this loud, could you imagine?

 

[fattony]

... the Green Line platform is now bathed in natural light to a pretty significant degree...

Maybe that was the goal, but it is a painfully stupid, backward, wasteful, and useless goal. No person has ever decided to ride or not ride a train based on the amount of natural sunlight in the station. You know why? Because it is a goddamn SUBway, no one is expecting sunlight.

You shouldn't be standing on a subway platform long enough to give a rat's ass about natural light. If natural light is so important, then why did we tear down all of our elevateds?

This is just like inventing a pen that writes in space. The Russians used a pencil.

 

[Justin7]

This is just like inventing a pen that writes in space. The Russians used a pencil.

I agree. It is exactly like that.

 

[datadyne007]

The light well should dramatically reduce artificial lighting loads during the day on the GL level on most days.

Also, the headhouse is made of glass because comments to the T demanded that it not impede views of key monuments. It's of substantial height because the T wanted people to see it from certain key vantage points in the area as a knee-jerk reaction to how people used to be standing on City Hall Plaza and ask someone where GC was. I had that happen to me quite a few times.

When you take the demand for preserving views, but providing a wayfinding icon, you end up with a tall glass structure.

 

[statler]

This is just like inventing a pen that writes in space. The Russians used a pencil.

Off-topic and pedantic but:

NASA never asked Paul C. Fisher to produce a pen. When the astronauts began to fly, like the Russians, they used pencils, but the leads sometimes broke and became a hazard by floating in the [capsule's] atmosphere where there was no gravity. They could float into an eye or nose or cause a short in an electrical device. In addition, both the lead and the wood of the pencil could burn rapidly in the pure oxygen atmosphere. Paul Fisher realized the astronauts needed a safer and more dependable writing instrument, so in July 1965 he developed the pressurized ball pen, with its ink enclosed in a sealed, pressurized ink cartridge.
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp#eT8dfd9pPKOPxYG9.99

 

[datadyne007]

Off-topic and pedantic but:

But highly relevant to this discussion because it illustrates why designers design things the way they do. They don't design something in a particular way for no reason at all, as many people in this thread are asserting both about GC and the space pen.

 

[fattony]

Design choices are always relative to the goals and priorities set out by the customer. I'm not saying the designer is an idiot. I'm saying the customer is.