Graduate Junction (MIT West Campus) | 269-301 Vassar St | Cambridge

bigpicture7 said:
Huh? This building has one of the most prominent and bold linear window grids we've seen recently:

vd2-png.13421


If you are referring to that one end cap that has the offset square windows, I think that is a gentle homage to Simmons Hall next door, shown here in @BeeLine 's photo upthread:
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Does anyone have information as to why MIT is not building higher with Vassar Street dorms?
I feel that this street is dying for some height variation.
 
Any photos show what these dorms look like from inside or floor plan? (Kinda wondering about Simmons Hall too)
 
bdurden said:
Does anyone have information as to why MIT is not building higher with Vassar Street dorms?
I feel that this street is dying for some height variation.
Click to expand...
They were following zoning regs. Read page 9 of 19 Planning Board decision. Interesting that the central portion height of the two buildings is only allowed to be 60' in respect to Washington Park on the other side of the tracks. The courtyard between the two new buildings is provided to allow for a direct view of the Charles River from Washington Park to address the fort's historic designation. ( I was wondering why there were cannons in that park). There is a height of 100' allowance for the towers at each end of the building.
 
This might sound odd to some on aB, but as these recent dorm projects along Vassar are coming together, I actually really kind of think that Vassar St. now works aesthetically as a sort of a ridiculous (in an interesting way) "landscraper row." It's capped at the Mass Ave. end with the really unique former Met Warehouse building with its castle-like tower as a launching point, then your eye looks down Vassar and sees a prominent, textured wall that now extends to infinity of quirkily shaped very long-scale buildings. It creates a pronounced wall-like effect that suggests a) a lot of people live here, and, b) this might go on forever.

This is a very recent change peering down Vassar. I've been in this area a long time, and that street was always awful. When it was littered with parking lots and parking garage, this visual effect was totally absent.

To be clear, I am not generally a landscraper fan and am a supporter of height and density in cities. So I would never advocate for creating the above-described aesthetic if one were working with a blank canvas somewhere. However, here, with the existing structures and constraints, it actually really seems to be a pleasantly surprising positive outcome. Some neighborhoods really need to work on their publicly engaging streetwalls to invite people in; this end of Vassar is kind of an exception because there isn't really a need or desire to invite people in. The view from Mass Ave. or the athletic fields is kind of the aesthetically more important part.
 
bigpicture7 said:
This might sound odd to some on aB, but as these recent dorm projects along Vassar are coming together, I actually really kind of think that Vassar St. now works aesthetically as a sort of a ridiculous (in an interesting way) "landscraper row." It's capped at the Mass Ave. end with the really unique former Met Warehouse building with its castle-like tower as a launching point, then your eye looks down Vassar and sees a prominent, textured wall that now extends to infinity of quirkily shaped very long-scale buildings. It creates a pronounced wall-like effect that suggests a) a lot of people live here, and, b) this might go on forever.

This is a very recent change peering down Vassar. I've been in this area a long time, and that street was always awful. When it was littered with parking lots and parking garage, this visual effect was totally absent.

To be clear, I am not generally a landscraper fan and am a supporter of height and density in cities. So I would never advocate for creating the above-described aesthetic if one were working with a blank canvas somewhere. However, here, with the existing structures and constraints, it actually really seems to be a pleasantly surprising positive outcome. Some neighborhoods really need to work on their publicly engaging streetwalls to invite people in; this end of Vassar is kind of an exception because there isn't really a need or desire to invite people in. The view from Mass Ave. or the athletic fields is kind of the aesthetically more important part.
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agree! feels like it could be a modernist street of housing blocks in Europe
 
MIT sent this out today, suggesting they are expecting occupancy by August
 

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