GrandMarc Residence Hall (YMCA) @ Northeastern U | 291 St. Botolph Street | Fenway

Since when are dorms and good architecture mutually exclusive? Tom, have you ever seen Northeastern's West Village?
 
Trust me- even when dorms and good architecture are mutually exclusive (i.e. International Village at Northeastern), how a building looks/is designed has relatively little bearing on most students.

From my own experience, and with what I have seen from my fellow Huskies, interiors and indoor spaces matter much more when it comes to dorms. Northeastern is largely successful on that front. If East Village is nice on the inside, and I expect it will be, student response will be similarly positive.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
Oy. Well, at least we can hope that the promising Science Center going up in the Columbus Lot will deflect attention away from this thing.
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Aw, it's not so bad. I mean, it's no Tree House, but the panels are kind of textually interesting. This is a city that hosts the Harvard State Penitentiary for Freshmen, so it's seen a lot worse from its universities than this...
 
I guess anything is better than Stetson East/West.

Equilibria said:
Aw, it's not so bad. I mean, it's no Tree House, but the panels are kind of textually interesting. This is a city that hosts the Harvard State Penitentiary for Freshmen, so it's seen a lot worse from its universities than this...
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Czervik.Construction said:
I guess anything is better than Stetson East/West.
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Worst dorms I have seen/been inside of are Warren Towers at BU. 18 floors, but looks more like it's 10. Every double room is about the size of a cubicle. I'm (almost) surprised people don't suffocate from lack of air. Truly an atrocious place to live. Luckily, I only had to spend a couple of hours in this place.
 
DZH22 said:
Worst dorms I have seen/been inside of are Warren Towers at BU. 18 floors, but looks more like it's 10. Every double room is about the size of a cubicle. I'm (almost) surprised people don't suffocate from lack of air. Truly an atrocious place to live. Luckily, I only had to spend a couple of hours in this place.
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You haven't seen (or lived in) Baker Hall at Wentworth then. The building was designed by a prison architect and it pretty much is a prison in every way. The double rooms are like jail cells, tiny with CMU walls all around you, a small window in each room and no A/C.
 
The final Alucobonding begins!

14791362143_b33a15fd16_b.jpg
 
RandomWalk said:
Is that like the final countdown?
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^
gob-car-danc.gif


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I hate to admit it, but I've become inured to this development. That orange precast is still bottom of the barrel, but the silver panels improve it a little and the massing is fine. I see it every day. It's not that I like it- it's just there.

Quite the missed opportunity by NU/the private developer.
 
BarbaricManchurian said:
Horrific.
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I agree. It's even worse in person. It's out of scale for it's context and visually imposing on the intersection/square on Huntington Avenue.

I disagree that it doesn't matter because the inhabitants don't pay attention to the exterior, I think architecture owes something to the community as well.
 
OMFG the random lighter panels are a true abomination. I have to look at this out my office window. The panels are ghastly. City officials should demand a reclad, like they did of the Hotel Commonwealth. It's that bad.
 
Shepard said:
OMFG the random lighter panels are a true abomination. I have to look at this out my office window. The panels are ghastly. City officials should demand a reclad, like they did of the Hotel Commonwealth. It's that bad.
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I completely agree. I was on top of NU's garage last night looking at this thing and the random lighter panels add nothing to this whatsoever. They are clumped extremely unevenly.

Joebos, just in case you're referring to me, I want to clarify that I agree about exteriors looking good and mattering even when the inhabitants/users don't care- I was just stating a fact. Most students do not and will not care about how this heap looks, unfortunately. They certainly don't care about International Village's appearance.
 
As much as I dislike the new Berkeley dorm tower at least it had balls to try something different. This is just bad.

I guess with the recession all these colleges are cutting back in their expansions plans with the little details. WIT's new dorm is a misstep, NU's International Village is a clusterfuck, BU's Student Villages are as bland and safe as you can get. Only the MassArt tower is decent but I'm willing to bet in 10 years we are going to look at it the same way we look at architecture from the 1970s today.

It seems the idea is that since the students will only live there a year or so why build anything nice. This is an unfortunately myopic view that will do more harm that good.
 
Downburst said:
I completely agree. I was on top of NU's garage last night looking at this thing and the random lighter panels add nothing to this whatsoever. They are clumped extremely unevenly.

Joebos, just in case you're referring to me, I want to clarify that I agree about exteriors looking good and mattering even when the inhabitants/users don't care- I was just stating a fact. Most students do not and will not care about how this heap looks, unfortunately. They certainly don't care about International Village's appearance.
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And because many students don't have the same views as us as I have a few friends that thinks International Village looks amazing.
 
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