My bad. Glad you were being facetious. Sorry I was dense.I was being facetious...
I'll buy that.my harshest criticism of this project would be the articulation of the control joints and relieving angles. They are highly visible due to the sealant and flashing being medium gray instead of being tinted to match the field of brick.
Just beautiful!
Modernism at its very best --something you don't see much. Crisp, clean and well-detailed, these buildings are simultaneously true to Modernism's minimalist vocabulary and kind to their context --which is very hard to do, given that minimalist vocabulary's limited repertory of moves.
This is what modern architecture is all about. It may be an acquired taste, but if you examine its origins, you'll see that Modernism was always an elitist plot. Here it's practiced in its purest form, ready --if we'll let it-- to turn us into aristocratic proletarians (or is that proletarian aristocrats?) See LeCorbusier for further elaboration --particularly Towards a New Architecture.
I guess that's why Dutch architecture is on another plane than our alucobond cities. I'll take it.
the "three deckers;" what the hell happened
Different architects.the others, the "three deckers;" what the hell happened?
http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/09/university-housing-on-th.htmlMore than 300 units of new housing (500 beds), primarily for graduate students but some for faculty and staff, are being built on two sites in the Riverside area of Cambridge, near Mather House and Peabody Terrace. The development was made possible when Harvard reached an agreement with the Cambridge city council and neighborhood representatives that involved significant downzoning of some of the parcels and a commitment by Harvard, once occupancy permits are issued for the new structures, to erect 34 units of affordable housing in a former industrial building on Blackstone Street and to provide publicly accessible open space at the corner of Memorial Drive and Western Avenue. At the Grant Street site, six new wood-frame buildings will hold six units each. On Cowperthwaite Street, one three-story wood-frame building and a large glass and brick structure above a new underground garage will replace an existing parking lot. Halvorson Design Partnership will handle the landscape features, while Elkus/Manfredi Architects will design the buildings, as well as three wood-frame houses at the Memorial Drive site. A large, two-section building by Kyu Sung Woo Architects will rise on Memorial Drive. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates will provide the landscape design there. As Harvard planners had hoped, the use of project managers Spaulding & Slye Colliers is facilitating progress toward the University?s goal of housing 50 percent of its graduate students.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2007/05/ripening-nicely.htmlUniversity housing. On the site of a former garden center on the corner of Memorial Drive and Western Avenue, near Peabody Terrace, the Harvard University Art Museums had proposed to build a low, glass- and wood-clad museum designed by Renzo Piano. But a vocal group of local residents protested. And so, instead, Harvard, the Riverside community, and the city opted for housing, for which the property was already zoned (?University Housing on the Rise,? September-October 2005, page 63). As a result of the compromise, in which Harvard agreed to significant downzoning of some of the parcels, the University is putting up 300 units (500 beds) of new housing, mostly for graduate students, on two sites in the Riverside part of town. The Memorial Drive site features a big structure?strikingly red, as will soon be apparent?designed by Kyu Sung Woo Architects for the north part of the parcel. Three wood-frame houses with multiple units, designed by Elkus/Manfredi Architects, will sit at the back of the south piece of the site.
It's the nimbified zoning that keeps this area so suburban. I'm sure if the zoning had allowed ground floor shops, the architect would have provided them.The engagement with the street is still 1950s awful. Those damned hedges and fringes don't belong in an urban environment.