Hurley Building Redevelopment | 19 Staniford St | West End

[fatnoah]

From https://sites.tufts.edu/govcenter/7-design-analyses-and-comparisons/

Perhaps the most damning aspect of the State Services Center is the fact that it was never fully completed. The architect, Paul Rudolph, wanted to create a mega-structure consisting of three adjoining buildings, which were supposed to encircle a large interior “piazza” that was intended to humanify the area. However, one of the three main buildings was never completed. Rudolph also created various “terrains” in his design of the state service center by varying the elevations of the plaza and incorporating many inaccessible stairs. The plaza stands 30 feet above the street level, which separates the area from pedestrians and isolates the space[4]. Leaving the building incomplete created an inhospitable and disjointed area for pedestrians, who likely tried to avoid the space (Figure 6 and 7). If the State Services Center were completed as Rudolph had envisioned, perhaps the building and area surrounding would be a much different place than it is today.

 

[fatnoah]

 

[DZH22]

I found a new website for this with some wildly different renderings. One of the buildings looks awful, but at least both of them don't look awful. Any actual news on this?

Hurley — Stoss

The Stoss Landscape Urbanism portfolio of projects includes Parks, Recreation, Campus, Plaza, Greenway and Installation work for private and Public clients. Learn more>

www.stoss.net

 

[DZH22]

I figured out there's a bunch more renders, and was able to manually change the link to make them show up higher quality. Here's the rest of the page.

 

[393b40]

I figured out there's a bunch more renders, and was able to manually change the link to make them show up higher quality. Here's the rest of the page.

Well that's a lot to process. There's a lot of good here but that... thing... on the corner of Cambridge and Staniford needs a serious rework.

This has to be a strawman proposal where they trade height and massing on that big fat (office?) for more height on the slimmer taller tower right?

 

[Randy N. Craven-Krawtch]

Not a big fan of the shorter tower, but it will be such a huge improvement to the neighborhood and long overdue. Please start construction soon please!

 

[RandomWalk]

Those aerial renders, with the moat of asphalt around the site, make me cringe.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Those aerial renders, with the moat of asphalt around the site, make me cringe.

They make me cringe as well. Tear down the entire complex and replace it with a grid of small streets and buildings with a proper street wall, mixed use and mixed heights. Get rid of these confounded superblocks and highway-type super streets..

 

[FK4]

I figured out there's a bunch more renders, and was able to manually change the link to make them show up higher quality. Here's the rest of the page.

View attachment 48924

View attachment 48925

View attachment 48926

View attachment 48927

View attachment 48928

View attachment 48929

Complete and utter dogshit is exactly what this city will get and exactly what this city deserves. Complain about the old building and replace it with the same superblock garbage with bland and unimaginative architecture—not better, but now, with the *image* of being better, and the worse for it. “Street level retail”? Have fun at the Capitol One / Caffe Nero, Verizon, and bro-bar that’ll fill those spaces. And the actual people that live at the Lindemann are gonna be sent to the ER ten times more frequently for “disruptive behavior” since that rotunda, their last place of refuge now, will be filled with entitled white people at the ready to call the cops at the slightest offense. But sure, that’s what everybody calls “progress“ in this town.

 

[Equilibria]

"Street level retail”? Have fun at the Capitol One / Caffe Nero, Verizon, and bro-bar that’ll fill those spaces"

As long as one person is having fun there, it will be more useful as a public space than the current buildings are, and every Nero I go into is pretty packed and seems like a valuable public resource. Without getting into a larger debate, I don't think the best way to assist and support the unhoused is to simply turn over a substantial space in the middle of Downtown for them to camp in, denying it to everyone else.

As for the renders... there's a germ of something attractive there, but those two buildings look terrible next to each other (the shorter one is an escapee from Boynton Yards and shouldn't be anywhere near Downtown), and the wannabe One Bromfield would be better if it was as tall as one Bromfield was supposed to be... in fact, just steal that whole design and build it here.

Also, I may be missing something, but I don't see any bike connectivity there, just lots of stairs.

 

[FK4]

Without getting into a larger debate, I don't think the best way to assist and support the unhoused is to simply turn over a substantial space in the middle of Downtown for them to camp in, denying it to everyone else.

We don’t have to get into a larger debate, but maybe you’d like to educate yourself before posting nonsense like this: Lindemann has two DMH longterm residential shelters and three DMH group homes. A large number of people live here already, and that rotunda is their only outdoor space. It is, and always was, the front yard for the people living in the building. Perhaps you feel its fine to assume they’re “camping there” simply because that’s what you think all people you deem not clean and nicely dressed, but they’re not camping there. They live in the building.

 

[bigpicture7]

As long as one person is having fun there, it will be more useful as a public space than the current buildings are, and every Nero I go into is pretty packed and seems like a valuable public resource. Without getting into a larger debate, I don't think the best way to assist and support the unhoused is to simply turn over a substantial space in the middle of Downtown for them to camp in, denying it to everyone else.

As for the renders... there's a germ of something attractive there, but those two buildings look terrible next to each other (the shorter one is an escapee from Boynton Yards and shouldn't be anywhere near Downtown), and the wannabe One Bromfield would be better if it was as tall as one Bromfield was supposed to be... in fact, just steal that whole design and build it here.

Also, I may be missing something, but I don't see any bike connectivity there, just lots of stairs.

We don’t have to get into a larger debate, but maybe you’d like to educate yourself before posting nonsense like this: Lindemann has two DMH longterm residential shelters and three DMH group homes. A large number of people live here already, and that rotunda is their only outdoor space. It is, and always was, the front yard for the people living in the building. Perhaps you feel its fine to assume they’re “camping there” simply because that’s what you think all people you deem not clean and nicely dressed, but they’re not camping there. They live in the building.

Given that the gov's RFP for Hurley redevelopment obliged a total restoration and reactivation of the outdoor space surrounding the Lindemann (see upthread) as a necessary condition, I don't think this is a zero sum game (if the gov actually manages this properly). See the beautiful proposed reactivation of the currently underutilized, paved-over space at Staniford & Merimac....a new front yard perhaps? Shown at the bottom of this image here:

^from:

Hurley — Stoss

The Stoss Landscape Urbanism portfolio of projects includes Parks, Recreation, Campus, Plaza, Greenway and Installation work for private and Public clients. Learn more>

www.stoss.net

(Also, I think someone mentioned upthread that the space, despite being underutilized the preponderance of time, serves as an ambulance drop-off, but in browsing some of the other renderings, it appears there are some underground vehicle ramps/portals being added to the site, so maybe they found a way to move that function. Not sure).

 

[Charlie_mta]

Given that the gov's RFP for Hurley redevelopment obliged a total restoration and reactivation of the outdoor space surrounding the Lindemann (see upthread) as a necessary condition, I don't think this is a zero sum game (if the gov actually manages this properly). See the beautiful proposed reactivation of the currently underutilized, paved-over space at Staniford & Merimac, shown here....a new front yard perhaps? Shown at bottom of image here:

^from:

Hurley — Stoss

The Stoss Landscape Urbanism portfolio of projects includes Parks, Recreation, Campus, Plaza, Greenway and Installation work for private and Public clients. Learn more>

www.stoss.net

Looks like more of the same type of lipstick-on-a-pig treatments that were recently done to City Hall Plaza, just perpetuating the huge mistakes of 60's urban renewal superblock projects, a lot of expensive dolling up without addressing the fundamental problems.

 

[bigpicture7]

Looks like more of the same type of lipstick-on-a-pig treatments that were recently done to City Hall Plaza, just perpetuating the huge mistakes of 60's urban renewal superblock projects, a lot of expensive dolling up without addressing the fundamental problems.

Not disagreeing with your overall commentary, but that wasn't my point. My point was about the purely functional sustainment of a "front yard" space somewhere for Lindemann residents. The area I am referring to as being additive (as a potential new means of serving that particular function) currently looks like this:

vs. the same triangle shown at the bottom of the render I posted immediately above your reply.

 

[FK4]

Given that the gov's RFP for Hurley redevelopment obliged a total restoration and reactivation of the outdoor space surrounding the Lindemann (see upthread) as a necessary condition, I don't think this is a zero sum game (if the gov actually manages this properly). See the beautiful proposed reactivation of the currently underutilized, paved-over space at Staniford & Merimac....a new front yard perhaps? Shown at the bottom of this image here:

^from:

Hurley — Stoss

The Stoss Landscape Urbanism portfolio of projects includes Parks, Recreation, Campus, Plaza, Greenway and Installation work for private and Public clients. Learn more>

www.stoss.net

(Also, I think someone mentioned upthread that the space, despite being underutilized the preponderance of time, serves as an ambulance drop-off, but in browsing some of the other renderings, it appears there are some underground vehicle ramps/portals being added to the site, so maybe they found a way to move that function. Not sure).

What should, and could be happening here is to grant air rights to a company and let them renovate the entire site, activate the Hurley, and build something on top of it that isn’t total garbage. IF this is not in the cards, and demolition of part of the complex is going to happen, there should be a much more thoughtful approach to how to do this. People might hate the entire government center project, or love it, but regardless of your aesthetic inclinations, the Kennedy buildings, City Hall, Center Plaza, and the GSC/Lindemann were all the products of visionary architects. The point is, a ton of money was invested in design here. Did it work out or did it fail? Up to debate as to how or why outcomes were what they were. But it’s abysmal that legit architecture and design is almost never sought by the city for anything anymore, and if ever there was an opportunity to not get some Elkus crap, this is the place. So, while I am not in favor of getting rid of any part of this building and there unquestionably are alternatives that could address its street-facing problems, if tear downs are happening there is no need to have unimaginative fat towers that replicate most of the current site’s problems save for a handful of street level retail and a few more denizens to activate the space. This entire complex was built with a great deal of architectural and design considerations, and any changes made should be the product of the same degree of thought. The rest of the restoration looks good, if they really do it, but it would seem to be Urbanism 101 to have more than one tower on Cambridge St, or a tall archway in that building, to allow pedestrian flow into and thru the central space.

@bigpicture7 my beef with the plan as is is that when you have a bunch of rich people who share a public space with a bunch of marginal people with schizophrenia, the rate at which people call the cops is bound to increase. For anyone who spends a lot of time out and about in Boston and Cambridge, you know full well that there are very limited indoor places and not many outdoor spots beyond huge and barren spots like Melnea or the Common where quasi homeless, psychotic people are tolerated. This place happens to be one of them, but there is simply no way people who already live here now aren’t going to be sectioned into the ER in greater numbers once these towers are full of condo owners. We can debate the stigma against mental illness elsewhere, but the degree to which behavior poses a threat is mostly a subjectively determined one, and the opinion of those with power, money and privilege hold all the cards in that balance. Equilibria’s dismissive comment implying (incorrectly) that this place is another homeless camp speaks volumes about the average person’s attitude toward people deemed “undesirable”, which in this case is egregiously off base given that the folks being mentioned actually have rights to the space because they live there.

Edit — One thing worth mentioning that many people might not already know is that those stairs down by Merrimack Street connect right up to the rotunda. This whole space would have a lot more pedestrian flow as being a direct cut from Beacon Hill to N Station, were it not for the fact that the state government has found it acceptable to just fence off an entire part of the site designed to be a park, in order to park their govt cop cars on it. So, restoring this not only is a good element of the current design, but presumably they will open up access to the upper level, which in my mind is actually even more important because it breaks up the super block problem for the pedestrian – in part. Doing that on Cambridge would go even further.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

I think this is about as nice as you could expect for a project in this day and age. Nice to see the Lindemann is at least respected. And what looks like a residential tower echos Rudolph's original vision, so I'm down for that.

 

[FK4]

I think this is about as nice as you could expect for a project in this day and age. Nice to see the Lindemann is at least respected. And what looks like a residential tower echos Rudolph's original vision, so I'm down for that.

Pragmatic and realistic, but… dare to dream, van, dare to dream.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Not disagreeing with your overall commentary, but that wasn't my point. My point was about the purely functional sustainment of a "front yard" space somewhere for Lindemann residents. The area I am referring to as being additive (as a potential new means of serving that particular function) currently looks like this:
View attachment 48932
vs. the same triangle shown at the bottom of the render I posted immediately above your reply.

I agree it will be an improvement. It's just frustrating how a more visionary approach isn't being taken for these GC complexes.

 

[itchy]

This feels pretty good to me.

I think 'street grid, small lots' is the best possible answer to essentially any urban planning question there is ... but unfortunately it's clear nobody in the BPA or BPDA or whatever it's calling itself under this administration has the smallest care in the world about that. (Cf. Seaport). Given that, and assuming the city isn't going to tear down the current brutalist buildings, this plan increases density by building multiple office/residential buildings on top of what is now parking lots, it revives a 1960s concrete eyesore, and it activates public space that may actually be appealing to residents and other passersby. Would also love for the site to be broken up into a collection of Back Bay like lots with a returned streetgrid - but all in all it's a big improvement over present day.

 

[HenryAlan]

Not a big fan of the shorter tower, but it will be such a huge improvement to the neighborhood and long overdue. Please start construction soon please!

This is essentially my position, too. If it becomes more pedestrian accessible, particularly for passing through, rather than having to walk around the block, then it's a vast improvement, regardless of the tower architecture.

They make me cringe as well. Tear down the entire complex and replace it with a grid of small streets and buildings with a proper street wall, mixed use and mixed heights. Get rid of these confounded superblocks and highway-type super streets..

The super block is a big problem, but we aren't likely going to be rid of it. The next best thing after your suggestion is a porous and attractive pedestrian experience, which I think these designs include. If so, that's a win.