Lab Building (née Hotel Hampshire) | 34-40 Hampshire St. | Cambridge

Dr. Rosen Rosen

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I was over here the other day, walking on the opposite corner. I didn't notice an issue- are you just referencing the sidewalk closed on that side or something else? I'm not super familiar with that area so I don't know what the foot traffic flow is.
Thx, it’s just that there’s no pedestrian storefront that takes adavtage of the corner lot. It’s instead for cars.
 

RandomWalk

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Simple answer for why it’s being built: money. You could lease a rundown double-wide for lab space in Cambridge, provided it had enough ventilation.

They can do CMU for the core because it’s the lab equivalent of a 5-over-1.
 

Suffolk 83

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Thx, it’s just that there’s no pedestrian storefront that takes adavtage of the corner lot. It’s instead for cars.
Oh ok thats fair. I wasnt paying attention to the actual building much just the current conditions
 

bigpicture7

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It may be awful, but at least it's fast.
Indeed, yet given the havoc this project is wreaking on that busy intersection, the quicker the better (Exhibit A: the crane truck in the middle of the street)
 

bigpicture7

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Once we run out of interesting projects (that pipeline is dwindling!) archboston is going to become the architectural version of this:
Hah, uh oh.

There's a world where this could have been a nice reference to the 1 Kendall Square tower across the intersection, but we don't live in that world.
^Another approach: convince the good citizens of Cambridge that the exhaust stack needs to be 1,000' tall in order to send all of the super scary lab fumes far, far away from their city. Then, convince them that 750' of surrounding support structure is needed to hold up the 1,000' tall stack. Then fill in the 750' structure with lots of housing units!
Oh wait, that would just get the whole project cancelled. Oh, oh wait, that would have been ok too!
 

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