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

Charlie_mta said:
That would be for the "Employee of the month".
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I mean, what other single-bike stall can you think of that is actually clad in quartz or marble?

I love how they actually rendered a guy with a bike in that little nook:
www.balance-architects.com

30 Hampshire | Balance Architects

30 Hampshire Street is a four-story ground-up commercial office and laboratory building on one of the last undeveloped parcels in Kendall Square. This prominent corner site, directly abutting an existing high-rise, demanded inventive structural solutions.
www.balance-architects.com www.balance-architects.com
 
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Justbuildit said:
With vacancy rates as they are and a ton of new capacity (primary and secondary) hitting the market, my guess is "no science" for at least a little while.
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You know, given that, they really ought to consider something like a hotel for this parcel...
 
bigpicture7 said:
No one, actually. It was built as-of-right. Following a longwinded planning board approval process for the Hotel (which required a formal review), it was instead abruptly pivoted to this lab that (as I understand) fit within the constraints of as-of-right for the parcel.
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Beyond bizarre given the ultra low hotel vacancy rates that it's not a hotel. The prices are insane, esp in Kendall.
 
bigpicture7 said:
No one, actually. It was built as-of-right. Following a longwinded planning board approval process for the Hotel (which required a formal review), it was instead abruptly pivoted to this lab that (as I understand) fit within the constraints of as-of-right for the parcel.
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If that ground floor config/treatment is 'as-of-right,' dare I say something's wrong with the 'as-of-rite.'
 
LexSEDotVille said:
If that ground floor config/treatment is 'as-of-right,' dare I say something's wrong with the 'as-of-rite.'
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It's same sort of issue we see with zoning all the time: obsolete legacy zoning having an outsized effect on what does/doesn't get built. Just like we see residential zoning limiting the types of structures that get built in legacy residential neighborhoods, here we are likely seeing archaic "commercial" zoning (that harkens back to the days when Kendall was more of an industrial backwater) making it totally OK to build something like a 3-story corrugated metal shed with highbay doors on what is now a prime pedestrian street corner. To Cambridge's credit, they've had success with the Mixed Used District not far from here in Kendall, but this is outside of that boundary. The old days of a binary mindset of distinct zones of either a) low-density residential, or b) pure commercial should be over; much huger swaths of mixed-used zones should be put in place.
 
bigpicture7 said:
The old days of a binary mindset of distinct zones of either a) low-density residential, or b) pure commercial should be over; much huger swaths of mixed-used zones should be put in place.
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Mixed-use zones used to be the norm prior to WW II. Most of the older areas in the greater Boston inner cities had a mix of residential. small corner stores, businesses, and light industrial mixed into the same neighborhoods. When I lived in North Cambridge in the 1950s and 60s there was light industry scattered around, and multiple corner stores (small markets, barber shops, drug stores, bakeries, medical offices, etc). It was an economical, eco-friendly, walkable model. After WW II, the burgeoning of suburbia cast a single-use model which made its way back into the older cities as well, in which residential areas were sacrosanct with no other uses allowed.
 
Charlie_mta said:
Mixed-use zones used to be the norm prior to WW II. Most of the older areas in the greater Boston inner cities had a mix of residential. small corner stores, businesses, and light industrial mixed into the same neighborhoods. When I lived in North Cambridge in the 1950s and 60s there was light industry scattered around, and multiple corner stores (small markets, barber shops, drug stores, bakeries, medical offices, etc). It was an economical, eco-friendly, walkable model. After WW II, the burgeoning of suburbia cast a single-use model which made its way back into the older cities as well, in which residential areas were sacrosanct with no other uses allowed.
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I thought the scattered retail embedded in residential areas was a function of large household sizes and less strictly about formal single-use zoning.
 
as02143 said:
I thought the scattered retail embedded in residential areas was a function of large household sizes and less strictly about formal single-use zoning.
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There are a lot of reasons why the small corner stores and local shopping disappeared, as well as the small light-industrial. All I know is that when I was a kid in the 1950s in North Cambridge, we would walk to 90% of activities (shopping, including large department stores, medical, church, school, etc), and the other 10% we would take transit. I wish that were the case today.
 
Strange smells, sounds, or sights became scary around a century ago. People wanted a homogeneous space that kept the other at bay.

</slightly sarcastic>
 
The street experience on this one is amazing! It should win an award. I mean, look at how much that guy in shorts is enjoying the architecture and street level activity! It's such a level above that European street CRAP in Barcelona or Paris. I want to hang out here all day and enjoy the experience.

Kendall_01.jpg
Kendall_02.jpg
 
It's designed as if something nefarious is going on inside. Experimenting with body parts? Trying to clone brains? I can't imagine a less "human" ground floor.
 
It’s designed to be the architectural embodiment of “is lab so money is yes”.
 
But the hexagons! Those mean science! Also, the vertical glass treatment just makes it look dirt streaked, or worse, vertically blinded like a modern 80s home. What an absolutely abysmal failure.
 
I want to know the names of the Cambridge officials who approved this.

Public shame.
 
Longfellow said:
it’s a by right development
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.....and which Cantibridgian Bureaucrat chose that corner to be zoned as by-right???

These are the same people who get explosive over a 7 story "tower" that may cast a shadow 23 minutes per day over a sidewalk.

By-right was not ordained by God. Some human being did that for that busy corner.
 
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