Longwood Place (Simmons Residential Campus) | 305 Brookline Avenue | Longwood

Wow, another proposal!! Boston is killing it with all this new, massive, mixed use development. Between this, the Domino Sugar proposal, Allston Yards, the L Street Station development in South Boston, along with all the others under construction, the city continues to remake itself! All of this is incredible!
 
atlantaden said:
Wow, another proposal!! Boston is killing it with all this new, massive, mixed use development. Between this, the Domino Sugar proposal, Allston Yards, the L Street Station development in South Boston, along with all the others under construction, the city continues to remake itself! All of this is incredible!
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Was just thinking the same thing - Boston is on a roll and has been for quite a while now!
 
This is great, but I'd hate to lose the two stately brick buildings that flank the north end of their residential campus.
 
I kinda like it I think. I mean it's better than what's currently there and its better than the other side of the street which is walled off with a iron fence but it could have a better street wall design. Probably would need to wait and see on this one and hope for the best.
 
PDA Development Plan: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/2b1vcqo64qcs4y7taszkwet0xfsz3ilm

All the renderings are indeed concepts - I'm not sold on this approach, though. As JumboBuc said, make a streetwall, not just 4 superblocks in a row.

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Cool architecture, fits in well with Longwood, and another 300' building for the area is nothing to scoff at. While I agree a street wall would be good, the one that exists there now is pretty terrible so this will actually be a huge improvement over that:
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However, as mentioned above there's at least 1 historic building of some architectural merit and I hope they find a way to keep it. I guess that would be this one?
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1. I kinda like most of these individually, but I really wish that the development had a more cohesive design. There should be some lines that carry through from one building to the next.

2. nice to see that the fences are going away and that protected bike lanes are going in.

3. I feel like that plaza is too big for the number of people that will realistically be spending time there. It doesn't feel very enclosed, at least from this high angle.
 
This looks like aesthetically retarded aliens kidnapped an architecture firm.

It's replacing dull but dignified buildings. It's a bigger theme architecturally for Boston, which increasingly looks like a formerly dowdy but self-respecting widow who took up meth, started wearing Ed Hardy clothes and declared herself a "cougar 4 life." Boylston Street's, er, "funk" in the Fenway as Exhibit A.
 
Boston is being eaten alive by terribly scaled, suburban blah-chitecture just like this. That could be a rendering of Boston Landing, the Seaport, Kendall Sq., the Bayside Expo site, Assembly Row... the list goes on and on and on.
 
DZH22 said:
Cool architecture, fits in well with Longwood, and another 300' building for the area is nothing to scoff at. While I agree a street wall would be good, the one that exists there now is pretty terrible so this will actually be a huge improvement over that:
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I'm going to start a counter for how many times I've read that something is better than what's currently there on this board recently. I don't find it to be a good excuse on an architecture forum. This is a very substantial development/essentially a new neighborhood block - why settle for barely better-than-a-private-college-residential-campus? Or for projects around here that are replacing a parking lot/gas station/strip-mall, of course any kind of building is going to be better - I'm sure the architect would be flattered to hear their building has a little bit more design sense than a slab of asphalt, and that they should be praised for that. Sure, it's taller/denser, provides more tax revenue, and has a visual impact over the 3-4 story buildings there now, but the planning and design is really rough.
 
stefal said:
My first reaction is.... not good..
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Just massing models, fortunately, but the massing is definitely concerning. As others have mentioned, a street wall would be a great way to enhance that section of Brookline Ave., which is right now pretty much a pass through zone, rather than a place where people actually want to be. My other big objection is in the name. They named it after an actual location that is a few blocks away. That seems hugely dishonest.
 
Fixed it for them, with an extra "Building 2" appendage added on top of "Building 3" (nothing here is re-sized, just shifted around and rotated):

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If you want the open parklet space, put it on back on the quieter Pilgrim Rd. Brookline Ave is the more urban, busier one, so put a street wall there.
 
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