MGH Ragon Building | 55 Fruit Street | West End

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DZH22 said:
Is this a historic building? The bigger section looks like it's from the 1980's. Is just the small part on the left the historic architecture?
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The smaller portion of the professional building was designed to mimic the small brick building across the North Grove Street. The two brick buildings sort of "flanked" this main entrance. The small brick building is now hidden behind/ part of the Russell Museum building that is fronting Cambridge Street; so now no need to have the context of the professional building.
 
This? I don't understand how preeminent Boston institutions (MGH, Hancock, to name two) so disregard the Boston street. We need to grow, yes, hard choices have to be made, sure, but do we have to mimic Tampa? A challenging site, institutional needs, cost demands, make any solution problematic, granted. It ain't easy. But this? Shouldn't our proudest institutions be inspired to raise the creative standard and enhance our streetscape? We continue to generically modify our urban fabric. One is left to ask, Are there any adults in the room?
 
nm88 said:
This? I don't understand how preeminent Boston institutions (MGH, Hancock, to name two) so disregard the Boston street. We need to grow, yes, hard choices have to be made, sure, but do we have to mimic Tampa? A challenging site, institutional needs, cost demands, make any solution problematic, granted. It ain't easy. But this? Shouldn't our proudest institutions be inspired to raise the creative standard and enhance our streetscape? We continue to generically modify our urban fabric. One is left to ask, Are there any adults in the room?
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As noted in the presentation, the primary architectural concern here was the patient experience. Not sure that I think MGH should be putting anything higher than that.

And given that they don't really include street-level renders from the sidewalk (which they should), I'm not sure we know much about the streetscape yet.

And this looks nothing like either the JFK Building or the FBI building.

And Tampa General Hospital is located on an island and is accessible only by freeway ramps.
 
nm88 said:
This? I don't understand how preeminent Boston institutions (MGH, Hancock, to name two) so disregard the Boston street. We need to grow, yes, hard choices have to be made, sure, but do we have to mimic Tampa? A challenging site, institutional needs, cost demands, make any solution problematic, granted. It ain't easy. But this? Shouldn't our proudest institutions be inspired to raise the creative standard and enhance our streetscape? We continue to generically modify our urban fabric. One is left to ask, Are there any adults in the room?
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Agreed. Its not a random alcubond monstrocity. The facade isnt BAD. But the massing is very agressive for that location. People move to Boston and fall in love. But not with this.
 
meddlepal said:
I don't think it is historic. I just like it.
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This is one instance where I really don’t prioritize the beauty of architecture or the first floor pedestrian experience. This is MGH and the priority is beds and lab space. Square footage. To me , this is existential for human welfare and an exception case.
 
shmessy said:
This is one instance where I really don’t prioritize the beauty of architecture or the first floor pedestrian experience. This is MGH and the priority is beds and lab space. Square footage. To me , this is existential for human welfare and an exception case.
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I have to agree. MGH has NEVER had the street/pedestrian in mind for any of its buildings. The more they've crept closer to Cambridge Street, the scarcer buildable land has become for the services they need to provide, including parking. Hospitals are often seen architecturally as monuments to science and healing, as stand-alone structures (often on hill-tops for the healing air circulation need before A/C and filtration) that gave a feeling of security to the citizens who gazed upon the edifice, as well as a sense of place, like police and fire stations. Do I wish that side of Cambridge street had something for the public aside from the branch library? Sure. But given how it's developed over time, it has become purely a business zone for that edge of the West End.
 
shmessy said:
This is one instance where I really don’t prioritize the beauty of architecture or the first floor pedestrian experience. This is MGH and the priority is beds and lab space. Square footage. To me , this is existential for human welfare and an exception case.
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But having ground-floor retail in this kind of building is possible. And Cambridge Street isn't just any old street.
 
Blackbird said:
But having ground-floor retail in this kind of building is possible. And Cambridge Street isn't just any old street.
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And the Cambridge Street frontage here will have two retail entrances (presumably until one of them becomes the Blue Line), plus doors to bike parking and a pedestrianized plaza between the buildings. My only gripe with that is that the "External Retail" maybe should be split in 2-3 pieces, but this isn't meeting the street with a concrete retaining wall.

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{also, if I'm griping, what's the point of an internal arcade if you're still putting the Cancer Center lobby on the Blossom Street frontage? Actually, nothing fronts the arcade - the Welcome Center and Cafeteria are both off to the side, leaving the arcade as a soulless tunnel of wood panels)

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Blackbird said:
But having ground-floor retail in this kind of building is possible. And Cambridge Street isn't just any old street.
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It's not a building. It's a hospital.

99.9% of the time, I would agree with you. In this almost unique case, it is all about getting 'em in and getting 'em out. I want nothing to get in the way of the people having to be there.

There already is so much other ground floor retail on Cambridge Street and I encourage the flourishing of those surrounding this. Just looking at that area of Cambridge Street - - it is already one of the more dense and varied small ground floor retail shop areas in Boston. And compared to what this is replacing, I see no diminution of that (other than the one Finagle a Bagel shop).

The current Parkman Streetside is even more confidence building. There is absolutley ZERO there currently that any pedestrian/shopper/foodie will mourn or miss (massive garage on one block, bike stands and a small building entrance on the other).

There is nothing lost to the pedestrian/shopper and a whole lot more to gain for the community.
 
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HenryAlan said:
I'm really curious about the MBTA access. It only makes sense if the Red-Blue is definitely on the horizon. Is it?
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Last we saw it, Pollack was trying to kill it again after the Amazon HQ2 impetus went away. Next thing that happens at Charles Circle is the embankment rehab. The thought was that they could schedule RBX to dovetail with that, which is still in play.
 
Blackbird said:
What makes it so different than the Joslin Center?
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Great question. Does the Joslin get ambulance/emergency patients? Have operating rooms? If you're in a car accident are you taken to the Joslin? I don't know, just asking.

I would think a better apples to apples would be the BI Deaconess/the Brigham/BMC, etc.
 
shmessy said:
Great question. Does the Joslin get ambulance/emergency patients? Have operating rooms? If you're in a car accident are you taken to the Joslin? I don't know, just asking.

I would think a better apples to apples would be the BI Deaconess/the Brigham/BMC, etc.
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The answer to those questions is no, but is this MGH building going to need EMS access? I didn't think so based on what I've read but could be wrong. Not sure what having operating rooms on an upper floor has to do with ground level. For the record, there was an attempt at ground level retail in a BIDMC building which is very much an inpatient/emergency building, though it was pretty unsuccessful (https://www.google.com/maps/@42.337...4!1sRxdIQqUPQA839aKFtwKgsg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192). MGH is huge, just because it gets "emergency patients" in one part of the hospital doesn't mean every single building is going to have that purpose.
 
aycaramba said:
The answer to those questions is no, but is this MGH building going to need EMS access? I didn't think so based on what I've read but could be wrong. Not sure what having operating rooms on an upper floor has to do with ground level. For the record, there was an attempt at ground level retail in a BIDMC building which is very much an inpatient/emergency building, though it was pretty unsuccessful (https://www.google.com/maps/@42.337...4!1sRxdIQqUPQA839aKFtwKgsg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192). MGH is huge, just because it gets "emergency patients" in one part of the hospital doesn't mean every single building is going to have that purpose.
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There's actually a whole section on this in the presentation. They needed to hack on all these bridges to make the whole thing accessible for med flights.
 
shmessy said:
Great question. Does the Joslin get ambulance/emergency patients? Have operating rooms? If you're in a car accident are you taken to the Joslin? I don't know, just asking.
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This is the only thing I could think of to warrant an awful pedestrian experience on Cambridge, but if you look at the blueprint in post #91 it doesn't look like there will be ambulances pulling up to this building.

Equilibria said:
There's actually a whole section on this in the presentation. They needed to hack on all these bridges to make the whole thing accessible for med flights.
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On level 3, right? Doesn't have anything to do with the ground floor as far as I can tell.
 
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