Photo of the Day, Boston Style: Part XVI (2022)

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Charlie_mta said:
I do too. The left one reminds me of the Alcott, and the right one the Sudbury, two of my favorites.
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IMO, the Broad Institute expansion (the one on the left) is a case study in how to do a great job integrating the mechanical penthouse on a lab building in a city context.

Note that the architects extended the glass portion of the facade (on the right side of the building) all the way to the top of the penthouse. That is entirely aesthetic - there are mechanicals behind there, not some penthouse conference room or office suite. It beautifully breaks up the mass of the penthouse and makes the building overall seem less monolithic (and as though the right side of the building might not even be a lab). And secondly, they give an interesting shape to the mech screen on the non-glass portion, with substantial facade depth (facilitated both by the waviness, and the multiple layers of screen). The whole thing can be seen from above here.

With all the lab buildings going up in urban areas in/around Boston, it's frankly ridiculous that other developers aren't contributing this level of effort to the tops of their building. Some designers have shown that they know how to do it.
 
bigpicture7 said:
With all the lab buildings going up in urban areas in/around Boston, it's frankly ridiculous that other developers aren't contributing this level of effort to the tops of their building. Some designers have shown that they know how to do it.
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This plus Blackfan in Longwood prove that labs can approach or exceed 300'. It blows my mind that we still approve 4-6 story massive landscrapers when we know that 12-18 story labs are possible. Also saddens me that we can't even hit 200' right next to South Station and nobody stood up and screamed "You're wasting one of the city's prime parcels!!!" The city(s) should be pushing for 250'+ labs and max height residentials everywhere they possibly can, in the areas where it makes sense to do so.
 
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