Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

CSTH said:
And for the record, this is what dense, contemporary, people-oriented waterfront development looks like
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Yep, and here's what that city was planning to do with a clean-sheet development equivalent to the Seaport.

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Look familiar? I could include a picture of the North End to illustrate your prior point. Europe doesn't have a monopoly on charming, gentrified urban density. Old neighborhoods do.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

CSTH said:
And for the record, this is what dense, contemporary, people-oriented waterfront development looks like
Click to expand...

That building in the bottom center makes 1 Marina Park Drive look like the Chrysler Building.
 
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Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Why the fuck are you quoting an image that just took me 30 seconds to load. It is fucking 6000x4000.

Delete the image, quote the text. And the OP should have resized it. We just had a sticky about this.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

I didn't even look because my computer is fast as fuck. That shit doesn't affect me in any way so I didn't even pay attention to how many pixels it was, but ill delete it for the folks it does.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

fattony said:
Thank you for positing this. Folks, this is what an office park looks like.
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New England Executive Park is no longer. It is now known as "The District" and has been rezoned as a Planned Development District (which basically means that individual uses in a planned development district are approved by the planning board, instead of being individually rezoned for specific use by Town Meeting). Expect its use to become more diverse and for a lot of infill over the next few years. There is currently a bit of a tiff between Town Meeting and the Building Inspector, the Planning Board, and the Zoning Board of Appeal over the approval of a hotel there (Town Meeting was suing the other parties, but it was dropped when the Town decided it didn't want to pay the legal costs).
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Equilibria said:
Yep, and here's what that city was planning to do with a clean-sheet development equivalent to the SeaporR

Look familiar? I could include a picture of the North End to illustrate your prior point. Europe doesn't have a monopoly on charming, gentrified urban density. Old neighborhoods do.
Click to expand...

I posted the big photo so we could all see both the large scale pattern and also the small scale texture. Apologies to those of you who access the forum using a Gameboy.

Everything in the foreground of the picture I posted is less than 20 years old.

It's not about charming and gentrified, it's about human scale that's conducive to spontaneous face to face interaction and a sense or neighborhood proprietorship among the inhabitants / users.

And it's not about old or Europe. My theory is that the character of development in a city reflects the power structure in the authority that controls that development. If power is democratic and accountable to a diverse but mature society of citizens, you get a people scaled district. If it's bureaucratic and accountable to a single abstract metric - almost always financial - you get an abstract pseudo-city with no soul.

Eg the example you posted is an Olympic proposal right across the water from the neighborhood I posted. I claim that the difference in the character of the two districts reflects the difference in power relations between the IOC (really the broader Olympic corporate-media-construction ecosystem) and the Hamburg city council /polity. I'll let you decide which is more like the BRA and massport.

There's a cliche in the management world that the architecture of a company's product offerings reflects its organizational chart (e.g why are googles products all disconnected islands of innovation?). I'm suggesting that an analogous phenomenon obtains in urban development - the character of a district recapitulates the power structure in the authority - and ultimately in the society - that builds it
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

CSTH said:
I posted the big photo so we could all see both the large scale pattern and also the small scale texture. Apologies to those of you who access the forum using a Gameboy.
Click to expand...

I access the forum on fast computers with ~22-24" monitors, and it's still an obnoxiously large picture.
 
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Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

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Been down to the Seaport the past couple weekends for various events. Every time I'm in the area there's something new going up, but it finally feels like the vibrant urban endpoint is in sight. Parcels B and C have made a fantastic street wall on Northern Avenue, and the Yotel is helping contain Seaport Blvd*. Places are being created everywhere you look.

"The board is set; the pieces are moving."

*Corrected from Congress Street
 
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Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

34f34f said:
Yotel is helping contain Congress Street.
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Was just there this afternoon and felt the same. With walls finally enclosed on the Yotel, an effect is felt that I'd never previously felt in the seaport - like this wasn't just an area of vast, sprawling vacancy...

I think you meant Seaport Blvd, regarding the sense of streetwall, though? Congress is 1 over from the Yotel.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

bigpicture7 said:
I think you meant Seaport Blvd, regarding the sense of streetwall, though? Congress is 1 over from the Yotel.
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Yes, thanks for pointing it out! I corrected my original post.

And I'm glad you had the same experience. By this time next year, once shops start opening up and people start moving in, this will be a completely different Seaport.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Still cant believe parcel E has been complete radio silence from day 1. Not a failed proposal, not an article, render, rumor, nothing. All there is is the masterplan. I wonder whats going on here. Does anybody know anything about this?
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

On fanpierboston.com I found a render with up to date buildings of fan pier and the top secret parcel E seems to be slightly modified from previous versions. The harbor shore drive parcel also has a new shape that has not been seen before. Could this be an insight into whats to come? It looks very good. This render has been floating around for a while but always with placeholders. I may have stumbled upon a goldmine. If that is the final build out of fan pier that is a great ending compared to the very lonely very ugly 1 marina park dr start. Obviously the render is missing 1 seaport sq, 121 seaport, 101 seaport, pier 4 etc... which all add a great diversity of shapes and colors.

fan-pier-aerial-2016-march-1280x720.jpg
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport




Thank god we did not get this. There was honestly a time around 10 years ago where if the economy hadnt tanked this could have been an uncomfortably real possibility to be built. Everything happens for a reason right?
 
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