Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

JeffDowntown said:
stick n move said:
Something like this for example, 30 Park place in NYC is only a couple years old:



Imo South Station would be the best spot. Crappy quality render, but you get the point. I think the Seaport would greatly benefit from a limestone tower on one of the few spots left on Seaport Blvd, and as shown here I think consideration for a limestone tower at South Station would be incredible.

Would it be possible for the BRA/BPDA to require something like this from a developer to enhance the urban fabric of the city in a specific way?
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I think the challenge you are facing in the limestone facade proposal is cost.

For Liberty Mutual, that building was bespoke construction of a headquarters complex they fully expect to occupy for decades. The corporate branding and long term maintenance calculations are something they could factor into the cost of the facade, and come away with an ROI.

For a spec developer in the Seaport, who intends on flipping the building, this calculation is never going to work.
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I agree but the tower being built on top of a transit hub in a great location should fetch a huge premium. I think in certain situations, like building a tower on top of one of the most iconic landmark buildings in the entire city, you need to take a lot of consideration towards materials. I dont think the tobasco glass tower is the most appropriate thing to plop on top of a limestone clad historical landmark, that youll have to look at... forever. I think certain situations really need to be approached different, like here where its our largest transit hub, an iconic historical structure, and in a very prominent location.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

stick n move said:
I don't think the Tabasco glass tower is the most appropriate thing to plop on top of a limestone clad historical landmark, that you'll have to look at... forever.
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I agree, every proposal from Hines has been underwhelming. With that said, I believe South Station is built of the same New England granite as the BPL (McKim & Johnson buildings).
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Gotcha, still I think the facade should be tailored towards the South Station cladding. Many cities are building these towers these days where you can really add some wonderful variance in facade materials vs just building every single tower exclusively in blue glass. Boston more so than any other old city was barely touched by art deco, then slammed with brutalism, so I think we need something like this more than any other old city.

Boston is somewhere you would “expect” to have a couple prominent old limestone towers downtown. We do have the absolutely phenominal Custom House tower, but no prominent limestone office towers that all other old cities in the country have. Its actually surprising and unfortunate that an old city of Bostons caliber does not. Hell even Providence RI has a limestone tower as one of its most dominant towers on the skyline. Boston is wonderful, but theres a few things that would make it much better, this being one example.

The seaport specifically in the Seaport blvd area would also greatly benefit from this. Liberty Mutual is not clad in limestone, rather it is limestone infused precast panels which give an amazing and authentic look, but without the insane costs associated with cladding in solid limestone. 30 park in nyc and the many other towers of similar construction around the country like Chicago, Philly...etc are doing the same with phenominal results.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

What I hear in your call for "proper stone construction" is a need for permanence and gravitas in architecture, feelings that transcend superficial conversations about styles; I can't disagree with the sentiment.

(Of interest, you mention Brutalism/Hard Modernism in your post -- this approach was a legitimate response to the "flimsy" glass facades of the International Style.)

So what the Seaport needs is a sense of permanence, and from that will grow a sense of place. The only truly "permanent" looking buildings are the Court House and the WTC office buildings and hotel, all of them clad in brick.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Yuck. We should push for great architecture. But, i'll keep the glass Tobasco bottle glass over marble. The tower is going to look good. And it's only 8' shorter than MT. Still, i don't see why we couldn't get a nice, extremely tall Art Deco bldg Downtown over by Govt Center. Hope we do. With this Mayor great things can happen, and often do.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

stick n move said:
Gotcha, still I think the facade should be tailored towards the South Station cladding. Many cities are building these towers these days where you can really add some wonderful variance in facade materials vs just building every single tower exclusively in blue glass. Boston more so than any other old city was barely touched by art deco, then slammed with brutalism, so I think we need something like this more than any other old city.

Boston is somewhere you would “expect” to have a couple prominent old limestone towers downtown. We do have the absolutely phenominal Custom House tower, but no prominent limestone office towers that all other old cities in the country have. Its actually surprising and unfortunate that an old city of Bostons caliber does not. Hell even Providence RI has a limestone tower as one of its most dominant towers on the skyline. Boston is wonderful, but theres a few things that would make it much better, this being one example.

The seaport specifically in the Seaport blvd area would also greatly benefit from this. Liberty Mutual is not clad in limestone, rather it is limestone infused precast panels which give an amazing and authentic look, but without the insane costs associated with cladding in solid limestone. 30 park in nyc and the many other towers of similar construction around the country like Chicago, Philly...etc are doing the same with phenominal results.
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Liberty Mutual is actually limestone veneer panel -- so the facing material is real limestone, just rather thin. And the limestone is from the same quarry in Indiana that was the source for the original building. It did cost a lot of money.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

We've had this discussion before and I'm in agreement with Beton Brut, unsurprisingly. To me there are authenticity issues with putting a building of that style here just because Boston doesn't have them where one would "expect". You can't fake history, and we don't have that history. You CAN have some values, like maximizing some sense of quality, or permanence, or even "heft", and you can set designers loose to pursue those values. But it's pretty weird to try and backfill for eras that passed us by.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

cadetcarl said:
You can't fake history
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1024px-Frauenkirche-dresden.jpg


Looks good to me. Vintage 2005.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

cadetcarl said:
We've had this discussion before and I'm in agreement with Beton Brut, unsurprisingly. To me there are authenticity issues with putting a building of that style here just because Boston doesn't have them where one would "expect". You can't fake history, and we don't have that history. You CAN have some values, like maximizing some sense of quality, or permanence, or even "heft", and you can set designers loose to pursue those values. But it's pretty weird to try and backfill for eras that passed us by.
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Thats not what is going on though. They are not 30s art deco clones whatsoever. The whole point though is that limestone was once a very popular material, then over time all different kinds of things have been tried, now were at a point where architects can really use whatever they want, so your seeing limestone cladding become popular again. Thats the entire point is that it was popular during an era that essentially missed us, now the material is popular again, so hopefully we dont get missed again. This is its own new era... that luckily delivered Liberty Mutual, but lets not get missed a 2nd time. The point of mastering these different architectural styles though is to be able to use them... not to pass them by. Thats why the entire city of Washington D.C. exists, you master the styles then can build them forever. Obelisks are from ancient egypt... that means no Washington monument or Bunker hill. F that haha. The hancock is a 70s era canted rectangular glass box. 7 wtc is a 2010s era canted rectangular glass box...

Quincy Market, the Bunker Hill monument...etc are actual “history fakes” that you describe, and those are some of our greatest assets. Im very glad we built them. These new towers have their own style though they dont look like Rockefeller ctr, or the ESB at all. Theyre just limestone clad towers, which we dont have many of, so it would be nice to have a couple on the skyline and in the Seaport... thats all.
 
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Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

jass said:
Looks good to me. Vintage 2005.
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Frauenkirche isn't a fake -- it's a well-executed reconstruction of an 18th Century building that was destroyed by the Allied bombing of Dresden. It's a beautiful corollary to Coventry Cathedral.

And styles are really tricky with me. I have a strong distaste for 21st Century rehashes of Federal Style buildings, like Stern's Spangler Center at HBS. But I don't mind rebooted Art Deco like Kevin Roche's BofA tower in Atlanta. (This may have everything to do with that fact that we "weren't done" with Art Deco when the Great Depression killed off its opulence).
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Photo by yours truly taken in 2013--witness the darker stones throughout, charred by the firebombing but original.

DSC04897.jpg
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

But is it up to code?
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Eleven%20on%20the%20River%20condo%20tower.jpg

mw-eleven-rendering-Minneapolis.jpg

Eleven-Top-Floors.jpg




Minneapolis is getting their own tower. I dont think there is a name yet, but its not an art deco knock off. This looks like 30 park and not like an old art deco tower. There isnt any emphasis on vertical lines like art deco towers did or black floor plates and these new towers all seem to have bump out windows.

Looks like this - 5 yrs old
30-Park-Place-top-from-southwest.jpg


Distinctly different than this


Theyve come up with a new style and I think its important to not limit ourselves to glass or steel only. “Stone” can be used without being a fake.


I just hope we dont miss out on this wave of masonry towers either.

Anyways kind of goin off track.
 
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Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Globe: Massport is unloading another piece of its waterfront portfolio

Jon Chesto said:
The Massachusetts Port Authority is looking to unload another prime piece of its South Boston waterfront portfolio.

Massport on Friday began circulating a promotional brochure within Boston’s commercial real estate industry to hype a 1.1-acre parcel, now used as a parking lot, that will hit the market soon. As is typical for the port authority, it’s technically selling the development rights, not the land itself. The property, known as “Parcel H,” would be available through a long-term ground lease.

The parcel on Congress Street, behind John Hancock’s previous glass-enclosed home and next to the Silver Line Way MBTA stop, could accommodate up to 400,000 square feet of mixed-use development, with the potential to increase that amount to 600,000 if the developer also opts to procure an acre-plus of air rights over the Silver Line right-of-way.
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Whatever goes here should absolutely be built over the Silver Line ROW, like the Hancock building next door. Also, this project should:
  • Fund T-under-D (at least partially) with whatever community development funds are required
  • Integrate a new "Silver Line Way" stop into the ground floor of the new building
  • Rename the "Silver Line Way" stop to "Harborside"
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

For us without the globe which parcel is this?
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

^^^
Roof deck would be awesome!
 
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