The Hub on Causeway (née TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

The approach from 93 looks atrocious.

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Did this garbage win Design Commission approval?

Beton Brut said:
If they want cantilevers , someone should show them this. Love him or hate him, Rudolph understood proportions and the interplay of complex shapes.
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i actually don't totally hate that Hong Kong garbage, for Hong Kong.

i don't like it either.

btw, i happen to like a lot of Chicago's new buildings.

New York, save for the goofy stupid stuff.

Hate almost everything new in L.A.
 
dotdude78 said:
This screams "Gateway to Worcester" not gateway to Boston.
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The original render with the spire was much nicer aesthetically, this hurts my eyes. Should be labeled a "hate crime" against the City. so sad
 
We need people with good taste and balls at the BRA. They obviously understand the significance of this project but wont speak up. I would laugh in their face and tell them to come back when they're serious. This is SUCH a prominent parcel this isn't the place to screw around with experimental designs like this. Across the street from 45 stuart st. and 25 stories, knock yourself out, but here...... nooo. This is one of the more important "gateways" with the Zakim and the way you approach the city. 93 is another gateway but doesn't have the same "over the river" and into Boston weight that this parcel does. Your already in Boston on 93 and the pike and those are significant as well, but this is a literal entrance to the city and at the other end of a bridge that is the pride of the city. You don't build a beautiful bridge like that, with a park, and then surround it with a landfill. They had the chance to make this an even better post card than it is but instead opted to cheap out and destroy the area for a couple bux or whatever the motivation is.

People like that have no place designing anything here and the BRA has no place allowing this. You have to understand the gravity of what your doing. Long after these people are dead this will still be standing here. You give it your best effort and take pride in your work, you don't try to make as much money as you can squander out of people then bail. If I did this I wouldn't be able to enjoy any of the money I made knowing I ruined a beautiful part of the city with a huge amount of potential. Isn't one of the points of being an architect is to leave behind great works that you created that benefit the people around it and are appreciated long after your gone? I didnt know the purpose now is just to use your abilities to make as much money as you can while delivering something that will "function". It should be to create great works that have form and function together to create something great.

Im sure pretty much anybody could generally make something that will "work", but then you don't need architects. They're using their abilities in a nefarious way now because they have the skills to know how to create something that will maximize profit with minimal material costs and labor. Yea you could put a spire on it that gives us one of our only spires on the whole skyline and moves away from the flat roof.... but thats money used on aesthetics that could go into somebody's pocket. Im glad to see that many people all around the city are trying really hard these days, but I guess were still not immune to this.
 
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dotdude78 said:
This screams "Gateway to Worcester" not gateway to Boston.
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Ridiculous. Worcester would kill for something that tall and that good. It's twice the height of anything in Worcester and much better designed (yea, Worcester's three "towers" aren't exactly lookers). I liked the old design better, fwiw. I don't hate this one.
 
Does the BCDC have the power to block a project? Or does the BCDC only advise the decision makers.

I would love to see them continue to block this so that tenants sign on to One Congress instead.
 
SlothofDespond said:
Ridiculous. Worcester would kill for something that tall and that good. It's twice the height of anything in Worcester and much better designed (yea, Worcester's three "towers" aren't exactly lookers). I liked the old design better, fwiw. I don't hate this one.
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I think the majority of people on here understood what I meant...
 
That sucks though if Worcester would kill for garbage mediocrity because they have been neglected for so long. I used to live out there and Im not sure they would. For the base yea, but they dont really care about skyscraprs because they dont really matter. They dont have the same problems as Boston and skyscrapers arent going to fix the problems they do have- unless it means Amazon is moving there or some other big company. They want the problems fixed and businesses to move out there and fill in the streetscape before they worry about how their skyline looks.

Worcester brings up an interesting debate about whether it is better to separate your financial center from your capital city or not. Maybe if centrally located Worcester was the capital the people who ear mark money- who would live there, would want much more funding to make the city a better place to live for their families. That may have came with some governmental concrete high rises to hold employees. Maybe today it would have been at the point where the govt employees and their families would want to live in a glass condo building. Then maybe more companies would have wanted to locate there to tap into the college talent pool and govt official family member pool. Well never know, but Worcester and Springfield are completely forgotten about and neglected.
 
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Worcester brings up an interesting debate about whether it is better to separate your financial center from your capital city or not. Maybe if centrally located Worcester was the capital the people who ear mark money- who would live there, would want much more funding to make the city a better place to live for their families. That may have came with some governmental concrete high rises to hold employees. Maybe today it would have been at the point where the govt employees and their families would want to live in a glass condo building. Then maybe more companies would have wanted to locate there to tap into the college talent pool and govt official family member pool. Well never know, but Worcester and Springfield are completely forgotten about and neglected.
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We should probably continue this in the Worcester thread... the short answer is a question, how has that worked out for Albany?

Worcester was a thriving city that was very independent of Boston up through the 1950's then manufacturing started to die out in the Northeast and shift to lower cost parts of the country or entirely out of the country. You can tell the city was its own local powerhouse at one point in time just based on the architecture and institutions that were located in the older parts of the city.... there was money and power there just not in the commercial services sector which is what the mid and late 20th century were dominated by.

Also Worcester is in pretty good shape these days. It's not Boston and it never will be Boston but it's light years ahead of Springfield on the economic development front. Neglected perhaps by the state which focuses too much attention on its crown jewel city and suburbs, but still very much a functioning and growing city.
 
I actually like the residential tower a lot. But the office tower is repulsive.
 
That side of the resi isnt bad but the other side with the stupid cutout with the metal framing in the missing piece and the stilts at the bottom are pretty dumb. Then the 50 different types of glass doesnt help either. Luckily it looks decent from the most visible side.
 
stick n move said:
That side of the resi isnt bad but the other side with the stupid cutout with the metal framing in the missing piece and the stilts at the bottom are pretty dumb. Then the 50 different types of glass doesnt help either. Luckily it looks decent from the most visible side.
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isn't that the private sky club thing?
 
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The only thing missing from the latest office tower rendering is the "shit box" sign illuminated on all 4 sides of the top.
 
I swung by my office today, and noticed them taking down the crane that was used to construct the podium for the office tower. It could mean that 1) they don't believe phase III will kick off anytime soon, or 2) they are installing the crane at new location on site, similar to what they did for the residential tower. Hopefully the former - the design needs a reboot.
 
They got itchy ass with this project. Cant pick something and stick with it. They should have stopped at the office tower with the spire and worked on the resi if anything. This site has changed like 50 times and all but 1 design were absolute garbage. This newest version is better than the black roof with the flat top with solar panels that was ass trash. Pretty much all of the glass ones before that were ungodly bad too. Then out of nowhere they got it right, but they still had itchy ass n couldnt sit still. Now its just a jumbled mess, but its not the worst one yet. Still very bad though.
 
stick n move said:
This site has changed like 50 times and all but 1 design were absolute garbage.
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This about says it all. We're really lucky they appear to have struck gold on the podium. Is it the same architects? Is the podium their equivalent of monkeys typing Shakespeare?
 
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