The Kensington | 665 Washington Street | Downtown

Re: Residences at Kensington

The above comments capture pretty well the disappointment associated with a large majority of projects pushed forward by the Kairos Shen-era BRA.

As commented above, no one suggests that this is a location for any sort of signature tower, and many commenters on this board are well aware of the financial constraints associated with a large downtown development in a still-shaky economy. It's OK for this to be a "background building" and it's serviceable from seven blocks away.

That said, the streetscape is terrible. It's not just that the panels don't offer any three-dimensionality ... they don't even line up well, and up close they look like they've been scavanged from an abandoned K-Mart. While thought seems to have gone into accomodating the incredibly ugly parking garage and an obtrusive loading dock, it doesn't appear that two minutes have been spent considering pedestrian experience on what was once (and the City insists will be again) Boston's most significant downtown shopping artery.

I'd contend that significant improvements could have been possible here with very modest additional investment. The question is, why doesn't the BRA, which has its fingers deep in every major development project, and which boasts of the "red pen" it brings to developers' design choices, ever seem to give a whit about street level interaction? In the '60s they gave us City Hall, with a brick wall along Congress Street and a desolate brick plaza; in the '70s they gave us concrete bunkers as at the 57/Radisson/Revere; in the '80s they ok'ed a car-port facing the Common at the Four Seasons; the '90s saw a thumbs-up to projects like One Charles, with six street deadening facades at ground level, dominated by garage doors, service entrances, ventilation grates and another massive carport; the '00s brought us gems like the bizarre retail configuration of the Hotel Commonwealth; and the '10s have heralded the return of above-ground garages (here, Wirth, former Dainty Dot) and service entrances on major thoroughfares, cloaked in precast panels that make the materials of their prior-era duds (like the Transportation or Tip O'Neill buildings) look like the Taj Mahal.

This is progress? Where's the red pen? Where are the design professionals? Doesn't our Planning Director, with his MIT Architecture degree, ever look at this stuff? Can he walk by these buildings without cringing?
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

In many schools of architecture they do not talk about street level interaction. Thats probably the problem.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

It's one thing to be stubby, but stubby and bad design is lethal.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

StillintheHood - welcome to the forum. I too have no idea what is going on at the BRA. There is a design review under article 80 for any significant project constructed in Boston and also a boston civic design commission, but good lord, I'm trying to figure out what they are doing these days.

One possible explanation often advanced and is unique to Boston - the BRA handles both economic development and planning. I believe the vast majority of cities have separate departments for each function. Perhaps economic development goals eclipse planning and design review at the BRA.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

I don't necessarily disagree, commuter guy, but I think you give the BRA too much credit.

It's not only a question of economic development vs. planning/aesthetics - recall that Kairos Shen proactively nixed the Dainty Dot design that would have preserved the Dainty Dot's facade because it was "too iconic."

Here was the BRA going above and beyond any economic pressures/incentives to tell a developer, "We understand you think you can profit off of a decent design and would like to build it. We are here to tell you: Build ugly."

IMO, this is inexcusable.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

All I can say is why can't we have something like this:

buchtjd_1313781773_loringpark.jpg


or this:

1401market2011.jpg


I really wish the next time Kairos Shen is discussing about a development that someone holds a picture of a quality-designed development and just stare at him.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

All I can say is why can't we have something like this:

because buildings should be designed for the specific plot they sit on. You can not just take some building you like from some other city and plop it where you want.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

There's no reason the "specific plots" available in Boston would all lend themselves to terrible architecture. You could definitely build stuff analogous to the above here.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

All I can say is why can't we have something like this:

buchtjd_1313781773_loringpark.jpg


or this:

1401market2011.jpg


I really wish the next time Kairos Shen is discussing about a development that someone holds a picture of a quality-designed development and just stare at him.

As a humanoid who loves cities, I like the second example and hate the first.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

because buildings should be designed for the specific plot they sit on. You can not just take some building you like from some other city and plop it where you want.

Care to explain? All three developments are providing luxury residential units. Granted the other two proposal occupy a larger plot, however, they could definitely occupy the same plot size as Kensington.
 
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Re: Residences at Kensington

120 Kingston is okay IMO. It only got rap because the first proposal was infinitely better.

Let's face it, 120 Kingston, were it proposed today with its current design for a vacant lot, requiring no demolition of historic architecture, would be pretty well-received on this forum.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

If you put just about anything modern right next to a red stone H.H. Richardson building, it's going to look bad.

Not at all true. Many contemporary architects could blow the socks (spats?) off the Richardson. And that's not meant as a put-down of it.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

It is a put down ... and its not true. He is a great because most people can't (still cant) design a building like he could. Its an interesting opinion that I just cannot support. Good design is always good design.

cca
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Write this down: Most of what truly matters and deserves to be repeated in the pantheon of Modern Architecture (Organic, Brutalist, Expressionist, etc) flows from the pen of H.H. Richardson.

All I can say is why can't we have (my emphasis) something like this...

Not this but something like this...

because buildings should be designed for the specific plot they sit on.

A valid point...

You can not just take some building you like from some other city and plop it where you want.

Of course not, but you can adapt design cues from a successful scheme to a different site and purpose. I think that's what Kent is suggesting here.

What's being constructed on the Kensington site isn't architecture; it's an inhabitable massing-model.
 
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Re: Residences at Kensington

Doesn't our Planning Director, with his MIT Architecture degree, ever look at this stuff? Can he walk by these buildings without cringing?

I had an interesting experience my towards the end of my first year at the BAC. We toured a firm that had a few juniors in the B-Arch program at MIT and we were thoroughly unimpressed with their knowledge when we were chatting with them. Considering my group was from an open-admissions school with only one year under our belt and had seemingly superior understanding of design than people from MIT was eye-opening to me.

As for "why can't we have nicer things" here's one of my favorites, I forget what project this is/was. Usually balconies look awful on towers, I love what they did here:
18495_2_02-RTKL-LXM_zpsfe420912.jpg

18495_1_01-RTKL-LXM-main_zpsf9656b03.jpg
 

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