Tufts Development Projects

TomOfBoston said:
" From the render it looks like it’s going on the parking lots fronting Boston Ave behind Hill / Hillside / Hallowell, " Looking at Google Maps that is a very narrow strip of land.
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I am assuming that it will take between half and all the width of the parking lot (it could connect to the existing dorm at its protruding common rooms)

At that rate, the site is deeper than it would need to be for your basic “Hampton Inn” (deep double occupancy rooms with bathrooms on a single long hallway )

I am intrigued by the latest announcement that describes a “plublic plaza” that could hypothetically include both an over wide sidewalk all the way past the garagecc c and utilizes building, and still have space for outdoor dining/seating (as shown in the original render upthread)
 
I went to the plaza on top of library the other night to check out the view, and both the space and view have been completely ruined. They had giant glass panels enclosing the entire plaza, as if we were 50 floors up and not just 1. It made the area feel really claustrophobic, but even worse the glass was poor and ruined the view with its glare.

Does anybody know why they did this, and if it's supposed to be permanent? Is this some sort of overreaction to an isolated incident? I'm not exaggerating when I say that the plaza and view are wrecked in their current state.
 
DZH22 said:
I went to the plaza on top of library the other night to check out the view, and both the space and view have been completely ruined. They had giant glass panels enclosing the entire plaza, as if we were 50 floors up and not just 1. It made the area feel really claustrophobic, but even worse the glass was poor and ruined the view with its glare.

Does anybody know why they did this, and if it's supposed to be permanent? Is this some sort of overreaction to an isolated incident? I'm not exaggerating when I say that the plaza and view are wrecked in their current state.
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I wonder if the glass was an attempt at wind reduction? Seems pretty drastic though.
 
Java King said:
I wonder if the glass was an attempt at wind reduction? Seems pretty drastic though.
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I had the same thought. They do that a lot in Northern Europe to make outdoor spaces usable for more of the year. Maybe a COVID usage response?
 
DZH22 said:
I went to the plaza on top of library the other night to check out the view, and both the space and view have been completely ruined. They had giant glass panels enclosing the entire plaza, as if we were 50 floors up and not just 1. It made the area feel really claustrophobic, but even worse the glass was poor and ruined the view with its glare.

Does anybody know why they did this, and if it's supposed to be permanent? Is this some sort of overreaction to an isolated incident? I'm not exaggerating when I say that the plaza and view are wrecked in their current state.
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Did you take a picture?
 
bdurden said:
Did you take a picture?
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It was night and all I had was my crappy cellphone. The issue now is that I'm kind of dissuaded to go back at all. It's a place I enjoy stopping by from time to time, but not if the view (especially with the glare at night) is going to be permanently ruined. One of these days I can grab a pic, but hopefully somebody here beats me to it because it's not exactly a priority and it's out of my way to begin with.
 
DZH22 said:
It was night and all I had was my crappy cellphone. The issue now is that I'm kind of dissuaded to go back at all. It's a place I enjoy stopping by from time to time, but not if the view (especially with the glare at night) is going to be permanently ruined. One of these days I can grab a pic, but hopefully somebody here beats me to it because it's not exactly a priority and it's out of my way to begin with.
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Are you talking about the roof of the library?
 
SMCYB said:
Are you talking about the roof of the library?
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Yes, it was an open-air plaza up until extremely recently. Now it's surrounded by glass panels that must be at least 10' tall.
 
Took a stroll through the Tufts campus for the first time in a while. Apparently they are doing a full renovation/rehab/expansion of Eaton Hall on the main green. A bit surprising that it's getting quite the modern treatment on a classical styled building fronting the green, but I am intrigued.

My photo from this morning (7/23):
tetn-1-1.jpg


From BldUp:
https://www.bldup.com/projects/tufts-eaton-hall-renovation
eaton_hall.png


Tufts capital projects site:

Eaton Hall | Capital Projects

capitalprojects.tufts.edu capitalprojects.tufts.edu
 
Yea that actually is a good example of how to meld old and new together. Looks great.
 
Minority (?) opinion - gross. It's a glass box glued on to a classic structure. They couldn't even be bothered to intersperse some columns between the fishtank glass to match the rest of the design? Tried to mimic the roofline instead of a giant circle?

Did the architect even look at the original, or just cut and paste in MS paint?
1690292418054.png


Look - I modernized Trinity Church!
1690293961825.png
 
^ That “original” facade of Eaton won’t be affected by this project.

Eaton is a bit strange in that the historic front facade with the columns and the marble and the stairs doesn’t face the Academic Quad and is barely ever used (if used at all) in the building’s current configuration. It’s kind of like Symphony Hall, where the original front entrance ended up finding itself on the “wrong” side of the building as the area developed around it. In the case of Eaton, the layout of the Hill changed when the much bigger current library building replaced Eaton as the campus library back in the 1960s.

The totally nondescript side entrance that this project is rebuilding is the one that functions as Eaton’s main entrance. That entrance faces the Academic Quad and is currently just a boring door on a blank featureless brick wall. Behind it and just to the right is the University’s biggest and grandest multi-story computer lab. Updating that side Eaton entrance with a modern spin fits very well with how that building plays on Tufts’ campus.
 
does anyone know what the fate of the former Hillside store is at the corner of Boston Avenue and Winthrop Street? That is a corner where Tufts has long sought to promote retail that is useful to the Tufts community such as pizza, coffee, copying, pastries, and laundry

Hillside was an old school man-behind-counter setup and I could never figure out what their target clientele was

I always thought Economy Hardware which serves Cambridge and Brookline so well should have a location there. Or a small Tags.
 
Vagabond said:
Minority (?) opinion - gross. It's a glass box glued on to a classic structure. They couldn't even be bothered to intersperse some columns between the fishtank glass to match the rest of the design? Tried to mimic the roofline instead of a giant circle?

Did the architect even look at the original, or just cut and paste in MS paint?
View attachment 40808

Look - I modernized Trinity Church!
View attachment 40809
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I think the main issue is that the glass box is so large in comparison to the wings of the building. They just need to tone it down a bit — something a bit more restrained and classical would work well.
 
What's the estimated cost to do this? It compromises the integrity of the original architecture, of course, so if you need more light within why not focus on the roof?
 
bdurden said:
Bowdoin College has a good example of mixing a historic campus building with a modern glass expansion:

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Thanks for sharing! That's an awesome article and project - lowered the basement 4 feet, underground expansion, totally separate entrance of bronze and glass, and geothermal HVAC - all without touching the character of the exterior or core structure. $$$$ Edit - found some more entrance construction pictures: https://www.azahner.com/works/bowdoin-college-museum-of-art
 
bdurden said:
Bowdoin College has a good example of mixing a historic campus building with a modern glass expansion:

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Yes, that is an excellent addition to the existing historic structure. Glass is usually best for doing this. But the Tufts remodel is different. It is "blasting a hole" in the middle of the building. And speaking of "blasting holes" into older and notable architecture (and Maine), Portland's 1981 addition to its museum of art was designed by Henry Cobb of the venerable I.M. Pei. It was featured on a 1982 cover of Arch Record. They are now talking about another addition, or one next to and through the 1981 Cobb one and will "blast" a giant hole into its facade to connect the back for ingress purposes which then compromises its design integrity from the front, or in the way the Eton Hall project is doing, in my opinion. That's somewhat bad or lazy arch.
 
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