Why does the rear of the building (the part that faces the highway ) have those things that look like large doors and the rail coming out of the top, right in the middle?
Vent building 8
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Brattle Loop
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This is a guess, but maybe for moving/installing equipment.
Vent Building 7 has something similar (not my photo, unfortunately):
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RandomWalk
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That is a nice photo of Vent Building 7. The interplay of light, shadow and geometry is striking.
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My guess is that there is a very big fan behind that door that they want to be able to swap out “whole” & quickly at the end of its service life, and that you’ll find a similar door in a similar place on most or all built at the same time.
Specifically, thats a craneway known as a "monorail door." Monorail in this case is a specific type of overhead crane - most industrial overhead cranes, bridge and girder, facilitate full translational movement in 2 dimensions, X and Y with the hoist lift representing Z. Monorail cranes don't have that XY freedom - they're only useful for lifting in the vertical axis along it's track, but they work along the same basic principles as a transit monorail, complete with switches, crossovers and turntables. A major benefit is that the track can curve, and can support multiple trolleys. They're not the strongest, but ideal for mid-weight repetitive motions, like moving something along an assembly line.
Here I would agree that it's definitely for equipment replacement and repair - I would bet that rail runs above each major replaceable item / access point to allow an integrated hoist to lift and stage them to/from a location where a road mobile crane/truck can reach.
Here I would agree that it's definitely for equipment replacement and repair - I would bet that rail runs above each major replaceable item / access point to allow an integrated hoist to lift and stage them to/from a location where a road mobile crane/truck can reach.
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MjolnirMan
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While there's an active thread about vent building design, can I ask a related question that I assume has the mundane answer "it was moderately cheaper to do it this way":
Why was virtually no effort made, with the exception of CAT Vent Tower 6, to integrate the design of these stacks into the existing street grids? I understand that some equipment has to be aligned with the tunnel geometry, but thinking of the one across from the BCEC in particular, it seems like the actual building housing the equipment could have been integrated better into the city to create fewer headaches going forward. Similar issues exist for the older Callahan/Sumner towers in the North End and Eastie, which are decorated in lovely brick and with nonzero architectural touches, but then splayed at odd angles to other property.
Why was virtually no effort made, with the exception of CAT Vent Tower 6, to integrate the design of these stacks into the existing street grids? I understand that some equipment has to be aligned with the tunnel geometry, but thinking of the one across from the BCEC in particular, it seems like the actual building housing the equipment could have been integrated better into the city to create fewer headaches going forward. Similar issues exist for the older Callahan/Sumner towers in the North End and Eastie, which are decorated in lovely brick and with nonzero architectural touches, but then splayed at odd angles to other property.
There was a post about them a couple of months ago in the General infrastructure thread, and while I can't answer the question about the alignment generally, at least 2 others were aligned to the street and hidden by other construction - Vent 3 in the intercontinental and 4 by the Public Market and Haymarket Headhouse/Garage. The one by BCEC though? I'm not sure how you could align that one much better being as it is completely hemmed in by roadways. Maybe if the adjacent parcel gets an air rights deal?
As to the Callahan and Sumner ones though, you're not wrong that they're really obviously askew, but I would probably just chalk that up to the era in which they were built and the relative simple structural considerations of aligning it with the tunnel. Edit: looking at Google maps, it looks like they vent through the faces of those buildings and not the top. If that was a technology limitation of the 1930s, in that case I can totally see why they aren't aligned - a party wall simply wouldn't work, and a askew orientation probably provides better airflow.
As to the Callahan and Sumner ones though, you're not wrong that they're really obviously askew, but I would probably just chalk that up to the era in which they were built and the relative simple structural considerations of aligning it with the tunnel. Edit: looking at Google maps, it looks like they vent through the faces of those buildings and not the top. If that was a technology limitation of the 1930s, in that case I can totally see why they aren't aligned - a party wall simply wouldn't work, and a askew orientation probably provides better airflow.
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MjolnirMan
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Thanks so much! I guess it's a kind of survivorship bias that I forgot about these extremely well-hidden/aligned ones, while even the smaller Dewey Square Tunnel vents stick out like sore thumbs.