Volpe Transportation Center Development | Kendall Sq | Cambridge

[Beton Brut]

So this is of high design in your very valued opinion?

I like this question, so I'll give it a bash...

This might be the highest design possible, given the constraints of the Federal Government's requirements. The vertical white "fins" remind me of Oscar Niemeyer's work in Brazilia. It's definitely an "object in the landscape" building, innately and purposefully alien and anti-urban; what it is determines how it looks and how it behaves. In terms of aesthetics, there are far uglier buildings a stone's throw away.

No terrorists in the 21st century have their sights set on government office buildings; they have their sights set 100% on civilian soft targets.

I agree if we're speaking about international terrorists. Sadly, I think there are still plenty of would-be Timothy McVeigh/Terry Nichols-types out there.

(Also, as a total aside, remember when terrorism was a thing that we were supposed to be always thinking about and afraid of? It's crazy to think about the extent to which terrorism has disappeared from the national psyche and common cultural/political narrative in the last few years...)

To a large degree, those most susceptible to the Bush/Cheney-era of fear-mongering and (mostly) Islamophobia have migrated to fear of "bad hombres" crossing our southern boarder with Fentanyl and sex slaves.

 

[tangent]

Security requirements of Federal Buildings are fundamentally anti-urban.

It's a problem.

Certainly an improvement over the surface parking that is there now... but I wonder if the security buffer requirements could accept a row of mixed use along Binney to continue the street wall. Having parking out front along Binney really undermines what they are trying to do around there.

 

[odurandina]

I don't know which is uglier, the existing or the proposed.

MIT sucks. Cambridge sucks.

Harvard is ok (i guess). Harvard Square isn't ok. It's sad.

Perhaps at one time there was a ray of hope. But, instead, Cambridge has gone backwards; stuck in old ways thinking, thwarting unusual, extraordinary, tall, or Avant-garde planning. The last 25 years has produced one of the top ugliest cities in America. But, MIT especially–has not just been absent from any effort to help Cambridge separate itself from anyplace-USA, it has fully embraced the most value-engineered, abysmal planning possible.

 

[cadetcarl]

(Also, as a total aside, remember when terrorism was a thing that we were supposed to be always thinking about and afraid of? It's crazy to think about the extent to which terrorism has disappeared from the national psyche and common cultural/political narrative in the last few years...)

I don't disagree with you about the non-issue that terrorists targeting hardened federal buildings has turned out to be, but I think I have to take issue with this. The public regularly comes into contact with vestiges of that era, and the specter of terrorism is to this very morning being used to justify all manner of policy.

The TSA does pretty much nothing but was born in the post-9/11 fear state. Try getting rid of it now. The whole wall debacle is happening in part because the administration is trying to scare people into thinking "the terrorists" will cross the border disguised as refugees. Mike Pompeo was on [a news channel not to be named] this morning claiming that Hezbollah has cells in Venezuela (presumably to prime the American public for more kinetic activity there). I think it will be a test of the thesis of these types of cynics whether that can still work. Certainly it did to get us into Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.

So while it has always and will always be true that terrorism leverages the actions of very few, very motivated people to great affect in the public imagination, this is exactly the mark of its success. If we are stoic about it, it loses its power. I'm not sure it has yet.

 

[stellarfun]

But their employee requirements are better suited for Kendall.

The DOT specifically told GSA the replacement for Volpe had to be near MIT. If it wasn't, Volpe would be moved to another state.

In 2015, NASA awarded over $11+ billion in prime contracts to businesses, $44 million of the $11+ billion went to Massachusetts companies. The $44 million was $10 million more than companies in West Virginia were awarded. The aerospace R&D ecosystem that Massachusetts once had is largely fractured , much of it gone elsewhere. Why not chase a few more R&D technologies out?

 

[DigitalSciGuy]

At first glance, it really reminded me of yet another SOM bunker, New York's PSAC2, which itself reminds me of WTC1's bomb-resistant base. At least they've really mastered the art of gussying up a federal building? It is shame that it has to be so set back from the street. It really does project a level of distancing and inaccessibility which is discordant with the rather forward-thinking and open transport research agency contained within.

 

[odurandina]

this is so far below what i expected a couple of years ago.

 

[tobyjug]

Ha ha ha! Where's the giant inflated lock on the outside?

 

[tangent]

After a bit of time to reflect... feeling the same about this. I know the building has all sorts of requirements for setbacks and vehicle access, but can't they find a creative solution to the street wall on Binney St? Seems like there is plenty of room for a row of lower rising commercial/restaurant so there isn't a "parking court" right out front with such a huge gap along the street. Or even just ditch all or half the parking court and just go with landscaping like along 5th street.

Kendall's future growth means that Binney St can't be considered an architectural back alley.

 

[RandomWalk]

The gap from the street, with the access controlled parking court, is a feature, not a bug. Putting in an urban friendly street wall is exactly what they don’t want. You can thank Oklahoma City for that.

 

[JumboBuc]

The gap from the street, with the access controlled parking court, is a feature, not a bug. Putting in an urban friendly street wall is exactly what they don’t want. You can thank Oklahoma City for that.

This makes no sense.

If you don't want the building to front the street, then slot it behind a row of single-story "taxpayer" retail on Binney. A row of storefronts would do a better job of blocking a hypothetical bomb blast than a "parking court" would anyway. You could go with a design that ends up looking something like this:

And that ignores the point that, of all possible terrorist targets in Greater Boston, a Department of Transportation research building is pretty damn far down the list...

 

[fattony]

How hard do you think it would be to find a tenant for your "blast absorbing storefront?" I don't think the optics work very well on that.

The feds need to change their building policies. Until that happens, this is what you are going to get. Personally I don't think its the end of the world. Binney is an urban disaster anyway. Its getting a fair amount of liptstick lately, but this will hardly be only blemish.

I wish it were at least just greenery instead of a parking lot, but wishing for retail is too much.

 

[CSTH]

I think it's a vast overstatement to say that Binney is an urban disaster. Maybe 10 years ago, but not today - and it definitely has the potential to be even better in the future.

Binney in Kendall is sort of like Cambridge St. on the other side of the river.

Cambridge St. in Boston isn't an intimate, retail-dense neighborhood core st. like Charles St. And it's always going to be a traffic artery. But as the street wall gets filled in, it increasingly works well as a coherent urban space - it stitches beacon hill together with MGH & the west end / bulfinch area, and acts as a linkage between the Gov Center area and the river

Same thing is happening on Binney. The new developments east of Third St. aren't exactly retail-heavy, but they're transparent and permeable and it works as a walkable area. It's the connecting threshold between older residential east cambridge & the newer, denser kendall area, and its a connecting corridor between western kendall area & central cambridge residential and the river (keep in mind that that the bridge approach and the powerplant actually wall a lot of kendall off from the river south of here, with the exception on the boardwalk on the canal..).

So to extend the example: would it have been ok if MGH's new proposal on Cambridge St. had included a 30 foot wide parking court facing Cambridge St.? (and a 10-ft tall concrete wall around a daycare patio on one of the side streets). Of course not.

Same is true here.

So, again, t's just completely inappropriate for the federal government to be building fortified, isolated outposts in the middle of american cities.

Look - the 'crumple zone' is an unpleasant concept, but it's completely viable. It doesn't even need to be third-party retail space - just build out a big lobby space out to the street, put a coffee kiosk in it or something, and - if you insist on aggressively engineering for blast effects - then give the main volume a big setback and a put a thick reinforced elevator core close to the exterior on the street side.

Or if you must, then put a proper pocket park in front.



But a surface parking lot is *completely egregious*

...and in addition to the 'urbanism' considerations, its also just a literal waste of valuable space to put parking spaces on the ground in one of the hottest real estate neighborhoods in North America.

 

[odurandina]

btw, the resident tower was reduced to 277' i'm just posting as an early harbinger of spring before it becomes official and documented in the aB daily briefings.


*btw, this was a snarky, untrue, pessimistic post.

But past is always prologue when it comes to being starved to death of iconic height. Because in what twisted universe would we expect anything from 1949 to 2029 to change? #Cambridge sucks.

 

[JumboBuc]

How hard do you think it would be to find a tenant for your "blast absorbing storefront?" I don't think the optics work very well on that.

Look - the 'crumple zone' is an unpleasant concept, but it's completely viable. It doesn't even need to be third-party retail space - just build out a big lobby space out to the street, put a coffee kiosk in it or something, and - if you insist on aggressively engineering for blast effects - then give the main volume a big setback and a put a thick reinforced elevator core close to the exterior on the street side.

To build off of fattony's doubts and CSTH's suggestions, put something like the new atrium at 100 Federal along Binney. It's way more inviting and urban than a blocked off parking court would be (or the old unused plaza at 100 Federal was), gets good use out of the space (including two lunch spots, a coffee kiosk, and a bunch of tables/chairs/seating areas), and still separates the building from the street.

Office lobby renos are all the rage these days anyway. Why couldn't that work here.

 

[LeTaureau]

will this plan make any effort to preserve the mature trees in this space? Would be a pity to lose them

 

[tangent]

How hard do you think it would be to find a tenant for your "blast absorbing storefront?" I don't think the optics work very well on that.

That makes no sense as an argument. If the target building is set back out of reach of any car/truck bomb blast, then the "soft target" building in front is no more of a target than the restaurant/retail around the corner.

 

[stellarfun]

The Federal government is not in the business of being a retail landlord, -- unless the property was seized by the government. A while back, the government operated an ecdysiast emporium that it had seized. No point in throwing away good money. The Federal portion of Volpe's reincarnation will be Federal property.

And as whighlander would repeatedly point out, the Feds at Volpe are as concerned, if not more, about spying and eavesdropping as they are about terrorists attacking Volpe.

Yes, one could design an architecturally vibrant Volpe if all the surrounding buildings fronting it had facades like 45 Province.

 

[JumboBuc]

And as whighlander would repeatedly point out, the Feds at Volpe are as concerned, if not more, about spying and eavesdropping as they are about terrorists attacking Volpe.

How are 30 meters of parking court going to prevent spying and eavesdropping efforts that 30 meters of lobby space couldn't?

And anyway, Draper is two blocks from here and windows fronting the street works for them. I find it highly unlikely that transportation research going on at Volpe is more sensitive than the (defense) research going on at Draper. This also says nothing of all the sensitive research going on in all the tech/biotech/pharma spaces throughout Kendall.

 

[fattony]

And as whighlander would repeatedly point out, the Feds at Volpe are as concerned, if not more, about spying and eavesdropping as they are about terrorists attacking Volpe.

Proximity to the street is not really a factor. They simply use interior rooms.