Winter Garden | 100 Federal St. | Financial District

found5dollar said:
This is a hideous blob with no relationship to any of its surroundings. It resembles an undergraduate thesis project. Full of fad, short on substance.

I bet is is going to have color change LED lighting....
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What a grouch. It looks nice. Jesus
 
Originally Posted by found5dollar View Post
This is a hideous blob with no relationship to any of its surroundings. It resembles an undergraduate thesis project. Full of fad, short on substance.
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I think it's actually very successful at hiding some of the hideousness of the pregnant blob behind it. Make good sense to me and looks great!
 
^^not to mention the least deserving, nothing-to-see-here architectural object ever to get it's own thread ... or bump .....bump ....for a greenhouse so people can grab a coffee in January without suffering frostbite.

Merge it with the DTX or retail thread/s already. :)
 
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chrisbrat said:
What a grouch. It looks nice. Jesus
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Well I may not have been elegant in my previous disapproval of this building, I consistently have expressed my disdain of it. Roll back though this thread and you will see. What did I say that was untrue? It does not relate at all to its surroundings nor does it adequately contrast them. It's volume and strange angels have no purpose in this location or with its planned use. In fact it negates the whole reason for the pregnant building by filling in the plaza. I could forgive this if there was any sort of nod to the building or a visual explanation as to why we are partially filling in the purposeful negative space and plaza, but there isn't. This building is just like all the shitty modernist buildings built post Seagrams and Leverhouse. It takes things that are currently hip and fashionable in architecture and just mashes them together hoping to be something great by association. It lacks all the soul and precision the buildings it is stealing visual cues from have. This is the type of architecture that isn't just bad, it actively makes me angry. Just because something is all angular and glassy does not make it good.
 
found5dollar said:
Well I may not have been elegant in my previous disapproval of this building, I consistently have expressed my disdain of it. Roll back though this thread and you will see. What did I say that was untrue? It does not relate at all to its surroundings nor does it adequately contrast them. It's volume and strange angels have no purpose in this location or with its planned use. In fact it negates the whole reason for the pregnant building by filling in the plaza. I could forgive this if there was any sort of nod to the building or a visual explanation as to why we are partially filling in the purposeful negative space and plaza, but there isn't. This building is just like all the shitty modernist buildings built post Seagrams and Leverhouse. It takes things that are currently hip and fashionable in architecture and just mashes them together hoping to be something great by association. It lacks all the soul and precision the buildings it is stealing visual cues from have. This is the type of architecture that isn't just bad, it actively makes me angry. Just because something is all angular and glassy does not make it good.
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With all due respect to your carefully-considered criticism, just so long as this building doesn't actively maim/injure people, it represents a win over the prior usage. The plaza that it is overtaking was a mini-City Hall Plaza in its woeful woebegone futility. Bleak. windswept. uninviting. cold. corporate. and... just bizarre, what with the big hunk 'o' rock signifying that the Mass. Constitutional Convention took place there in 1787. That in itself indicates what a massive FAIL that plaza was--how many people knew there was actually a significant historic marker there? Exactly no one, because it was such a hostile unlovely vortex of anti-humanity. Complain all you want, but, to not take into consideration how downright awful the prior environment here was I find odd, to say the least. Monstrosity or not, when this glass atrium opens, on the first day, in the first hour, it will have more activation, when the first fifty people walk in, than the plaza would've seen in an entire year.
 
^ A) Just because you do not use a space does not make it desolate. This plaza was used at lunch times and before and after work hours. You could get the same activation this structure will bring by adding a few chairs, some tables, and a coffee cart to the space.

B) I have no issue with the idea of filling in the plaza or adding a structure here. What i do have an issue with is this specific building and how it is designed.
 
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From what I know, they are really going to try to activate the space. Arts, music, performance, and educational programming is in the works.
 
found5dollar said:
^ A) Just because you do not use a space does not make it desolate. This plaza was used at lunch times and before and after work hours. You could get the same activation this structure will bring by adding a few chairs, some tables, and a coffee cart to the space.

B) I have no issue with the idea of filling in the plaza or adding a structure here. What i do have an issue with is this specific building and how it is designed.
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The new structure will be much more usable in December, January, February, than the open air plaza.
 
^You don't need an ugly building to activate a space. This windswept plaza vs. interior space activation is a false dichotomy. By enclsoing this space in such a strange and nonsensical way we are giving up a usable public space for a space that the owners of the building can and will close off to the public at whim. If we were truly worried about making outdoor spaces usable in the winter in this way why is no one suggesting covering the common in dozens of asymmetrical glass boxes? Because not every space should be enclosed and sacrificing usability in the summer for usability in the winter is a trade off not every space needs.

Also, as I said before, I welcome activation of this plaza and would even welcome a structure to enclose it, but i am against this specific building. It is a poor rendition of what is en vogue in architecture right now and in only a few years we will all decry how out of place it is and how dated it looks.
 
found5dollar said:
Because not every space should be enclosed and sacrificing usability in the summer for usability in the winter is a trade off not every space needs.
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While I agree with this sentiment, we should acknowledge that having Post Office Square across the street more than makes up for lost outdoor space.

I rarely saw people out on the plaza in the summer (especially compared with the mobs that lunch on the lawn in Post Office square).

I personally love the new geometric look reflecting the green of the square as you walk down high street from the seaport.
 
found5dollar said:
This is a hideous blob with no relationship to any of its surroundings.
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Why does a building have to have a relationship to any of it's surroundings? Many times it's the differences that cause heads to turn, to make things interesting. The new Government Center glassed-in headhouse is an example as is the new atrium at Draper Labs. I guess the Hancock Tower would fall into the same category when it was built. I agree, sometimes it doesn't always work but in this case, I think it does.
 
Looks like the entrance towards the MBTA greenline near city-hall or Porter Square Red Line . I would prefer the open space in this location.
 
Its not. Its glass .. .but not a thoughtless box. This understands its context and gets it right.

Your allowed to not like it ...just don't call it bad design.

cca

Ps. Porter Square T headhouse is also good design. Too bad for all the pigeon guano.
 
Open space as in the useless slab of concrete that existed before this? The actual square footage of land there will be much more used once this is completed.
 
This will be a fine amenity for the city and, along with the new Draper atrium, is a far more intelligent use of "leftover" spaces. If you want, though, empty wind-blown plazas there is City Hall and many other waste places. In person this is larger than it seems in photos and nicely creates some intimacy where there was none before.
 
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