Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

[DZH22]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

...........but of all the proposals, theirs was the most "meh" and still is.....

Trinity was totally bargain basement. It was a cheap looking design with terrible cladding that wasn't worthy of being the tallest building downtown. It is, however, worthy of being shrunk down to ~300' and built around Longwood, Kendall, Somerville, etc. We need the Trinity type buildings, and plenty of them, just not as the "iconic" biggest peaks in the downtown skyline.

 

[odurandina]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

This is definitely not right. It's still technically just 1 building. It does a nice enough job giving off the illusion of being 2, but it's still just 1. The 1 building will be our city's 4th tallest.

Ha! We all need to meet for lunch and walk the Downtown area. Hail the pedestrians to participate in our poll.

is that 1 tower or 2?

One of the first responses; "yes, i'm heading over to their office now... i plan to take up residence in the shorter tower."

"yes that's the 611' East Tower. They named it a few weeks ago."

see DZH i win!

 

[DZH22]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Ha! We all need to meet for lunch and walk the Downtown area. Hail the pedestrians to participate in our poll.

is that 1 tower or 2?

One of the first responses; "yes, i'm heading over to their office now... i plan to take up residence in the shorter tower."

see DZH i win!

Let me fix that: "yes, i'm heading over to their office now... i plan to take up residence in the shorter wing of their tower."

 

[stick n move]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Ha! We all need to meet for lunch and walk the Downtown area. Hail the pedestrians to participate in our poll.

is that 1 tower or 2?

One of the first responses; "yes, i'm heading over to their office now... i plan to take up residence in the shorter tower."

"yes that's the 611' East Tower. They named it a few weeks ago."

see DZH i win!

Its clearly 1 tower? What are we even talking about?

Edit: I just looked at that very unofficial list... why are you adding this as a second tower lol?

Look at the bottom half of the "sky bridge". Its clearly 1 tower. Just because the top half of the glass is see through and the bottom half is reflective has no bearing whatsoever on whether its an entirely different tower or not. Its a cool illusion that they are using to break up the silhouette of the tower on the skyline and apparently they did such a good enough job that it even fooled some people on here lol. Thats a credit to the architect, it works.

 

[Justin7]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Its clearly 1 tower? What are we even talking about?

Edit: I just looked at that very unofficial list... why are you adding this as a second tower lol?

Look at the bottom half of the "sky bridge". Its clearly 1 tower. Just because the top half of the glass is see through and the bottom half is reflective has no bearing whatsoever on whether its an entirely different tower or not.

I don't know, man. As rendered it reads as two towers to me. That will probably be highly dependent on the actually transparency of the "bridge" glass and how one defines the word "tower." The more important question: What fucking difference does it make?

 

[stick n move]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

That being said is there a way to now get all the renders from page 80 on to the first page? That should be happening, especially for buildings of this caliber. Doesn't need to happen for every single little seaport building, but for the tallest tower in downtown it would be nice.

 

[stick n move]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I don't know, man. As rendered it reads as two towers to me. That will probably be highly dependent on the actually transparency of the "bridge" glass and how one defines the word "tower." The more important question: What fucking difference does it make?

It adds an entire new building to the skyline and knocks the Govt Ctr Res to #7 on Orandomdiana's list. I dont get it though, does that make the JFK building 2 buildings too?

How does this read as 2 buildings?

Your right though it really doesn't fucking matter. What does fucking matter is that this new design looks great.

 

[tysmith95]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

it's way better than what was briefly proposed. i still think it's kinda ugly.

millenium offered the most $ and that's why they "won" and that's fine, but of all the proposals, theirs was the most "meh" and still is.

all that said, much better and i'll be happy if this goes up as-is.

The other proposals would have been value engineered and cut down. Don't act like they were the final design.

 

[617]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I like it...although from the side it looks orange on the lower half, which I hate.

 

[odurandina]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

They enhanced the prominence of the ribs of the West Tower.

i wonder how that crinkly, serpentine wall will look if built.


btw, has Boston reached its finest moment during the current build cycle?

 

[tysmith95]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

The north station residential and office tower shares a podium. Does that mean they are separate towers or the same towers?

International Place is another "connected" tower.

What i'm saying is that there is no set definition between what constitutes a separate tower and what is part of the same tower.

 

[chrisbrat]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

The other proposals would have been value engineered and cut down. Don't act like they were the final design.

im not "acting" like anything. i think this is boring/ugly (though better than the pile of shit they tossed out a month or so ago). i know shit changes from proposal to construction; i didn't just arrive here.

it's a bleh design and it was from day-one. current iteration is way less shitty than what we were looking at earlier this month. minor win.

hooray, another flat-topped, uninspiring highrise in the business district. get hard about it if that makes you happy.

 

[DZH22]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

The north station residential and office tower shares a podium. Does that mean they are separate towers or the same towers?

International Place is another "connected" tower.

What i'm saying is that there is no set definition between what constitutes a separate tower and what is part of the same tower.

North Station is 2 totally separate towers that happen to share the same hole, and the podiums are barely connected in the back. The towers are being built as 2 separate buildings with different time-tables.

IP was also built as separate buildings, 5 years apart. The towers are absolutely NOT connected either, despite what they look like from many angles. Zoom in on google earth and you'll wish you could take that example back.

This is 1 building that is fully connected to a point more than halfway up. Just because it splits from there it's clearly 1 building and will all go up simultaneously.

To sum it up, if my aunt had a dick she'd be my uncle. Sorry but there isn't any doubt that this is 1 building.

 

[stick n move]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I like it...although from the side it looks orange on the lower half, which I hate.

Although I agree and its weird they left that in, its going to be hidden so who cares.

btw, has Boston reached its finest moment during the current build cycle?

Id say so. 1 Dalton, 115 fed, the new Seaport Square, M parcels, and pier 4 are the best parts of the seaport so far and are u/c, The Hub on Causeway, Govt Ctr Garage is U/C... I'd say its the best its been so far. Just having 1 Dalton and the Hub on causeway at the same time is huge. The govt ctr garage and 115 fed are kind of in prep work/ demo phase but they are essentially u/c. Lets see what happens with SST something was supposed to be happening I thought in the spring correct me if I'm wrong. Once 1000 Boylston and the other pike parcels start going up its going to be insane, thats when Boston is going to really hit its stride. So far we have been doing a good job at filling in many key places and also we just so happened to add Millennium Tower and a strong base to the Seaport.

From here on out it really takes off and you see the big changes that we've been waiting for even though theres been cranes everywhere for a few years now. You didn't get a whole lot from all those cranes -MT, The Pierce, and a few others notwithstanding, but now its on.

The north station residential and office tower shares a podium. Does that mean they are separate towers or the same towers?

International Place is another "connected" tower.

What i'm saying is that there is no set definition between what constitutes a separate tower and what is part of the same tower.

You even said it yourself, they share a podium. This tower is not sharing a podium with another tower, the glass goes almost all the way up to the roof, its just clear for the second half. I counted give or take 42 connected floors between them. Thats substantial. The purpose of the clear glass is to make it look like they are separate, but its just because theres clear glass. If it was reflective nobody would be having this conversation. The architects did a good job. I absolutely think they crushed this new design.

 

[tysmith95]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

im not "acting" like anything. i think this is boring/ugly (though better than the pile of shit they tossed out a month or so ago). i know shit changes from proposal to construction; i didn't just arrive here.

it's a bleh design and it was from day-one. current iteration is way less shitty than what we were looking at earlier this month. minor win.

hooray, another flat-topped, uninspiring highrise in the business district. get hard about it if that makes you happy.

Blame the FAA and NIMBY's that cut down the tower. Under the current constraints I think this proposal is great.

 

[stick n move]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

To me the best part is that the crown is back and it looks great when lit up at night. Its even more dynamic now than before because it has convex ribs on it, whereas before it was flat and opened side to side.

Even the balconies look much better now where they're just slits now vs before they were too much.

Also one other thing of note:

Look at how the center peak of the ribs on the crown continue all the way down the side of the tower and where the other ribs end at the roof form the roof line. This is cool because the facade of the tower above was flat but opened like a curtain. Its cool how they used the same style crown here but made it convex with peaks that continue all the way down the tower to form the vertical lines. Instead of the facade opening side to side like the older tower, now the facade is ribbed and every couple of ribs continues up to the crown. This convex/concave aspect of the facade (ribbed) is going to reflect light in some pretty amazing ways.

The 3d aspect of the new crown is going to look great with light. Even better than before where it was flat but cut into. Theres going to be an actual crown on the top of the tower which is the tallest in downtown, giving new meaning to putting a crown over downtown. They took that literally and knocked it out of the park.

 

[chrisbrat]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

there are shorter towers that don't have flat roofs and zero interesting going on

 

[stick n move]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I have 0 idea why they left that brown part on the side of the office portion, but if thats the cost of having a much better design Ill take it. Why leave that though? Makes no sense. Maybe to make the windows thinner on that side since its facing right against the other tower? Idk but at least its basically completely blocked so no big deal at all.

 

[mass88]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Curious, how long does it take for a firm to design a building like this from start to finish?

 

[Mongo]

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I have 0 idea why they left that brown part on the side of the office portion, but if thats the cost of having a much better design Ill take it. Why leave that though? Makes no sense. Maybe to make the windows thinner on that side since its facing right against the other tower? Idk but at least its basically completely blocked so no big deal at all.

That brown part will be 3' from the next building

If they are going to cheap out on a portion of the exterior I'll take the part no one will ever see.