Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Awesome, this is the point where it starts to become recognizable on the skyline. This one really is a mystery so far, its hard to tell just how prominent on the skyline its going to be once completed. What cant be taken away from it is that its going to be downtowns new tallest.
 
10/31 Pretty sure this one is going faster than a floor a week, and has just blasted its way into Boston's Top 30. (~450'+ for the poured floors, higher for the core)

Is there a cap on how fast it can rise based on curing times for the floors below? Yes, they have all of the additional, temporary supports, but I wonder if that caps the speed in which recently poured floors can take on the stress of x# additional floors above?

Also, this upper portion surprises me in that I didn't expect it to appear so wide from this perspective; not good or bad, yet, just unexpected.
 
The folded crown design should hopefully keep things a little playful?

Just searching through google images I came across this except they had the building colored gold for some reason. So I swapped colors and maybe now we can start to understand just how this thing will sit in the skyline.

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Funny how Winthrop looks shorter in that pic when its supposed to be a few feet higher than Millennium.
 
Oh, that's bad, for sure. Another fat filing cabinet for downtown Boston...

Just imagine how fugly it would be if it hadn't been subject to the five--count them, five--merciless inquisitions at the hands of the remorseless and all-powerful BCDC... ;)
 
to archboston - Verb - To complain that a building is either not tall enough, too "stumpy" and/or not as good as some building in New York, but when it's built, people say "It's not as bad as I thought it would be".

"I hear they're archbostoning the Winthrop on archboston.com"
 
to archboston - Verb - To complain that a building is either not tall enough, too "stumpy" and/or not as good as some building in New York, but when it's built, people say "It's not as bad as I thought it would be".

"I hear they're archbostoning the Winthrop on archboston.com"

"not as bad" =/= good

This will be fine, but won't be capital-A Architecture, IMO. Just another tower in a few years' time.

That seems like a reasonable complaint for a website for discussing architecture.
 
Is there a cap on how fast it can rise based on curing times for the floors below? Yes, they have all of the additional, temporary supports, but I wonder if that caps the speed in which recently poured floors can take on the stress of x# additional floors above?

Yes and no. You want the concrete to cure to a certain strength, but there are ways around that limitation. As you said you could add more supports, but that only works to a certain point. A more common option is to use a "high early" strength concrete so that it cures to that desired strength faster. This involves either adding more cement, using a more expensive kind of cement, or adding an accelerant.
  • More cement = a lot more money. For example, my firm used a high early concrete in Logan when installing a ductbank across a runway. We could only close the runway for a weekend so we needed the concrete to set up fast so we could backfill and pave for Monday morning. Normal ductbank concrete costs around $130/CY. This concrete cost ~$900/CY.
  • Accelerant = more money plus quality issues due to shrinkage and cracking.

    In either case, if the concrete cures too fast it becomes difficult to work with (especially when you're trying to pump it 400' in the air). My guess is the contractor on the Winthrop Tower is using some form of High Early because carpenters are expensive as fuck so you want them to be as productive as possible. But again, you can only go so far.
 
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As viewed from around downtown.

IMG_6344 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6360 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6363 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6413 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6416 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6417 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6433 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6435 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6457 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6465 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6467 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6522 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6523 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6597 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_6598 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
 

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