BOSTON’S GOT A PLAN – SORT OF

Posted on November 21st, 2016 by Katie Faulkner

Posted under: Urban Design

Last week was an interesting one for mavens of Boston’s housing scene. Mayor Walsh made an appearance at ABX, on the “Boston You’re Our Home” panel discussion.  Although the Mayor left the room before the Q + A, he did listen to the presentations of his fellow panelists, as well as contribute a few remarks of his own, queuing up Imagine Boston Expanding Opportunity, the City’s 2030 draft plan of priority initiatives which was released two days later (final master plan to come out next year). Kudos to whomever designed the program for this ABX session – the perspectives were different and fascinating.  In his opening remarks, Mayor Walsh reminded the room that Boston is more than halfway toward meeting its goal of 53,000 new dwelling units by year 2030. Tamara Roy, current BSA president, echoed her long-held championship of small housing units, most recently touring the city with Uhu, a 385-square foot prefabricated urban house.  Kimberly Sherman Stamler, the young and articulate president of Related-Beal, effectively communicated the complex web of partnerships required to achieve success for her firm’s mixed-use Parcel 1B. Finally, Mark Erlich (Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Carpenter’s Local 40) tempered the festive mood with harrowing statistics of under-paid construction workers.  Something we all know, even if we do not think about it, is that the low-bid system encourages cutting labor costs (see Beth Healy and Meghan Woolhouse, September 18th Globe Spotlight article HERE).

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 PHOTO BY OLGA KHVAN FOR BOSTONMAGAZINE.COM

The takeaway was thus: Boston is building 53,000 new dwellings, and they are going to be small.  In order to “make the numbers work,” there will be city-sponsored partnerships with developers, and some percentage of the construction workers are likely to be undocumented and/or under-paid.   Thus as architects, we should understand the landscape (literally) as we contribute our part to this building boom. As Dr. Krakower said to Carmela Soprano: One thing you can never say: You haven’t been told.

 

Keeping it Big Around the Edges

The 152-page Expanding Opportunity report is a colorful, easy read, and indicative of the trends and preferences of Boston’s housing cognoscenti. Consistent with the panel’s focus, the 2030 document is concerned with significantly increasing housing stock without sacrificing Boston’s unique urban character. The document presents much to be hopeful about: a reasonable percentage of low, moderate, and mid-level housing; healthy, walkable neighborhoods with open space and access to public transit; prioritization of good education with economic opportunity; reduction of green house gases; support for smart-city technology; and a commitment to arts and culture. Potentially troubling however is the “Expand the Neighborhoods” chapter.  Let’s face it. 53,000 is a lot of apartment, and Boston is an old city without much frontier. So in order to hit the number, you are going up or pushing out.  Given that skyscrapers are near impossible – thwarted by the FAA, geology, and general disdain for ostentation  – Boston will see more of the latter, mega-blocks at the edges of neighborhoods with hundreds of small to mid-sized rental units. A ride to Forest Hills on the Orange Line takes one by some mighty big sites. You have to wonder what Jane Jacobs would say about the bigness and sameness going up in the name of transit-oriented development.  Admittedly, these parcels were created by the kind of urban planning that put I-93 between the South End and South Boston, but simply extruding big parcels does not create the kind of density that sponsors the honorable initiatives proposed by the Mayor’s team.

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According to the Mayor’s report, “in workshops and on-line”, Boston residents agreed that the edge areas – those industrial blocks in neighborhoods like Allston, Sullivan Square, Roxbury, and Readville – are places where Boston can grown.  Of course this makes sense because no one lives there to object, and in many cases, the parcels are changing use from something like a transit depot to affordable dwellings.  If we do not want to become like San Francisco, a beautiful city where most of us could never afford to live, we have to increase the supply to meet the demand.  As someone from the Mayor’s office noted, “the units have to go somewhere.”

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The authors of the plan are doing a good job reaching the neighborhoods, and odds are strong that the 2030 plan will sponsor positive outcomes.  These are smart people who know that mixed-use development depends on the success of ground floor retail, walk-able sidewalks with civic destinations (libraries, parks, schools), with more than one primary function so that people are going outdoors on different schedules, at different times of day.  Smaller blocks facilitate mixed use because smaller businesses have a chance to participate in the mix.  If you want to see another Flour, Clover, Boomerangs, Newbury Comics, or Haley House grow its business in your neighborhood, look for smaller building footprints punctuated by cross streets.

A few months ago, in her article Boston is Getting Really Expensive, Rachel Slade called out the fact that many of us already cannot afford to live here. That creative class that I like to think I’m a part of, is seeking more-affordable towns, taking Boston’s funkier side with them: “I hope you like T. J. Maxx and Starbucks” Slade says, because all the cool people are leaving. She’s right, and the best way to solve this problem is to increase the supply of housing, accessible to multiple income levels.  And those units have to go somewhere- but perhaps not all of them need go on the same block.

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ILLUSTRATION BY JOSH COCHRAN

 

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GLX

Posted on February 15th, 2016 by Nicole Sakr

Posted under: Press, Urban Design

As part of the Green Line Extension into Somerville the MBTA has been working with designers and artists to create public art for the new stations. The art is conceived not only in its aesthetic capacity to captivate, but also to engage the public realm, to orient and give identity to the specificity of the place, to serve as an educational or pedagogical instrument, among other things to expand the definition of what art can serve. The pedestrian experience under and over bridges are considered and community paths connect sides of the train lines. NADAAA was engaged to create art installations for the new Washington Street Station. We have approached this project to give civic prominence to a piece of infrastructure that would otherwise be seen as a mere extension of transportation. In engaging the train system, cars, bikes and pedestrians, we also acknowledge that the public travels through the site in many ways, and thus experiences the place from a different vantage point. The language of our intervention speaks to the industrial landscape of which it is a part, transforming it to transcend its common terms.

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1 – a projectile fence that guards the walkway along the bridge where it stretches over Washington Street

 

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2 – a mural on the underbelly of the bridge

 

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3 – a bench that runs along the entry hall made out of perforated steel panels. the perforations depict snippets from the MBTA safety manual

 

The Green Line Extension is currently on hold, but check here when work begins again for construction updates.

 

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#NAMETHEBRIDGE

Posted on January 26th, 2016 by Nicole Sakr

Posted under: _Tanderrum Bridge, Things We Like, Urban Design

You can help name the new footbridge NADAAA and JWA have designed that will connect Melbourne Park and Birrarung Marr by crossing over Batman Avenue. Vote HERE. (P.S. We’re still partial to “Batman Bridge”)

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MORE INFO HERE.

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Batman Bridge in Context

Posted on January 25th, 2016 by Nicole Sakr

Posted under: _Tanderrum Bridge, construction, Urban Design

Get a glimpse of the next phase of the Melbourne Park Redevelopment with a flyover of Batman Bridge.

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Construction progress in Austin

Posted on November 24th, 2015 by Nicole Sakr

Posted under: construction, Urban Design

Over 750 pre-cast 8x8x14 concrete posts are being fabricated in green, blue, yellow, light grey and charcoal for the new Seaholm Electric Substation urban wall. This urban wall will not only veil an existing power substation, but offer subtly programmed experiences to the emerging neighborhood surrounding Austin’s new Central Library, an urban bike-way, and several mixed use developments.

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One Spadina featured on Urban Toronto

Posted on May 21st, 2015 by Nicole Sakr

Posted under: _Daniels Building, Press, Urban Design

Urban Toronto takes a look at construction progress at One Spadina. The future home of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture Landscape and Design is a collaboration between NADAAA and Adamson Assoicates, Architect of Record.

Read the full article here.

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Architecture Urbanism Humanities Symposium

Posted on May 5th, 2015 by Nicole Sakr

Posted under: Events, Lectures, Urban Design

Video from the recent Brown University and RISD joint symposium Intersections in Pedagogy.

Stan Allen speaks on Architecture and the Humanities and Nader discusses Rethinking Pedagogical Spaces:

“a great part of what design thinking brings to the equation is the notion that there is a necessity for iteration, a necessity for risk and the idea that only through critical failure might you stumble across spaces of invention.”

 

Also, see Bernard Tschumi’s lecture from the night before here.

 

 

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New Age Old Town

Posted on April 30th, 2015 by Katie Faulkner

Posted under: Things We Like, Urban Design

Since March 1, I have read Casey Ross’ A New Age for an Old Town dozens of times.  The Boston Globe feature is interesting on a number of fronts; Mr. Ross describes our current “golden age of building” within the context of earlier waves of the 19th and 20th centuries that produced some of the city’s most beloved landmarks.  He takes us back to the 1964 construction site of the Prudential Tower, and even quotes John Hynes referring to Boston as the “Athens of America.”  The best thing about the article however, is the link to the sidebar graphic – a collection of articles chronicling 52 buildings that have either been provisionally approved or have actually started construction.  There is remarkable similarity among the images, and it is tempting to sort the buildings into piles: the plane-slippers, the wrapper-shifters, and the skirt-lifters.  In short, most are variations on the theme of maximizing a floor plate.

According to Casey Ross, and generally backed up by the BRA website, there is 34 million square feet of new building in the near-term Boston pipeline – this is Boston alone.  Imagine if we could add in Cambridge and Somerville. Within that number are other interesting stats.  At least 7 of the proposals are legitimate skyscrapers; 63% of the projects have a significant residential component, and most often the housing is paired with a hotel.  There are 29 development teams financing these projects, although there are recombinations and LLC’s that make it hard to count the players.  In a subsequent letter to the editor, architects Mark Pasnik and Michael Murphy note that Ross’ list of projects illustrates that development is an “insider’s game.”  They point out that two architecture firms are producing nearly a third of the 52 projects but stop short of revealing that Elkus Manfredi is involved with 25% of them.  In total there are about a dozen firms in the mix, with Miami’s Arquitectonica winning the “traveled the farthest” award.

If it hasn’t happened already, the City will soon designate a development team for the Winthrop Street Garage.  Ten years ago we would have called this Trans National Place.  At that time, developer Steve Belkin had engaged Renzo Piano to design a 1,000 foot tower.  The details of that project are the stuff of legend, and the upshot is that one cannot build a super-tower so close to Logan Airport.  Nonetheless, Belkin gets points for raising the architectural bar.  The original proposal had elegant proportions and tectonic heft that somehow gave unity to the eclectic volumes of Downtown. The reincarnation of the project promises to be both shorter and less inspired, but it will nonetheless take its place on Boston’s skyline as a marker of this our 21st century “golden age of building.”

Trans National Place designed by Renzo Piano

Trans National Place designed by Renzo Piano

 

Harvard professor Edward Glaeser wrote that “(r)eally tall buildings provide something of an index of irrational exuberance,” and he points to the iconic Empire State and Chrysler Buildings as examples.  To his point, towers generally go up in economic boom times, and emerging economies continue to show their might by sponsoring increasingly stunning and tall buildings.  In contrast, Boston towers do not tend to be particularly tall, and the City seems not to see them as icons of our urban greatness, which is a shame because once it is up, a tower becomes an indelible part of our identity.  Much as we might like to erase One International Place, it’s not going anywhere.

Construction of the Empire State Building

Construction of the Empire State Building

 

As I was penning this blog, Rachel Slade published her scathing “Why is Boston so Ugly?” piece in Boston Magazine.  This is the article many of us have wanted to write but could not articulate.  She called out the visual affront of 111 Huntington, and the lost opportunities of the Seaport District.  The conventional wisdom that it is hard to get anything built in Boston is called a bluff.  It is actually ridiculously easy to build just about anything if you know the right people.   Ms. Slade takes on the BRA and exposed the long tenure of the BCDC members.  Most endearing was that she listed NADAAA among the “most vigorous design firms,” although I did not appreciate her assessment that firms like ours lack the capacity for big buildings.  Capacity is not the issue.  Jonathan Levi Architects won the Harleston Parker medal with an 84,000 square foot public school and the firm has designed millions of square feet of institutional, residential, and educational buildings.  Anmahian Winton Architects have a high-rise under construction in Ankara.  David Hacin has mid-rise residential buildings all over town, and is in fact one of the prospective design teams for Winthrop Square.  NADAAA just completed the 250,000 square foot Melbourne School of Design, the result of an open international competition, and has larger projects in design and construction. What binds the work of these firms together is not their relatively small size. The common thread is architectural intent, which unfortunately has become separated from the merely functional as if to say that the added value of design is luxurious excess.  Undaunted, Rachel Slade looks for bigger fish out of town and references significant buildings in New York and Chicago, cities with a legacy of great architectural ambition and civic pride.  In her assessment, Boston comes up short and she is right. With notable exceptions, Boston developers are generally indifferent to design. At a ULI meeting last year, a prominent Boston developer admitted that ultimately he does not care what his buildings look like.  There are complex negotiations, oversight agencies, fickle markets, and prescribed profit margins to be dealt with — this is perhaps why few locals hang out in the Seaport District.  Ultimately one does need to care.

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Ankara Office Building designed by Cambirdge-based Anmahian Winton Architects

Melbourne School of Design by Boston-based NADAAA

Melbourne School of Design by Boston-based NADAAA

 

The combination of the current gilded age with a new administration has provided an opportunity to correct the trajectory of the current building boom, and there are guiding principles to light the way.  First, Boston’s built environment should reflect the region’s rich culture, and the ambition of what we’d like to be.  Architecture carries the weight of history as well as the demonstration of invention, technology and civilization.  Related to this is the obligation to be respectful of the historical layers of our urbanism without being imitative or mocking.  Second, it is incumbent upon all constructors – designers, policy makers, and builders – to respect a kind of Hippocratic oath.  Do no harm, and when possible advance social well-being.  Architecture has the power to mediate certain landscape and urban challenges in ways no other medium can.  Consider the legacy of Mecanoo/Sasaki’s Bolling Municipal Building.  Surely it deserves some credit for the fact that for the second quarter in a row (according to Boston Business Journal), Roxbury’s Dudley Square neighborhood ranked as the Commonwealth’s hottest real estate market. Finally, one should not separate the functional from the courageous; a well-designed building is not a luxury, it is a basic right like clean water, functional infrastructure and access to the Internet.  By separating the practical from the beautiful, we are all but guaranteeing bad design, undermining our potential as a progressive city. When our own mayor joins the chorus by calling Boston’s latest bumper crop of buildings “merely functional”, it is time to expect more.

Mayor Marty Walsh  Photo from Bostoninno

Mayor Marty Walsh, photo from Bostoninno

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Seaholm Wall Progress

Posted on April 16th, 2015 by Nicole Sakr

Posted under: construction, Urban Design

Under construction in the heart of downtown Austin, Texas, a one-thousand four-hundred foot screen wall is taking shape. Situated along Shoal Creek and several adjacent developments including the New Central Library, the project helps to secure an active power station and create urban spaces along its perimeter. The wall will employ over eight hundred 8 x 8 x 12 foot tall integrally colored concrete posts with varying patterns and rotations.

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Process color studies

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NADER TO JURY URBAN DESIGN WORKSHOP TONIGHT AT THE BSA

Posted on April 2nd, 2015 by Nicole Sakr

Posted under: Events, Urban Design

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Nader will join Sheila Dillon, Daniel D’Oca, Tim Love, and Edward Nardi to jury the second BSA Urban Design Workshop tonight from 6:00pm – 8:00pm in the BSA Space. The presentations will focus on potential housing growth on Dorchester Avenue in South Boston and will be led by Brian Healy FAIA, Eric Höweler AIA, Beth Whittaker AIA, and the BSA Emerging Professionals Network.

Register here.

 

 

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