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All over town, buildings sit empty, somehow unused despite a fierce shortage of housing and a long-running development boom that has transformed long-quiet patches of the city into hot property. [...]
Some are better kept than others. Some have more prestigious addresses. But each is a puzzle unto its own.
— Boston Globe
Boston Globe reporter Tim Logan investigates the factors behind Boston's many vacant buildings — despite a booming real estate market. "Even crumbling and empty buildings serve a purpose in a new Boston where so much is shiny and fresh," writes Logan. View full entry
What's in a facade? For those outside the architecture and design profession, the function, importance, and commonality facades play in the built environment might not be so clear. But the exterior wall, or "face" of a building, in fact, plays a crucial role in conveying a building's structural... View full entry
The city’s most polarizing building is now officially middle-aged and a couple of fans have reproduced a pin that was given out during its opening week celebrations in 1969 [...]
Joyce Linehan, chief of policy for Boston’s Mayor Marty Walsh, still has an original pin, which local designers Chris Grimley and Shannon McLean used as the basis for a reproduction.
— CityLab
Commemorative pin and letter press drawing card. Image via OverUnder's website"Cast in bronze and hand patina’d, the commemorative lapel pin is produced in a limited edition of fifty," reads the pin's description on the website of OverUnder, the Boston-based architecture and design firm behind... View full entry
The AIA has announced the Boston-based firm Payette as the 2019 Architecture Firm Award recipient. Now in its 56th year, the annual award is the top honor a firm can receive from the AIA, and given in recognition of "a practice that consistently has produced distinguished architecture for at least... View full entry
We wanted architecture that would signal to everyone that this was a special place, the center of campus...We wanted a building that in 2100 would stand up and mark the dynamic change in the University and talk about the century we're in. - Robert A. Brown Boston University President
Boston University and KPMB Architects have announced their plans to construct a 17-floor tower which will house BU's new Data Sciences Center. A program booming within the field of academia, BU plans to be a leader in this area of education. Alongside the team at KPMB, the architecture firm aims... View full entry
The Manhattan skyline is one of the world’s most iconic, but it wouldn’t be complete without the city’s famed residential supertalls. Luxury buildings like 432 Park Ave and One57 have set a high bar in the era of tower living, but the past decade has seen the vertical lifestyle catching on across the globe—from Boston to Monaco to New Orleans. — quartzy.qz.com
Check out these luxury residential skyscrapers outside of NYC: Boston, MA Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, Echelon Seaport is Boston's latest project located in the Seaport District. This new luxury condo and apartment development is currently under construction with a completion date of 2020. ... View full entry
Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) has chosen global infrastructure firm AECOM and luis vidal + architects to handle the remodeling of Boston Logan International Airport’s Terminal E. The team won the design competition due to their collaborative proposal, which also satisfied Massport’s functional requirements. — Commercial Property Executive
This major remodeling of Boston Logan International Airport’s Terminal E will be lead by AECOM as the prime consultant and architect/engineer of record, and airport design specialist luis vidal + architects as the vision architect. A press statement summarizes the proposed improvements: "The... View full entry
How do you raise the standard of living in the poorest neighborhoods in the country?
That’s what community developers, typically nonprofits that build and finance affordable housing, have tried to do over the last few decades. And yet [...] many of these communities remain stuck in poverty. [...]
This problem has stumped community developers for decades. But two local nonprofits think they’ve hit on something: They’ve created a private equity fund.
— marketplace.org
As a part of the Harvard Graduate School of Design's, Grounded Visionaries campaign, it has been announced that the school has received a $15 million gift from Ronald M. Druker (Loeb Fellow ’76) and the Bertram A. and Ronald M. Druker Charitable Foundation — the largest single gift in the... View full entry
Built in 1896 for piano dealers M. Steinert & Sons, Steinert Hall is a magnificent six-story limestone and brick building tucked 40 feet below the street level. Appropriately nicknamed “The Little Gem”, it was designed by Winsell&Weterell and incorporated a Beaux Arts-style facade... View full entry
OMA unveiled a rendering of their design for a mixed-use office tower along Boston's 88 Seaport Boulevard, marking the firm's first commission in the city. With OMA Partner Shohei Shigematsu as design lead, the “sliced” building comprises 18 floors with almost 425,000 square-feet of office... View full entry
Pneumatic architecture—aka inflatables—have been a mainstay of avant-garde and experimental architecture for decades. Back in the ’60s, figures like Buckminster Fuller and Frei Otto, alongside radical practices like Haus-Rucker-Co, Utopia and Ant Farm, pioneered the use of these structures... View full entry
Jennifer Ly, a designer at Foster + Partners, was recently announced as the lucky winner of the 2016-17 Rotch Travelling Scholarship. Founded in 1883 in honor of Benjamin Smith Rotch, it allows the recipient to travel for at least 6 months studying architecture. Starting with 110 entrants in... View full entry
Frustrated by a succession of boring glass boxes, Mayor Marty Walsh has called for one more: adventurous architecture.
[...] the city tries to sell off a decrepit garage in Winthrop Square. Earlier this month, each of six development teams presented its ideas in an open house at Faneuil Hall. On Monday, the Boston Redevelopment Authority revealed each team’s bid for the garage.
— bostonglobe.com
Detailed presentations of the six final RFP responses can be found here.Related stories in the Archinect news:Boston Mayor Marty Walsh goes up against boring architectureRachel Slade dares to ask: "Why is Boston so ugly?"Art college professor suggests makeover for brutalist Boston City Hall View full entry
This post is brought to you by Boston Architectural College. The Master of Design Studies in Design for Human Health (MDS-DHH) is the first low residency—primarily online—master’s program dedicated to health and wellbeing within the built environment. This program is available at the Boston... View full entry