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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
This post is brought to you by Boston Architectural College. The Boston Architectural College has been engaged in architectural education since 1889. We educate students to become citizen architects who change and sustain the city. Our campus is located in the distinctive collegiate environment... View full entry
There’s the legacy of Brutalism being such a negative term. It begins the conversation with negativity about these buildings, and this falls into the misreading of them as harsh, Stalinist, or some other kind of monstrous, mean architecture. The name plays into that mischaracterization that’s grown around a lot of them. I think “Heroic’” is a better title for what their actual aspirations were. The architects had a real sense of optimism. They were developing architecture for the civic realm. — citylab.com
Related news on Archinect:Brutalism: the great architectural polarizerArt college professor suggests makeover for brutalist Boston City HallFuture of Paul Rudolph's brutalist Orange County building still uncertain View full entry
This post is brought to you by Boston Architectural College. The Master of Architecture, distance program is the first, primarily online program in the nation to be accredited by the National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB). It is available at the Boston Architectural College to U.S... View full entry
architects at Tsoi/Kobus & Associates in Cambridge have started using the processing system that powers virtual reality games to put clients inside development projects before they are built.
Using a cloud-based system called Revizto, architects can create a digital hospital down to the last brick, and then invite a client to “walk” through the space to see if the ceilings are high enough or the windows provide enough light.
— betaboston.com
Firms like Tsoi/Kobus are beginning to experiment with multiple immersive, interactive media for clients to tour buildings, often in advance of making any physical models. Clients can be virtually transported into the design's space by wearing an Oculus VR headset, or by being inside a specially... View full entry
You can still call it the John Hancock Tower, but the company that paid $930 million for New England’s tallest building can’t.
Now that John Hancock’s last lease in the office building has expired, owner Boston Properties Inc. can no longer use the financial services company’s name on the property.
— The Boston Globe
Related:Boston’s tallest new skyscraper in 40 years breaking ground todayBoston’s John Hancock Tower Receives the 2011 AIA Twenty-Five Year Award (on Bustler) View full entry
The United States Olympic Committee said Monday that it was withdrawing Boston as its proposed bid city because resistance among residents was too great to overcome in the short time that remained before the committee had to formally propose a bid city by Sept. 15. [...]
U.S.O.C. intended to move quickly to prepare a bid from another city. While he did not mention Los Angeles by name, many people involved in the Olympics expect Los Angeles to enter the competition.
— nytimes.com
More news from the 2020 and 2024 Olympics:Zaha's Tokyo Olympic Stadium cancelled – Abe calls for a redesign from scratchDavid Manfredi, the architect behind Boston’s 2024 Olympic bidBoston wins U.S. Olympic Committee's bid for 2024 GamesWhich U.S. city will win the 2024 Olympic bid? Boston... View full entry
Some architects consider the design a stunning example of the modern Brutalist style, but for many Bostonians it’s the building they have long loved to hate.
[...] why can’t we make changes that are easily reversible, while simultaneously acting to protect and preserve the structure?
Here’s one simple, obvious and cost-effective solution: Sheath the building with a tinted glass curtain wall — but not to create another modernist glass box.
— The Boston Globe
Related:How Boston City Hall was bornGerhard Kallmann, Brutalist Architect, Dies at 97 View full entry
