Mass Art Dormitory

[PaulC]

Constructin to start June, 2010, completion August 2012

http://www.bankerandtradesman.com/news138056.html

Suffolk Education, a Suffolk Construction team that specializes in managing construction projects in the education sector, will build a new residence hall for the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.
The $61 million, 21-story residence hall will add 493 beds and 145,000 square feet of dormitory space to the school campus. The residence hall will also include a new health center that will serve students of MassArt, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and Wentworth Institute of Technology.
The new building will feature eco-friendly elements designed to achieve LEED Silver certification, according to a statement.

Once completed, the building will allow the college to guarantee housing to all first- and second-year students and will provide housing to 38 percent of the entire student body on campus, an increase from 22 percent.

The Massachusetts State College Building Authority will be the project developer for the new MassArt residence hall, and ADD Inc. is the project architect. Construction of the new residence hall is scheduled to begin in June and will be completed in August 2012.

http://www.massart.edu/Support_MassA...ence_Hall.html

http://www.massart.edu/About_MassArt...ence_Hall.html

Also Center for Design and New Media:

http://www.massart.edu/Support_MassA...New_Media.html

[Ron Newman]

What is currently on this site (or, if it's now vacant, what was formerly there)?

[briv]

I think it's great that these lots are getting built on, but the way this tower is situated is awful. The setback and plazas just preserve the interruption of Huntington Ave's streetwall. What is the justification for this?

This stretch of Huntington is a mess, and this could have been a great opportunity to restore some of its lost cohesion. They should have took a lesson from NEU's Building H.

[kennedy]

That rendering is stunning. Seriously, renderings never look that good. They either try too hard to look realistic or try too hard to look like a sketch - this is right in the middle and I'm loving it.

I'm not awfully familiar with that stretch of Huntington, but the rendering, which is obviously quite flattering, makes me think the discontinuity could work. That plaza out front actually looks like an effective space, and the tower seems to be situated just at enough of an angle to break it from the streetwall and give it a sculptural quality. Maybe that ground level could have been extended to the adjacent building, where that slatted fence-like structure is in the back, but other than that I really like this design.

[Arborway]

Originally Posted by Ron Newman

What is currently on this site (or, if it's now vacant, what was formerly there)?

Something no one will miss.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Architecture really says a lot about a school. MassArt = mediocre. Hell, even those Wentworth dorms are boring but at least attempt urban cohesion and scaling.

[blade_bltz]

The setback is unforgivable. This is just as bad as the tower in the park by the Longwood E line stop.

[palindrome]

well, at least we now have something we can follow progress on.

[Shepard]

For whatever little it's worth, I disagree about the judgments being passed on the setback. The building is much more usefully aligned with Vancouver Street than Huntington given the footprint, and to come right up to Vancouver would have been completely out of scale. Setting it back solves that, and the resulting plaza - which based on the render actually looks more like a superwide sidewalk - will, I think, be a net positive for urban life and activity on that stretch.

[kennedy]

Agree with Shepard.

[Beton Brut]

Overhead of the current site.

I'm uncertain what's gained by orienting the building to Vancouver St. I think the perception is that the plaza will be activated by a variety of student uses, and that this sort of public space does not currently exist on the MassArt campus.

So smoking and hacky-sack in September and May, trash in the winter...

[kennedy]

Or installation art throughout the year.

[Shepard]

Is anything slated for that concrete/sand triangle on the north section of Vancouver (across Huntington)? Streetview shows it as fenced in, possibly getting ready for some sort of work... If not, that parcel will continue to blight this short stretch even after this tower goes up.

[BarbaricManchurian]

^^they built a park on it, its in a thread somewhere

[Bos77]

Originally Posted by vanshnookenraggen

Architecture really says a lot about a school. MassArt = mediocre. Hell, even those Wentworth dorms are boring but at least attempt urban cohesion and scaling.

I can appreciate what they are trying to do, but the rendering is proabably too clean for it's own good. I fear it will end up looking like a super value-engineered love child of One Western, and NEU's International Village. It's an architectural awkward family photo waiting in the wings. http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/2009/...bage-pail-kid/

[ablarc]

Huntington Avenue will never amount to anything unless they get rid of the parking lots.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Originally Posted by ablarc

Huntington Avenue will never amount to anything unless they get rid of the parking lots.

I think this rendering proves that won't go far enough. Besides there really aren't many parking lots on Huntington left. This is probably the biggest one.

[kz1000ps]

Don't forget that Wentworth has a proposal in the works to build on the athletic field at the intersection of Huntington and Ruggles. That would go a long way towards fixing the broken Huntington streetwall.

[vanshnookenraggen]

I actually like that field being there. It creates a good vista where you can see Wentworth, Northeastern, the Fenway, MFA, and that Greek Cathedrial. It's open space that works.

[ablarc]

Originally Posted by vanshnookenraggen

... there really aren't many parking lots on Huntington left. This is probably the biggest one.

One is too many.