Studio Final: Research and Exploration

Historic Context Exploration

It was important to me to not only attempt to represent the connection between my work and school in the project, but to also make an attempt to actually connect this school project to some of what I am working on in my work. Currently in the office I am working on a building that has a site that is similar to the school project in the fact that it could be described as a 'missing tooth' in the fabric of a historic pedestrial corridor. It is an urban infill site. I would assume that this site is similar in that it was what was 'leftover' from when the highway was built and historically Boylston was a continuous row of residential and retail buildings. The project in the office is in a historic district with an architectural review board. The review board was very concerned that the building that presented itself on the street was 'historic in nature' meaning scale, materiality, etc. Yet the program required a building that was much larger than was could be provided in a historic context. We presented the argument that if the larger mass of the required program square footage was 'removed' or set back from the street, it's mass would not negatively effect the historic scale of the surrounding neighborhood. Yet, it was important to also have the main mass of the building grounded and accesible to the street. So the final product was two 'historic' scale buildings that flank a courtyard that has access to the mass of the building.


It seems to me that it is easy to imagine that should you actually by within the 'pedestrian' corridor of this street, you might not realize the mass of this building, but obviosly from the view on the right it is a particularly large building compared to its neighbors.

So, this I was attempting to employ a very similar approach. Yet, considering the school site had a corner access, and was triangular in shape I thought it appropriate to have the access to the mass of the building at the corner. The historic part of the building then was pushed up the the street, and the large mass of the building started to disappear from the street as you move away from the corner, and into the 'historic' neighborhood. This is not to say that there was an attempt to hide the mass of the building because in both cases it is very evident. But the attempt to 'reclaim' the 'historic' streetscape could be successful.



This view portrays my argument pretty well... actually it seems to work so well that I will quote the profesor of this class. "The low-rise for me is too contextual (it looks like it was there before you built the tower behind)." Success!!