MassArt Dorm Rendered

ADD Inc's Huntington Avenue dorm for MassArt is showing its developed shape, beautifully slender and set back from the street and with a curved first level to skirt around the huge MWRA aqueduct easement under the surface. Now working with a single layer of facade finish on the tower (we liked the previously shown screens and graphics), the panels remind us of the firm's Carpenter's Union building on the SE Expressway (under construction), the color results of which are mixed at best. Perhaps the height emphasizing gradient will help in this case. Our biggest disappointment, however, is the apparent loss of the nicely shaped public wing at the base which anchored this urban mass to the street front and housed public gallery and lecture functions.

Allston Science Complex on Hold

Harvard's Allston Development has ground to a screeching halt. Unfortunately, the well endowed institution's move indicates the promise of economic recovery may be further off than we thought. A bellwether move, the Allston Development Group, after putting all other building design work for the rest of Harvard's campus expansion on ice, announced that construction on the first symbolic component, the competition-winning Science Center by Behnisch Architecten, will be halted when the foundations are complete. From the looks of it in this midday photo at the site, this is where the work currently sits idle.