By Louis Postel in Trade Secrets, New England Home, November 2015.
Maybe you remember going down to Boston Harbor as a kid. There was always a super-sized rat trundling along on some crazy errand.
Maybe it was always the same rat on the same errand, but there it inevitably was dodging around heaps of junk: sneakers, six-pack yokes, tampon applicators and oil rags strewn along the shore.
Well, now he’s gone, and his friends are gone. Peer down today through the harbor piers and all you see now is clear water. Not even a gum wrapper, thanks to what remains this country’s greatest environmental success story.
But the architecture hugging the shore may prove to be our country’s greatest lost opportunity story: one bland blue glass tower after cropping from what was Jimmy’s seaside restaurant to our iconic Design Center.
Why would all the boards and commissions allow these featureless, soul-sucking detail-less towers happen?
It can take a sheaf of permits along with some political muscle, to change a window molding on Beacon Hill. Why then have international developers come in essentially unimpeded world with recycled, click-cut-paste designs?
Rachel Slade was an architect for Leers, Weinzapfel before she became the Executive Editor at Boston Magazine. “Why is Boston so Ugly?” She titled a major piece last May, “The forest of elevator cores sprouting around town tells us that we’re living in a once-a-lifetime moment — a sugar rush of development unseen here since our parents’ parents’ time. But the dirty little secret behind Boston’s Building boom is that it’s profoundly banal — designed without any imagination, straight out of the box, built to please banks rather than people.”
Greg Galer helms the Boston Preservation Alliance. His blog in September picked up where Slade left off:“ Boston’s housing needs are clear. But faceless architecture isn’t the answer.” The uninspired condos and apartment buildings going up could be found in “‘Anywhere, USA’…Boston is rapidly losing its personality.”
Too bad, because as baby-boomers downsize to try to fulfill their long-held wish to reconnect with the city again, where are they going to go? Imagine relocating from a house by a Polhemus Savery DaSilva, a David Hacin, or a Lyman Perry/Hutker to what Slade calls “a relentless gridded box of windows from floor to sky.”
There’s got to be a better way.
New England School of Art and Design Professor Sean Solley of Barrington, RI has just returned from Berlin, a city that takes its skyline very seriously. A design competition is mandated for every major building, whether public or private, because its presence will affect everyone.
Solley was there in Berlin for the past year studying and trying his hand at the maker phenomenon. Given his enthusiasm, the new maker technologies may represent the best answer yet to the featurelessness of cut and paste “Revit Architecture.”
Launched experimentally at MIT, maker facilities, Maker Faires, and Fab (fabrication) Labs dedicated to “personal manufacturing” have spread worldwide. 3D printing, laser cutting, and computerized wood routing have all become surprisingly affordable. This new maker phenomenon, says Solley will be especially critical in advancing his main interest: interdisciplinary collaborations that support Universal and Sustainable Design.
“My wife Katrina and I found all sorts of scrap from trade fairs around Germany that we intended to make into custom furniture pieces. The problem was that they were all odd and off-centered. We readily solved the problem using 3-D printing to produce customized clasps and knuckles at one of the local Fab Labs.” Now it’s easy to picture an interdisciplinary win-win-win using this process: recycling wasted materials (read: sustainability), customizing furnishings for clients in collaboration with a physical therapist (Universal Design/Interdisciplinary Collaboration).
A sure way to mediocrity is to believe that one size fits all. “For example,” says designer and staging specialist Kerri Cardi of Wakefield, RI, “I advise my builder clients that if you’re marketing to young couples with families, you’re more often selling to the woman than the man. He’s thinking family, which makes the sofa in the family room a first priority. You want her to imagine curling up right there. Next in importance is the dining room and kitchen.”
“One builder client was about to put the laundry right next to the master. ‘This won’t work if your target clients are young couples — They need one place that’s private. If they’re older, however, and the kids are gone then a laundry in the master makes a lot more sense than having to traipse down to the basement.”
Formerly married to Nick Cardi of Cardi’s Furniture in Providence, Kerri has travelled the world on buying trips. She now sees an overlooked market, and one she’s intent on filling: providing fine furniture to builders that they can rent for staging purposes and not necessarily buy, which would make a custom approach to real estate marketing that much easier.
Young singles as well as couples are flocking all four Area Four restaurants in Boston.
Architect Warren Schwartz of Schwartz Silver is not alone in sensing how Area Fours have become magnets for an optimistic, youthful Boston, one that seems to have every intent of remaining World Class. What sets Schwartz apart is that he’s designing the new eatery in the Troy Building in the South End, while simultaneously designing a new home in the Berkshires for restauranteur Michael Krupp and his family.
“A less exuberant client than Michael might asked us perch the house high up one of the knolls overlooking the pond. But not Michael. He and his wife represent a new generation that believes in doing the extraordinary, something like Steve Jobs. Rather than perching it on one of the knolls, Michael asked me to design his house stretching over two knolls with the pond below. We have even added a zip line to get you down there fast.”
Liz Goldberg of Hartford, CT finds her design work is now stretching over three generations after 36 years in the business. Surprisingly, older parents aren’t uniformly downsizing in total area lived in, but merely splitting up their one main house into a condo in the city and a family compound in the country. “One client is downsizing from an 8,000 square foot house to a penthouse in the city, plus a 5,000 square foot compound on the Cape, which I am working on now. Their interest is turning from guests to grandchildren — creating a house that can accommodate many generations to come, says Goldberg.
It’s hard to think of a design services website that doesn’t announce “We don’t have a particular style. We’re more about listening to our clients.” The question is how they listen and what do they do with that information.
Jocelyn Chiappone (pronounced sha-pone) of Digs Design is one block from America’s Cup Road in Newport, home to a professional community that includes landscape and boat designers. “And it’s just far enough north of the t-shirt district,” says Chiappone. She listens to her clients by first floating images back and forth that they collect independently from Houzz and Pinterest, constantly shuffling the deck till she things feel right.
Comfort levels increase as the look and feel becomes more refined. However, client input doesn’t mean Chiappone is boxed in from adding her own touch. Quite the opposite, all the image shuffling creates a creative space between client and designer that allows Chiappone to listen to her own voice as well. And this can make the difference between the usual to the distinctive. “It was a white kitchen and ordinarily my client may have gone for a traditional stripe upholstery on the chairs. Instead I showed her a faux bois fabric from Sunbrella. It was different, but she loved it.”
A client designer Julie Albrecht had worked years before found her again via Facebook. The client had since moved to Chicago but wanted to Albrecht to continue helping her. An internet exchange of Houzz and Pinterest idea boards soon followed.
Her client was a single mom, working long hours. She wanted a place to go home to and feel comfortable. No frou frou necessary.
There was one hitch, however — no room in the client’s budget to fly Albrecht out to Chicago from Connecticut’s Northeast Corner where Albrecht is based. “I was doubtful at first that this would work all by internet,” said Albrecht. “In fact I had a clause in our agreement that if a piece we bought didn’t fit because of an error made in the floor measurements, it would be up to her to return it.”
“Fortunately, my client took really good measurements.”
As for Boston’s building boom, new measurements and higher standards of design are clearly in order. The water may be cleaner, but the rat personifying Opportunism and Greed remains in the deep shadows of these gridded boxes. There’s got to be a better way.
Why would all the boards and commissions allow these featureless, soul-sucking detail-less towers happen?
It can take a sheaf of permits along with some political muscle, to change a window molding on Beacon Hill. Why then have international developers come in essentially unimpeded world with recycled, click-cut-paste designs?
Rachel Slade was an architect for Leers, Weinzapfel before she became the Executive Editor at Boston Magazine. “Why is Boston so Ugly?” She titled a major piece last May, “The forest of elevator cores sprouting around town tells us that we’re living in a once-a-lifetime moment — a sugar rush of development unseen here since our parents’ parents’ time. But the dirty little secret behind Boston’s Building boom is that it’s profoundly banal — designed without any imagination, straight out of the box, built to please banks rather than people.”
Greg Galer helms the Boston Preservation Alliance. His blog in September picked up where Slade left off:“ Boston’s housing needs are clear. But faceless architecture isn’t the answer.” The uninspired condos and apartment buildings going up could be found in “‘Anywhere, USA’…Boston is rapidly losing its personality.”
Too bad, because as baby-boomers downsize to try to fulfill their long-held wish to reconnect with the city again, where are they going to go? Imagine relocating from a house by a Polhemus Savery DaSilva, a David Hacin, or a Lyman Perry/Hutker to what Slade calls “a relentless gridded box of windows from floor to sky.”
There’s got to be a better way.
New England School of Art and Design Professor Sean Solley of Barrington, RI has just returned from Berlin, a city that takes its skyline very seriously. A design competition is mandated for every major building, whether public or private, because its presence will affect everyone.
Solley was there in Berlin for the past year studying and trying his hand at the maker phenomenon. Given his enthusiasm, the new maker technologies may represent the best answer yet to the featurelessness of cut and paste “Revit Architecture.”
Launched experimentally at MIT, maker facilities, Maker Faires, and Fab (fabrication) Labs dedicated to “personal manufacturing” have spread worldwide. 3D printing, laser cutting, and computerized wood routing have all become surprisingly affordable. This new maker phenomenon, says Solley will be especially critical in advancing his main interest: interdisciplinary collaborations that support Universal and Sustainable Design.
“My wife Katrina and I found all sorts of scrap from trade fairs around Germany that we intended to make into custom furniture pieces. The problem was that they were all odd and off-centered. We readily solved the problem using 3-D printing to produce customized clasps and knuckles at one of the local Fab Labs.” Now it’s easy to picture an interdisciplinary win-win-win using this process: recycling wasted materials (read: sustainability), customizing furnishings for clients in collaboration with a physical therapist (Universal Design/Interdisciplinary Collaboration).
A sure way to mediocrity is to believe that one size fits all. “For example,” says designer and staging specialist Kerri Cardi of Wakefield, RI, “I advise my builder clients that if you’re marketing to young couples with families, you’re more often selling to the woman than the man. He’s thinking family, which makes the sofa in the family room a first priority. You want her to imagine curling up right there. Next in importance is the dining room and kitchen.”
“One builder client was about to put the laundry right next to the master. ‘This won’t work if your target clients are young couples — They need one place that’s private. If they’re older, however, and the kids are gone then a laundry in the master makes a lot more sense than having to traipse down to the basement.”
Formerly married to Nick Cardi of Cardi’s Furniture in Providence, Kerri has travelled the world on buying trips. She now sees an overlooked market, and one she’s intent on filling: providing fine furniture to builders that they can rent for staging purposes and not necessarily buy, which would make a custom approach to real estate marketing that much easier.
Young singles as well as couples are flocking all four Area Four restaurants in Boston.
Architect Warren Schwartz of Schwartz Silver is not alone in sensing how Area Fours have become magnets for an optimistic, youthful Boston, one that seems to have every intent of remaining World Class. What sets Schwartz apart is that he’s designing the new eatery in the Troy Building in the South End, while simultaneously designing a new home in the Berkshires for restauranteur Michael Krupp and his family.
“A less exuberant client than Michael might asked us perch the house high up one of the knolls overlooking the pond. But not Michael. He and his wife represent a new generation that believes in doing the extraordinary, something like Steve Jobs. Rather than perching it on one of the knolls, Michael asked me to design his house stretching over two knolls with the pond below. We have even added a zip line to get you down there fast.”
Liz Goldberg of Hartford, CT finds her design work is now stretching over three generations after 36 years in the business. Surprisingly, older parents aren’t uniformly downsizing in total area lived in, but merely splitting up their one main house into a condo in the city and a family compound in the country. “One client is downsizing from an 8,000 square foot house to a penthouse in the city, plus a 5,000 square foot compound on the Cape, which I am working on now. Their interest is turning from guests to grandchildren — creating a house that can accommodate many generations to come, says Goldberg.
It’s hard to think of a design services website that doesn’t announce “We don’t have a particular style. We’re more about listening to our clients.” The question is how they listen and what do they do with that information.
Jocelyn Chiappone (pronounced sha-pone) of Digs Design is one block from America’s Cup Road in Newport, home to a professional community that includes landscape and boat designers. “And it’s just far enough north of the t-shirt district,” says Chiappone. She listens to her clients by first floating images back and forth that they collect independently from Houzz and Pinterest, constantly shuffling the deck till she things feel right.
Comfort levels increase as the look and feel becomes more refined. However, client input doesn’t mean Chiappone is boxed in from adding her own touch. Quite the opposite, all the image shuffling creates a creative space between client and designer that allows Chiappone to listen to her own voice as well. And this can make the difference between the usual to the distinctive. “It was a white kitchen and ordinarily my client may have gone for a traditional stripe upholstery on the chairs. Instead I showed her a faux bois fabric from Sunbrella. It was different, but she loved it.”
A client designer Julie Albrecht had worked years before found her again via Facebook. The client had since moved to Chicago but wanted to Albrecht to continue helping her. An internet exchange of Houzz and Pinterest idea boards soon followed.
Her client was a single mom, working long hours. She wanted a place to go home to and feel comfortable. No frou frou necessary.
There was one hitch, however — no room in the client’s budget to fly Albrecht out to Chicago from Connecticut’s Northeast Corner where Albrecht is based. “I was doubtful at first that this would work all by internet,” said Albrecht. “In fact I had a clause in our agreement that if a piece we bought didn’t fit because of an error made in the floor measurements, it would be up to her to return it.”
“Fortunately, my client took really good measurements.”
As for Boston’s building boom, new measurements and higher standards of design are clearly in order. The water may be cleaner, but the rat personifying Opportunism and Greed remains in the deep shadows of these gridded boxes. There’s got to be a better way.
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