As co-chair of ULI Boston’s Building Resilience Task Force, I am joining other ULI members in a design charrette titled Living with Water: The Urban Implications, on May 8th…
The latest article in the Boston Globe profiles the transformative nature of our CitySquare project in Worcester. Many of the topics discussed in this article go back to our initial discussions for the urban design approach to this project nearly 10 years ago. While the reconnection of the street network and the redevelopment of the urban streetscape seem like obvious goals, the realization of those goals required a complex partnership between our design team, developers, and the community. Arrowstreet is proud of what has been accomplished in downtown Worcester, and looks forward to the next phases of the CitySquare project and its significant impacts on the revitalization of New England’s second largest city.
There’s a recently opened section of bike path that connects Mystic Valley Parkway in Arlington to the Red Line at Alewife. The stretch I use on my way to work parallels Route 16 as it passes by Dilboy Stadium just along the western edge of Alewife Brook on its way to Broadway on the Somerville line. It exists in an interesting urban boundary zone…
Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday!
Freeport Maine has long called itself the outlet shopping capital of New England. LL Bean’s Flagship store has anchored the town for over 100 years, and the shoe store Cole Haan was built into an international success from its humble beginnings by its CEO, George Denney, a Freeport native and lifelong resident…
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Rendering by Arrowstreet -
Rendering by Arrowstreet -
Rendering by Arrowstreet
Among all of the other interesting things that will be going on at the Architecture Boston Expo (ABX) this week, National Reprographics (NRI) is holding a 3D-printed model contest as part of the event’s 3D Printing Pavilion. The model contest involved the design of a 5,000-seat performance space on an ambiguous “waterfront” site. It wasn’t a lot to go on as far as real-world design problems go, but that was actually a nice change because it left a lot of details up to the imagination. Once designed, contestants were to submit a digital model file to NRI so that it could be printed for the ABX show…
As an architect, I enjoy bringing my passion for good design to both the office and to the community. I feel that having connections with the larger community strengthens my ability to connect with the people who interact with our buildings every day. Many of the projects I work on are schools, so I particularly enjoy working with students and helping them understand the challenges of the built environment they live in. To expand my interaction with students I recently joined ULI (the Urban Land Institute) and became a volunteer in their UrbanPlan program. Since I have joined the
Artists for Humanity will be expanding their studio space in South Boston with the gift of land by Gillette. It’s hard to believe the EpiCenter we designed for AFH (Boston’s first LEED Platinum building) opened almost nine years ago now. They have grown to employ more than 250 teen artists. Arrowstreet has continued to work with AFH over the years, including generating ideas for how they could expand…
Revere Beach is undergoing a major revitalization. Arrowstreet is currently working on several projects in the city of Revere, Massachusetts, including the master planning and design of Waterfront Square, a transit-oriented, mixed-use development on 8.8 acres of oceanfront land surrounding the Wonderland MBTA station. Several components of Waterfront Square have recently been completed, including the South Parking Garage and Intermodal Station, the Markey Memorial Bridge, and a broad civic plaza. We’re also currently working on the DCR Beach Support and Public Facility and on a multifamily housing development. Our planning and design for Waterfront Square will create new economic activity in the area with greater pedestrian connection, organized vehicular access, and an enhanced public beach front and open view corridors to the water.
Revere Beach has a rich and varied history, which we explored as part of our planning process to understand and learn from the past.
For the past seven years, I’ve lived with my family in a small house that abuts a long abandoned spur of railroad tracks in Somerville, MA. The tracks have had a colorful history, as they used to serve a factory that manufactured paper products, construction supplies, and root beer at various points in its history. We’ve also heard stories from former residents that circus trains used to park on the tracks overnight before their trips into Boston. So lions, tigers, and elephants may have been transient residents of our backyard…
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MEP Systems at Brooke Mattapan Charter School -
Mechanical room at KIPP Academy Lynn // Rendering by Architectural Engineers, Inc.
Perhaps it’s the inner BIM (Building Information Modeling) geek in me, but I’m constantly impressed while looking at the construction document level MEP models that our engineers generate. While there is a certain level of mundanity to the subject matter, there is also an elegance that stems from being able to visualize the entirety of the air and hydronic systems in a building in three dimensions. The models at this stage of development are notable because they represent the many hours of thought and effort from the engineering disciplines all consolidated into one digital representation…
Arrowstreet is continuing our design support for Rock Spring Centre. We’ve been helping our client, DRI, as they work with grocery/market and other tenants for this mixed-use development in Montgomery County, Maryland. The full project will provide retail, office, hotel, and housing strategically located at a confluence of major highways just north of Washington, D.C.
I will be speaking this Thursday at Bisnow’s State of the Seaport District event. If you’re in the area, I look forward to seeing you there for a great discussion on this growing neighborhood. The event summary is below:
With millions of square feet of new projects on the horizon, the Seaport District is poised for even more growth in 2013. Come hear top experts discuss the state of the Seaport market: will vacancies stabilize, is rent growth anticipated to resume, what will be the fate of major projects on the horizon, and how will challenges in transportation affect Seaport real estate growth?
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Members from Mass Development and The ULI Tech. Assistance Panel on a walking tour in Lawrence. -
Members from Mass Development and The ULI Tech. Assistance Panel on a walking tour in Lawrence.
The Lawrence Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) was featured in the Eagle Tribune yesterday. George Tremblay took part in this open discussion about revitalizing the mill city of Lawrence, part of a series sponsored by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and MassDevelopment. The article covers some of the challenges inherent in working with former mill cities: environmental remediation, parking shortages, and historical designations, just to name a few!
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Photo by Claes Andreasen -
Photo by Claes Andreasen -
Photo by Claes Andreasen -
Photo by Claes Andreasen -
Photo by Claes Andreasen -
Photo by Claes Andreasen -
Photo by Claes Andreasen -
Photo by Claes Andreasen -
Photo by Claes Andreasen
Scott Pollack and I were recently in Anchorage, Alaska as part of Arrowstreet’s on-going work for the United States Army and Air Force. Anchorage and its surroundings are humble and amazingly beautiful; one of those places that looked and felt truly unique, like no place I’d ever been before. We were able to steal away from our work for a day of sightseeing, with some highlights shown in these photos.
Yesterday morning I was part of a fascinating panel discussion on the critical issues associated with the development of charter school facilities. The workshop was sponsored by Build with Purpose, Nonprofit Finance Fund, and Boston Community Capital, who were recently jointly awarded a $3.3 million federal Credit Enhancement grant to support the development of high quality charter school facilities throughout the northeast. The panel featured experts in charter school finance, law, architecture, and real estate development in an interactive discussion about the process of developing new school facilities…
I will be a panelist at the Architecture Boston Expo this year for the “Designing for Food” workshop on November 16th at 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM. We look forward to a lively discussion about the challenges and opportunities of planning, designing, and operations for urban agriculture. The workshop abstract is below…
I wanted to share a few construction photos from the Arrowstreet-designed Unum Headquarters building in Worcester. Part of the CitySquare development we have been master planning and designing, the Unum building (One Mercantile Square) will open this fall. It’s great to see this striking building set against the sky as I pass the DCU Center every site visit. We all look forward to seeing this building complete and the rest of CitySquare coming together!
I’ll be speaking at the Southern New England APA (SNEAPA) Planning Conference in Hartford next Friday with co-speakers Kenneth Buckland of The Cecil Group and Laura Wernick of HMFH Architects. The session abstract is below…
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Planning exercise for US Air Force using ArcMap -
Planning exercise for US Air Force using ArcMap -
Planning exercise for US Air Force using ArcMap -
Planning exercise for US Air Force using ArcMap
I’ve recently been working on an Air Force Services planning project. Part of the project involves some really cool design proposals for future implementation; the initial steps included assessing the existing programs and assigning them to the existing building layout, for which we used a powerful piece of GIS software called ArcMap…
In a talk that touched on Washington gridlock, the MBTA Green Line extension, and the Main Street Fairness Act, Congressman Michael Capuano spoke at the kick-off of the Somerville Chamber of Commerce’s new monthly “Government Affairs Breakfast Series”. The late January event was held in the Mount Vernon Restaurant, a short distance away from the new Assembly Row development and the future Orange Line T stop…
I will be participating in a ULI TAP (Technical Assistance Panel) on October 11 in Fall River. The panel has been asked to examine the Jefferson Street Extension, comprised of several redeveloped mills and privately owned property zoned for industry. The Fall River Office of Economic Development (FROED) has marketed the area for a variety of uses and is looking for suggestions on how to best package these parcels for highest and best use.
This year at Build Boston, I will be presenting the session “Municipal Facilities Plans: Strategies for Success”. Build Boston, now in its 27th year, is the Northeast’s largest architecture trade show and conference, and is a great resource for the design community…
Arrowstreet project Rock Spring Centre was featured on a DC Real Estate forum recently, including some of the newer project imagery…
As a follow up to my previous post on Universal Flex Labs: A New Approach to Lab Space, the NAIOP site tour was a big hit; so much so that the organization suspended their event marketing after a single email. Attendees had a lot of questions about Arrowstreet’s Flex Lab design for Biomed’s 325 Vassar Street…
On June 1st, I will be speaking during the sold out NAIOP tour of 325 Vassar Street on the topic of Universal Flex Labs: A New Approach to Lab Space. A key part of designing 325 Vassar Street was working with Biomed Realty Trust to create the Universal Flex Lab template: a modular design of lab, office, and support space that could be quickly and easily customized to suit any technical discipline…