Reprogramming the City

Posted on June 30, 2013 by xchangearch

“Tripod MOD(ule)” – Perspective view of the sidewalk shed system designed by XChange Architects; a finalist entry in the 2009 Urban Shed International Design Competition in New York City.

Scott Burnham’s exhibition – Reprogramming the City: Opportunities for Urban Infrastructure – showcasing over 20 provocative examples of imaginative re-use and re-purposing of urban infrastructure, opened last week at the BSA | Space – the Boston Society of Architect’s (BSA) new home at Atlantic Wharf. The exhibition, which promises to “reveal the city as a creative platform for new approaches to urban design,” will be showing at the BSA | Space until the end of September this year.

As architects and urbanists engaged in the design challenges of the public realm, we are excited to see exhibitions and discussions such as the ones being facilitated at the BSA by Mr. Burnham and hope this generates more hearty discourse on the opportunities for revitalization, rehabilitation and re-imagination of the extant infrastructural systems in our global cities.

Over the years, our studio has explored similar themes of re-engaging extant infrastructure within our urban condition to identify unique ways to experience and re-think these systems. From the everyday New York sidewalk construction scaffolding shed to a sidewalk planter box to an airport security fence, we believe that much of our pre-existing urban infrastructural conditions can be reconceived in profoundly impactful ways that can enhance sustainable practices, improve operations, and positively contribute to the pedestrian experience and design of our streetscapes.

PopUp Cafe – Perspective view of the retractable sidewalk cafe and planter system designed by XChange Architects in 2009. The prototype was awarded a 2009 BSA Design Excellence Award for Unbuilt Architecture and a 2010 Washington DC AIA Chapter Unbuilt Award.

“Project Runway” – a regenerative airfield concept designed by XChange Architects. The project is a jury selection in the WPA 2.0 Competition online gallery exhibition sponsored by UCLA’s UrbanLab.

All photos, drawings and images copyright XChange Architects LLC.

Take Back the Streets (Part Deux): UBurger Faneuil Hall

Posted on June 1, 2013 by xchangearch

Proposed sidewalk cafe, UBurger at Faneuil Hall – 16-18 North Street

Existing sidewalk conditions at 16-18 North Street, adjacent to the Millennium Hotel at Faneuil Hall

It’s the first of June and time for our restaurant clients to get their sidewalk cafes up and running. We’re delighted to have been invited by the Management Team at UBurger at Faneuil Hall to help design their new sidewalk cafe this spring and assist in renewing the establishment’s lease agreement with the City of Boston Public Improvement Commission and Department of Public Works.

New restaurant applicants in the City of Boston shall contact the City’s Public Improvement Commission (PIC) to initiate the application and approvals process for their sidewalk cafe. For those taking over existing restaurant occupancies: 1) check your Common Victualler (CV) license to verify if you have been approved for outdoor seating, 2) determine if the previous establishment was issued a valid sidewalk cafe permit and agreement, and 3) if you have both, provide evidence of both documents and prepare a letter requesting the renewal of the permit. Please consult with your licensed design professionals (e.g. engineers, landscape architects, and architects) for assistance in the design and permitting process. Here’s to a spectacular outdoor dining season in Boston!

PLANTER DESIGN CONCEPT – Taking advantage of remaining interior metal siding material left over from the interior construction, we are re-purposing them into our sidewalk planters to help tie-in the sidewalk cafe into the overall interior architecture. All DIY legwork, elbowgrease, haggling and heartache courtesy of Co-owner, George Gianarikas.

All photographs, images and drawings copyright XChange Architects LLC, unless otherwise noted.

Battery Conservancy Chair Design Competition Entry: A Seat for the Seasons

Posted on May 2, 2013 by xchangearch

Perspective – “Seat for the Seasons” outdoor seating prototype along the new Battery Green oval

Outdoor Seating Prototype – unfolding sequence

The Battery Conservancy in Lower Manhattan has announced the results of their 2012 Draw Up A Chair Competition. The competition, launched last fall, seeks to identify a winning permanent outdoor chair design for Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, New York City. According to the Conservancy website:

The design competition has three phases. The first phase is an open design competition. In the second phase, the jury will select Top Designs and Finalists, which will be featured online and on exhibition banners in the park. The Battery Conservancy will develop full-scale prototypes of the Finalists’ Designs and has been invited by Design Miami/ to exhibit these prototypes. In the third phase, the winner(s) will be awarded a cash prize and their designs will go into fabrication for use in the new Battery Green, a 3-acre oval at the park’s Broadway entrance, scheduled to open in 2014.

This is a great step forward in the post-Hurricane Sandy revival of the Lower Manhattan area. Hearty congratulations to the Conservancy, the competition finalists and the top 50 designs.

Draw Up a Chair Competition Board – “A Chair for the Seasons,” copyright Derrick Choi AIA & XChange Architects LLC

Process book diagram of first principles – copyright Derrick Choi AIA & XChange Architects LLC

We have posted some of our studio’s ideas and one of the submission boards we prepared to the competition.

Entitled, “A Seat for the Seasons,” our concept for a seating prototype integrates the repurposed wood bench slat stock with a high-density polyethylene seating shell. The end result is a new flexible outdoor furniture concept that would be comfortable, yet vastly reconfigurable for myriad Battery Green events and resilient enough to operate throughout the year in the Battery.

Perspective – chair prototype in its retracted setting & curvilinear configuration by the East Coast Memorial

All photographs, images and drawings copyright XChange Architects LLC, unless otherwise noted.

Brookline’s Marathon Gateway: St. Mary’s

Posted on April 13, 2013 by xchangearch

With the Boston Marathon less than 48 hours away, we are bracing for both the exhilaration and logistical insanity of the race on Monday. One of the most intriguing aspects of the Marathon is its immediate and palpable urban intensity – transforming your everyday main street into the hub of the universe for a day.

One of our main corridors here in the Town of Brookline, Beacon Street, is one such destination along the Marathon route that becomes flooded with a sea of humanity on Marathon Monday. As the final Brookline gateway before the final mile and a half of the Marathon, the St. Mary’s neighborhood, in particular, provides a uniquely dramatic backdrop for the final push: characterized by throngs of supporters (many from nearby Boston University) and the emergence of myriad large-scale graphics and banners, similar to the ones on the left and below at the St. Mary’s MBTA “T” stop.

INSPIRATION – the supergraphic advertisement at the St. Mary’s T Stop during the 2012 Marathon.

We’ve always wondered if there was a way we could capture the excitement of Marathon Monday and somehow make it a permanent part of the urban fabric of this neighborhood. The kinetic energy of movement – runners, cars, and trains – at St. Mary’s is a key design theme in our streetscape study for the Economic Development Department in the Town of Brookline. In 2012, XChange Architects was invited to assist the Town Economic Development staff in a concept-level urban design charrette to help imagine the possibilities to enhance the commercial vibrancy of the St. Mary District by rethinking existing streetscape elements.

As a threshold between the Town of Brookline and the Fenway District of Boston, we propose a public art installation for St. Mary’s in the form of a pair of large-scale directional signage that celebrates this sense of movement; borrowing from Fenway green while taking scalar clues from Marathon supergraphics.

All photographs, images and drawings copyright Blair Hines Design Associates and XChange Architects LLC, unless otherwise noted.

Smallest Whole Foods Store Opens in Brookline: Saint Mary’s Re-imagined?

Posted on April 12, 2013 by xchangearch

The smallest branch of the Whole Foods empire opened yesterday morning in the St. Mary’s Commercial District in Brookline, Massachusetts. In replacing the old Johnnie’s Fresh Market, a neighborhood favorite (disclaimer: our previous studio was a mere 2 blocks away from the store), the new addition elicited a healthy debate about change, vibrancy, and the quality of community character in the commercial districts in Brookline. Whatever your opinion of WF may be, there is no question that the new store will generate considerable foot traffic to the area, which serves as a vital eastern gateway to the City of Boston – directly abutting Audubon Circle in the Fenway.

XChange Architects was invited by the Economic Development Department in the Town of Brookline in 2012 to assist in a concept-level urban design charette with commercial area stakeholders and the Brookline Chamber of Commerce to help imagine the possibilities to enhance the commercial vibrancy of the St. Mary District by rethinking existing streetscape elements: wayfinding components, street fixtures, storefront interfaces, edge conditions, and the inter-relationship between the Commercial District and the MBTA above-ground “T” station.

PUBLIC ART – a site art concept using colorful footprints to literally map pedestrian foot traffic to highlight the MBTA platform’s role as a bridge in this neighborhood

STOREFRONTS – a potential storefront renovation concept for The Wine Press

STREET FURNITURE – a concept to provide modular retractable street furniture to subdivide public and private sidewalk spaces along Beacon Street in order to activate the deep, underutilized sidewalks on Beacon Street.

MBTA SUBWAY PLATFORM INTEGRATION THROUGH SITE INSTALLATIONS – a series of landscape interventions and site art installations were explored to improve the metering and flow of T customers accessing the platform

Design Collaborator:

Landscape Architect – Blair Hines Design Associates

All drawings, images, and photos are the copyright of Blair Hines Design Associates and XChange Architects LLC, unless otherwise indicated.

Coolidge Corner Theater Expansion: Connecting the Past, Present & Future

Posted on April 10, 2013 by xchangearch

Earlier in March, The Coolidge Corner Theater Foundation (CCTF) announced their intention to expand their current facilities into an easement area and surface parking lot with portions of this area belonging to the Town of Brookline. The CCTF will be seeking Town Meeting support in May to vote on a set of warrant articles that will allow the Coolidge to build on that easement and parking area at the rear of the theater, facing the Centre Street parking lot. A Town vote in the affirmative will allow the CCTF and their consultants to conduct more detailed planning and design studies for a proposed rear theater expansion that will result in a third major auditorium at the Coolidge. For more information on Warrant Articles 19-21, please refer to the Town of Brookline website – http://www.brooklinema.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=275&Itemid=270

View of the existing Coolidge Corner Theater alleyway which connects vibrant Harvard Street to the Centre Street surface parking facility.

During the observation of the 75th Anniversary of the Coolidge Corner Theater, the CCTF retained XChange Architects, through an invited competition in 2009, to further develop a weather protection canopy concept to activate the theater’s existing alleyway into a safe and inviting area for customer queueing.

INSPIRATION: A view of the main cinema with the “Coolidge” logo cast onto the theater curtain.

Our concept envisages the canopy as a projection device that captures the movement of the sun throughout the day to create a dynamic and inviting public space. The canopy features perforated metal screens on the underside that project shadows of the Coolidge logo onto the alleyway; resulting in serendipitous branding and place-making for the Coolidge.

Sectional diagrams illustrating typical seasonal canopy functional characteristics.

Daytime view of proposed canopy, looking towards the Centre St. parking lot

Evening view under the proposed canopy, looking towards Harvard Street

Birdeye view of the canopy connecting Harvard Street (left) and the Centre Street parking lot (right)

CREDITS:

Stephen Lew PE, Structural Engineer – Weidlinger Associates Inc.

All photographs, images and drawings copyright XChange Architects LLC, unless otherwise noted.

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Category Archives: Urban Interventions

Reprogramming the City

Take Back the Streets (Part Deux): UBurger Faneuil Hall

Battery Conservancy Chair Design Competition Entry: A Seat for the Seasons

Brookline’s Marathon Gateway: St. Mary’s

Smallest Whole Foods Store Opens in Brookline: Saint Mary’s Re-imagined?

Coolidge Corner Theater Expansion: Connecting the Past, Present & Future