Spencer Green Ribbon Cutting
On September 15th, Chelsea Neighborhood Developers cut the ribbon on 48 new affordable rental units at Spencer Green. City Manager, Jay Ashe, was there to participate in the festivities, and he was joined by several elected officials from Chelsea. While several children hung on the play structure right next to the lectern, CND director Ann Houston thanked the multitude of lenders, manager, designers, and contractors involved in the project. She thanked Utile in particular for being steadfast in its commitment to executing a non-traditional design.
Michael LeBlanc Speaks at Puma City Panel
Michael LeBlanc, Utile Principal, was one of five panelists invited to discuss the temporary Puma City pavilion with Ada Tolla and Guiseppe Lignano of LOT-EK, the designers of the structure. The pavilion, constructed of shipping containers painted bright red and emblazoned with the Puma logo, included a Puma retail store and a busy bar with a deck on the top floor. More than the appeal of stacked red shipping containers (shoe boxes?), the pavilion provided a thrills-a-second spatial sequence with views down into the Puma store on one stair and up into the Grey Goose-sponsored bar from another.
There was some teeth-gnashing about the relative sustainability of the pavilion, which is following the Volvo racing sail boats from port to port. As Ted Smalley Bowen commented in a recent issue of Metropolis:
“But while the designers typically revel in repurposing the stuff of industrial society—from shipping containers and oil tanks to detergent bottles—the Puma pavilion was actually purpose-built in China (where they’ve been keeping busy with several projects recently). So, wait, doesn’t the container’s newness contradict LOT-EK’s reuse tenet? Not according to the designers, who noted that they’re making use of the modules and logistics of the containerized shipping system and demonstrating the potential of container architecture.
We agree; and for us, the expressive strategy of the building (perfect for its overtly commercial function) and the rich spatial experience that was carved out of the dumb boxes was more than worth the experiment.
Harvard Law School Panel Discussion
Tim Love is one of four panelists invited to comment on the new book “City Bound: How States Stifle Urban Innovation” by Gerald E. Fung and David J. Barron. The authors, both professors at the Harvard Law School, make the case that the legal structure that binds city power to state authority limits the ability of cities to do comprehensive planning. Love will discuss the issues raised by the book in the context of potential approaches to the redevelopment of Government Center in Boston. Utile recently explored a range of strategies for the district on behalf of the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency (MassDevelopment).
The other panelists are Susan Fainstein, Professor of Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; Robert J. Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard University; and Sam Bass Warner, Visiting Professor of Urban History at MIT.
A conversation to celebrate the release of City Bound: How States Stifle Urban Innovation
Monday, March 16 6:00 PM
Stubbins Room
Harvard Graduate School of Design
48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Gropius Visit
In a continuing effort to celebrate New England modernism, Utile made a pilgrimage to the Gropius House - designed by Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer in 1938 - in Lincoln, MA. Although many of the group had been there previously, the warm evening light offered opportunity for new appreciation. A German-themed party, replete with beer, brats and pretzels rounded out the evening. Prost!
Christina Crawford Lectures at Rudolph House
Christina Crawford gave a lecture on the residential work of late modernist architect Paul Rudolph at the New England Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (NESAH) event this past weekend. The talk was part of a tour of Rudolph’s 1956 Yanofsky House, in Chestnut Hill, one of the only remaining Rudolph Houses in New England. In her talk, she tested Rudolph’s written interest in “regionalist” architecture against this one work, comparing the house to other seminal modern houses in the Boston area which also expressed interest in contextual specificity. The house itself was a treat to see: only 2,500 sf at the main level, its highly obsessive edge detailing, varied sequence of spaces, and expansive interior to exterior vistas made for a rich experience. The owners’ long and somewhat tortured process to restore the house was covered in the New York Times.
Christina is an active member of NESAH’s Board of Directors, and in that capacity gave a talk on her research on Ukrainian Constructivism this past fall.
Utile exhibits work at the pinkcomma gallery
Utile is one of ten firms collaborating on an installation and exhibition timed to coincide with the National AIA Convention in Boston. Entitled Parti Wall/Hanging Green, the installation will be hung for a week on a converted loft building on Wareham Street in Boston’s South End. The five-story piece will be visible from the pinkcomma gallery, where an exhibition of the collaborative design process and the works of the individual firms will be on display. The ten firms – all of which were formed in the past six years – joined together to form the Young Architects Boston Group in January. They have been meeting since January to conceive and plan the installation. The happy outcome of the process is a strengthened community of like-minded designers. Click here to see a video of the installation.
pinkcomma gallery
81b Wareham Street in the South End, Boston
Exhibition Dates: Friday, May 16 - Friday, June 6th
SoWa Artwalk Weekend Hours: May 17th/18th, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Monday—Friday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. or by appointment.
Photos by Mark Pasnik.