Maine Home + Design magazine photoshoot for Utile’s North Bridgeton home
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Utile Principal Michael Leblanc recently dropped in on Maine Home + Design’s photoshoot of Utile’s North Bridgeton home. The weather cooperated splendidly, blanketing the property with several feet of fresh, white powder the day before for photographer Trent Bell. Look for copies of Maine Home + Design on newsstands later this year! We’d also recommend checking out Maine magazine.
Love’s Latest Essay Published in Places
Utile principal Tim Love’s most recent essay, Between Mission Statement and Parametric Model, is featured in Design Observer’s Places Journal. In the essay, Love examines a growing divide between pedagogical priorities in American schools of architecture: formal experimentation driven by parametric modeling vs. sustainable and socially inspired design intentions. Click here to read the article.
Concrete Formwork Mock-ups
Concrete formwork mock-ups for the Harbor Park Pavilion canopies were recently fabricated at C.W. Keller, a millwork company located in New Hampshire. The curves of the canopy are a “describable surface,” that was fine-tuned in Rhino, a computer modeling program that is now being used to guide the CNC router that is fabricating the formwork components. Utile senior designer Chris Genter is working closely with Joel Lamere, a consultant to the team and instructor at MIT, on the geometry of the canopies and their translation into instructions for the team at Keller. The formwork is a composite of two wood-working approaches: where the curvature is more subtle, sheet material is bent over a series of wood ribs defined by the Rhino model. Where the curves are more extreme, the ribs are laminated together to create a solid block that creates a continuous sculptural surface. The joint between these two fabrication approaches has been carefully engineered to be as seamless as possible.
Click here to view more photographs of the formwork.
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 Ash, 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.
Reimagining Boston’s Stalled Filene’s Project
Utile was featured in the Boston Globe on Sunday, September 20th.
The firm was one of several architects, artists, and designers to submit ideas for a temporary installation at the stalled One Franklin Square project in Downtown Boston. The development, halted during the economic downturn last fall, has left several bays of the historic Filene’s building and a nearby building standing but hastened the departure of Filene’s Basement, a Boston cultural landmark, from the Downtown Crossing neighborhood.
Utile’s proposal is meant to be up for three years, calculated by speculating about the time needed for re-design to meet a future real estate market and the new round of approvals that will be inevitably required. The proposal, estimated to cost between $800 thousand to $1.2 million, includes two wooden boardwalks that crisscross over the construction excavation, creating new pedestrian shortcuts in the busy Downtown Crossing neighborhood. The bottom of the pit, almost thirty feet below, is imagined as a pastoral meadow, kept trimmed by a herd of sheep lent from a nearby farm. Casey Ross, writer for the Boston Globe, suggested that the meadow was a nod to the original use of the Boston Common as grazing land available to residents of the growing town.
Utile principal Tim Love, who worked with Aude Jomini, Utile’s summer 2009 Yale intern, on the proposal, recommends a new regulation that will require developers to take out an insurance policy to pay for temporary improvements if construction is delayed more than nine months. The budget for improvements would be pegged to the construction cost of the project. Ross quoted Love: “If developers want to play in this city and take risks, one of the risks they have to mitigate is the chance that the economy might collapse between permitting and construction.’’ Love continued: “Any landowner has a civic responsibility to make their property look attractive. If a homeowner has a weed-filled front yard or leaves trash out, they would face penalties in most municipalities.”
Harbor Park Pavilion Roof Mock-up
The first of two roof mock-ups for the Harbor Park Pavilion is complete. The pavilion design features two cast-in-place 42 foot by 60 foot curved concrete roof canopies (see our June 2009 post) that provide shade and collect rainwater. Utile closely collaborated on the design of the roofs with structural engineers SGH and with Joel Lamere, an expert in digital modeling and fabrication methods.
Translating the curvature from the computer model to concrete has been a primary construction research agenda. We considered the high-tech (a solid foam mold digitally milled from the digital model) and the traditional (wood formwork constructed by boat builders), ultimately settling on a method somewhere between these two. Wood ribs are digitally fabricated in a shop from the model, assembled on site, and clad with a flexible plywood skin. In addition to testing this formwork technique, the 6 foot by 10 foot model examines the detail where the curved steel support ribs, modeled here in plywood, meet the concrete roof. The next mock-up will test a section of roof with an even more extreme curvature. Stay tuned!
Business Journal Names Utile a “Go-To” Firm on Matters of Urban Design
Utile is featured in today’s (Friday, September 9, 2009) print edition of the Boston Business Journal. From James McCown’s article “Drawing on Repeat Business Helps Architectural Firms”:
“…While a small firm, Utile Architecture & Planning is carving a niche for itself as sort of a “go-to” firm on matters of urban design in Boston, doing work for major city and state agencies. The 14-person office, headed by husband-and-wife team Tim and Mimi Love and principals Michael LeBlanc and Matthew Littell, is doing a major study of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Utile also has on-call design contracts with MassDevelopment and Massport.
“For each developable parcel on the Greenway, we’re looking at moderate density and reasonable high-density alternatives,” said Tim Love. “Right now, there are fewer new projects overall in Boston, so the city can catch its breath and focus on a larger vision for the Greenway.
“That’s not to say that things aren’t getting built. Love said he expects to begin construction in October on the Harbor Park Pavilion, on the Greenway adjacent to Christopher Columbus Park. It is envisioned as the gateway to the Boston Harbor Islands. At the opposite end of the Greenway, Utile continues to consult on design issues for the Boston Public Market Association, which holds farmer’s markets at Dewey Square and at the Old Northern Avenue Bridge.”
William Rawn Associates and Chris Grimley at over,under were also featured in the article.
Spencer Green Nears Completion
Utile’s latest affordable housing project, Spencer Green, will soon be ready for tenants. The 48-unit, affordable apartment development by Chelsea Neighborhood Developers showcases a variety of sustainable features. Carefully selected mechanical systems and fixtures, along with an energy-conserving exterior envelope insure the project will meet or exceed the EnergyStar Homes standards for efficiency. Solar panels will power most of the common electrical loads and a rainwater cistern (certainly full at the moment) will provide a source for irrigation water for a wide variety of native species during droughts.
Spencer Green’s ambitions include a socially forward-thinking program. Great care has been taken in the development and design of the project’s communal spaces. The project’s three buildings frame a landscaped courtyard designed by Heimarck & Foglia that includes extensive outdoor seating and a play yard for small children. Generous balconies provide further opportunity for interaction on the street and in the courtyard. A flexible ‘Common Room’ will be made available to the residents for special events and educational programs.
Carefully keyed into a mildly sloping site, the two “townhouse” buildings are composed of a unique combination of two-story duplex units above single-story two and three bedroom flats at ground level. The “main” building is a more conventional double-loaded corridor plan, offering five different one and two bedroom unit layouts. Utile’s fresh approach to the exterior details aims to provide a bridge between the surrounding fabric and the area’s emerging, contemporary market-rate housing.
Final close out is expected in August.
Moose Hill House in Boston Home
The Moose Hill House was featured in the Summer 2009 issue of Boston Home. Editor-in-chief Rachel Levitt wrote:
“ . . . out of the blue, an e-mail arrived from someone I didn’t know. The author matter-of-factly offered us a project, images attached. I clicked on the JPEG and – whoa – got a sudden jolt of energy. The design gods were clearly issuing a reminder that inspiration strikes unexpectedly. The talent in question is Michael LeBlanc, an architect at Boston-based Utile Architecture + Planning. Following his introductory note and a brief phone call, we clinched a story that captures this magazine’s appreciation for scale (small), budget (moderate), and aesthetics (inviting, modern). A few months later, his work is part of what I like to think of as the Boston Home collection – houses we admire, even envy, but which don’t necessarily involve limitless budgets.”
Love Published in New Book
Tim Love’s essay “Urban Design after Battery Park City” was included in Urban Design, a collection of essays that were originally published in the Harvard Design Magazine and have been recently published by the University of Minnesota Press. Other contributors include Denise Scott Brown, Michael Sorkin, Marilyn Jordan Taylor, Jonathan Barnett, Kenneth Greenberg and Emily Talen.
“In Urban Design, Alex Krieger and William S. Saunders have assembled prominent figures in architecture, planning, and urban design to look back on the evolution of the discipline of urban design, assess the current state of the field, and anticipate how the profession must adapt in order to confront the challenges posed by the unprecedented rate of urbanization.”
In his essay, Love discusses strategies for re-energizing the practice of large-scale urban design including the need to work directly with real estate finance experts to find opportunities to rethink the dimension and plan logic of typical market-driven building types such as office buildings and high-rise residential buildings.
Harbor Park Pavilion Design Endorsed by Boston Harbor Island Alliance Board
Utile, with Reed Hilderbrand, recently completed Design Development for the Harbor Park Pavilion and the design received unanimous endorsement from the Boston Harbor Island Alliance Board at their monthly meeting on May 14.
In addition, the pavilion was reviewed by the Boston Civic Design Commission on April 7. The BCDC commissioners unanimously praised both the site planning strategy and the architectural design of the pavilion canopies. Daniel St. Clair of Jones Lang LaSalle, asked particularly insightful questions about the rationale of the geometry of the pavilions as they relate to the urban context. Linda Eastley of Sasaki, a new commissioner, appreciated Reed Hilderbrand’s strategy for the larger landscape design of Parcel 14; she commented that the design respects the existing logic of the Wharf Area parks but redeploys the existing elements to create a better sense of place. Mike Davis of Bergmeyer commended the design team for integrating a passive sustainable design strategy into the overall expressive and functional logic of the project.
Ames Shovel Works is One of Eleven Most Endangered Sites
The Ames Shovel Works in North Easton, Massachusetts has been listed as one of eleven properties on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2009 list of America’s most endangered historic places. As the New York Times (4/28/09) reported, “Each year the trust selects what it considers important examples of the nation’s architectural, cultural, and natural heritage that are at risk of being destroyed or irreparably damaged.” Other sites on this year’s list include Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park, Ill. and the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
The Ames Shovel Works are a mostly intact 19th century industrial complex that was built as part of a larger town-building initiative that includes both a town hall and library by H.H. Richardson. The buildings are threatened by a developer who acquired the rights to the parcels and is using 40B, a statewide as-of-right zoning regulation meant to promote affordable housing, to circumvent local review of the project.
Michael LeBlanc, Utile Principal, continues to work with the Ames family on an economically feasible development alternative that will save and restore the majority of the extant structures. Utile is working closely with Jay Wickersham of Noble & Wickersham (Legal Counsel), George Cole of GLC Development Resources (Development Finance Analysts), and Chris Milford of Milford and Ford Architects (Preservation Architects).