News
Volleyball at Arrowstreet
Arrowstreet just rounded up competing in the architects’ volleyball league in Boston. A handful of AST’ers helped lead us to success this season, including Jason King (our heralded coach and inspirational pre-game speaker), Greg Triplett, Kate Bubriski, Victoria Wright, and myself, along with several spouses and friends. We put together a strong showing during the regular season with a 43-13 record, earning us a #3 seed in the playoffs. Sadly, our tournament hopes ended in the second round of the playoffs this year, but we have high hopes for next year: we anticipate the return of many strong, and now seasoned, players from this season’s squad. (Not to mention the strenuous off-season workouts Coach King surely has planned.) Thanks to all who played, it was fun!
Sustainability at KIPP Academy Lynn
Earth month seems like a good point to reflect on the recently completed and now fully occupied KIPP Academy Lynn project in Lynn, MA. Part of the challenge associated with designing this project was making the school comfortable during the warmer months without the luxury of having a budget that could support full air conditioning. While oftentimes this problem is lamented, we saw it as an opportunity to be creative with the building systems and fenestration to provide low-energy, passive, and (most importantly) low-first cost climate control…
Brooklyn Boulders Rock Climbing Gym Profiled
The Brooklyn Boulders rock climbing gym is profiled in New England Construction News . They are holding hard hat tours on May 5th for anyone interested in checking out the soon to be completed project. We have taken some photos of our own and will be posting them soon.
Sustainability on Campus
Arrowstreet invited Dennis Carlberg to speak to the firm about his efforts as the Director of Sustainability at Boston University. I was able to attend the discussion and I wanted to share the exciting things that are going on at this large university. As with any university or institutional campus, BU has a large environmental impact. BU understands it is important to reduce that footprint and in 2009 they created the Director of Sustainability position to do just that. Dennis Carlberg, the first to hold this position, jumped right into the role and has facilitated several programs over the last four years to create sustainable awareness and action on campus. Carlberg noted that one of the first things necessary to determine how to reduce the university’s footprint was to know exactly what their impact was. They assessed exactly how much energy, water, and waste that the university consumed and produced. Once that was determined then they could measure their success of the programs…
Site Visit to Chestnut Hill Square
Recently, the Arrowstreet staff accompanied me to the Chestnut Hill Square project for a site visit. The four new structures are each at different phases of construction, but enough is there to get a good sense of the massing, spatial relationships, and envelope finishes. Building A, the largest structure, is the one furthest along, with the brick veneer and storefront being installed and partitions and cores going up on the interior. Buildings B and C have the steel up and the exterior is starting to be framed out. The parking garage is far along- it went up quickly, within the past five weeks, with prefab concrete components…
301 Binney Lobby Photography
We are happy to share this photography of the new lobby at 301 Binney Street. Arrowstreet originally served as the architect for this Kendall Square biotech building, which opened about five years ago. Our client, BioMed, then approached us about creating a lobby that would differentiate the building amongst the Cambridge lab market. The active, dynamic shared space now encourages tenant interaction and collaboration. A custom…
Architectural Reclamation Centers: Benefiting the Environment through Reuse
We are all becoming more aware of the complex environmental problems that exist today; both the architectural practice and individuals are encouraged to be mindful of our planet by reducing waste, recycling, and reusing materials. One way individuals can help in this effort is to utilize architectural reclamation centers when remodeling or renovating their home or property. These centers take donated building materials and items and sell them at bargain prices to homeowners and renovators. It’s a resource that provides a benefit to the environment as items get reused instead of sent to the landfill. And furthermore, donated items are tax deductible! A few years ago, I donated to Boston Building Resources Reuse Center when doing a home renovation project. The process was extremely simple: I just called and set up a time for them to pick up the items right at my door.
There are a number of Architectural Reclamation centers around the New England area. For more information, visit the Boston Building Resources website.
KIPP Academy Lynn Is BBJ Finalist
The Boston Business Journal will celebrate the Best in Boston Real Estate on May 23rd. KIPP Academy Lynn, a new ground up charter school we finished last year, is a finalist in the Community Impact category. Congratulations to all of the finalists, and join us at the event.
Mirbeau Inn & Spa at The Pinehills Groundbreaking Ceremony
On April 4th, the Mirbeau Inn and Spa at The Pinehills in Plymouth, MA officially kicked off with a groundbreaking ceremony. The event was hosted by Pinehills, LLC President John Judge and Managing Partner Tony Green. The well-attended gathering included Gary and Linda Dower, the principals of Mirbeau Hospitality Services, as well as several town and state officials including Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth, and Rep. Tom Calter, D-Kingston, all of whom praised the arrival of this resort property to the area. As a part of the design team, it was a pleasure to see how warmly the Dowers and the project have been embraced by the Pinehills community…
Do People Actually Shop in Stores?
(Part 1 in a series – Milton’s)
The use of mobile devices to make purchases is still a small fraction of the total sales in the e-commerce world. But it’s rising. As the New York Times said, “last year, people spent $25 billion on purchases made from phones and tablets,” and that’s an increase of 81 percent over the previous year. I was curious how that affected my retail clients, so I reached out to them. This post is the first in a short series of responses. My questions were: how does mobile spending affect your retail business? What about show-rooming? How do you either fight it or work with it…