PERSPECTIVES
Island Exterior Fabricator's plant in Calverton NY consist of eight gigantic clear span structures formerly occupied by the United States Navy and Grumman Aircraft Engineering departments. Today, instead of turning out machines of war: engines, wings, and fuselages, the plant is busy assembling the buildings and cities of the 21st century.
A frenzy of activity greets visitors as they walk onto the cavernous fabrication floor: cranes lumbering overhead, buzz saws ripping through metal, the spark and smoke of welding permeating the air, the constant banging and clamoring about of industrial production. However, within a few moments you realize there is a very methodical assembly line at work here. Carefully planned and executed under controlled, optimized conditions, pieces of buildings slowly make their way across the floor transformed from piles of raw materials to finished product ready for installation. Mistakes and waste are minimized and labor time is maximized making this method of building a rapidly growing approach in the construction world.
There are trade-offs: this project trajectory requires a large amount of up front coordination work, and the system is difficult to adjust once in the field. However, just as automation and manufacturing shaped the way consumers buy and use products, so too are they beginning to dramatically alter the way we shape the cities of tomorrow.
Two of RODE's restaurant projects, Southern Proper and Buttonwood, have been featured in Boston.com's "New Restaurants Local Chefs Are Excited About."
Southern Proper features an open kitchen, swathed in reclaimed light pine wood, filled with personally curated tchotchkes, and contains lots of character-filled touches — like a bar-front wrapped in tin from an antique movie theater. Besides the vaulted ceiling, there are lots of large windows letting in plenty of sunlight for a bright, airy atmosphere.
At Buttonwood, in the dining room, one wall is covered in wood paneling, the banquettes in dark blue pleather. Its gleaming wood floor gives way to black and white tiles on at the larger bar area. A miniature brass bust of Roosevelt sits atop the bar where people are encourage to eat and mingle.
Southern Proper’s chef and proprietor Jason Cheek wants his restaurant to be a haven, a place where people can come after work and feel comfortable — a place where people can take a deep breath and relax.
“The best way I knew how to do that was to use a lot of raw woods and to incorporate a lot of plant life,” said Cheek, an alum of Toro and the defunct KO Prime. “Relaxation is about getting away from the metal and glass. Smell the pine, smell the flowers, smell the smoke in the air.”
The irony, of course, is that Southern Proper is housed in the Girard building (50 Malden St.), one of those new South End structures that’s not short on metal or glass. But cross the threshold from the concrete exterior and into Southern Proper, and that modern facade melts immediately away. Creating such a smooth transition wasn’t exactly easy, though.
“One of our biggest challenges was trying to dissolve the interior from the exterior,” said Cheek, who hired local firm RODE Architects to design the space. “The exterior is very modern and very Natick Mall. A lot of 90 degree angles, glass, and metal. It would have been easy to come in and make it look like a commercial restaurant. I didn’t want that. I wanted it to look like a tobacco barn. A tobacco barn my grandmother invaded.”
Southern Proper’s bar is built exclusively from the recycled wood of antique tabletops, and the tin that wraps around it was procured from an antiques dealer in Brimfield, Massachusetts, who sourced it from a turn-of-the-century movie theater in upstate New York. The lamps are all antique, and there is plenty of pine — much of which was sourced from North Carolina, Cheek’s home state.
Stay tuned for updates and opening details!
Original Article: https://boston.eater.com/2018/2/12/16995308/southern-proper-gallery
Today the formwork, molds into which concrete or similar materials are poured, was removed from the first of seven monumental columns at the 6 West Broadway Hotel.
These sculptural elements will have a large visual impact becoming a gateway to South Boston, and also define the outdoor space at the front of the hotel, on the corner of West Broadway and Dorchester Ave.
The process to design and craft these 26' and 36' tall columns had many steps and involved a great deal of consultant coordination. The RODE team worked with structural engineers at McNamara Salvia to establish guidelines to meet structural requirements and inform the faceted design. After many design iterations that utilized the computer program Rhino to shape the form, 3d printing to model the columns, and Revit to document the design, Consigli Construction built three mockups and the final reusable two-part fiberglass formwork to produce a smooth finish with crisp facets and elegant eased corners.
RODE is excited to share a sneak peek of these powerful elements before they're wrapped to protect them from construction activity until the hotel opens.
Simply put, RODE doesn’t have a specialty type of building but a specialty approach for each client. Check out Principals Eric Robinson and Kevin Deabler discussing RODE’s approach to shaping Boston’s neighborhoods and improving our communities on NECN’s The Take with Sue O'Connell.
http://www.necn.com/on-air/as-seen-on/Improving-Boston-Building-by-Building_NECN-452893773.html
