PERSPECTIVES
The Zoning Board of Appeals has approved plans to construct a new seven-story residential building and new buildings for Congregation Kadimah-Toras Moshe and the Daughters of Israel Mikvah at 101-105 Washington Street in Brighton. The firm is working with Brookline Development Corporation and the two congregations on a collaborative redevelopment of these under-utilized parcels, ensuring the longevity of two venerable neighborhood institutions while providing much-needed multi-family housing in one of Boston’s diverse and growing neighborhoods.
Principal Eric Robinson sees this project as an exciting model for building in neighborhoods: "We can meet the demands for new housing, for bringing new people into our city, while supporting and enriching the communities that are already here. We can achieve both. This is a true development with a mission.”
See more at Boston City Biz List
On January 22, 2017 two members of the RODE team, Katie Cressall and Ben Wan, were honored with first prize for their entry in the AIANH Emerging Professionals Design Competition (formerly the AIANH Intern/Young Architect Design Competition) at its33rd AIANH Awards Banquet at the Manchester Country Club in Bedford, NH. The competition provides a platform for interns and young architectural professionals to demonstrate their design skills as a means to "gain recognition and assist a community with their design challenges.”
This year’s competition challenged entrants to develop a design revolved around a hot-button topic of revitalizing the recently closed Rockingham Park in Salem, NH, into a small scale “inner city” or “lifestyle center”, which have started gaining popularity around the country outside of major cities.
In selecting Katie and Ben as the winning team, the jurors shared feedback on the success of their design saying, “overall, the jury found this submission to be quite strong. While the competition was open to interpretation on what community building, or buildings, the submitters wanted to incorporate, this team went above and beyond. Their project, dubbed the “Civic Mile”, introduces a number of community spaces, such as a library, performing arts building, child and elder care, and an art studio, among others. The number of building forms introduced were treated as one cohesive idea, and the way in which the team both integrated them into the site, and connected them to the surrounding area was elegantly done, and would be a great addition to any growing city."
For more information about Katie and Ben's winning project head to the AIA New Hampshire site.
RODE is on fire!! We are thrilled to be named a winner of BostInno's 50 on Fire Boston in the design category. We could not have done this without the support of our talented team, colleagues, clients, partners and community neighbors.
According to the Boston Globe, The Appalachian Mountain Club on Monday closed on the purchase of a prominent building in Charlestown’s City Square, where it will move its headquarters after nearly a century of running its operations from Beacon Hill.
RODE worked with the nonprofit outdoors group, which manages trails, huts, outings, and conservation efforts from the mid-Atlantic to Maine, on a preliminary needs assessment of the building at 10 City Square, known as Roughan Hall, as part of the purchase process, and will now begin the next phase of planning for the design and layout of its future headquarters.
Stay tuned for future project updates!
Over the last few years there has been a revolution in the architect’s toolkit. From powerful BIM and illustration software, to 3D printing and even the use of Robots in fabrication, technology has provided a host of new options to help explore design. With the plethora of new technology options, physical architectural models could become a lost form of communicating spatial concept and design ideas. However, here at RODE Architects we still consider the craft of building physical models as a critical piece of the design process.
Modelling allows for further experimentation in terms of form and also acts as an indispensable communicative devise that provides a deeper understanding of the project. RODE uses models throughout all of its design stages. For example, during the beginning schematic phases of our project in Boynton Yards, we developed a quick series of massing models as a tool to develop and establish the general shape and form as well as size of the building.
Once we enter the latter stages of a project, We will often use a physical model to answer specific design questions and inform architectural elements like program adjacencies, pedestrian/vehicular circulation and the façade’s interaction with its context. For our Dot Block project, we continuously created physical models in order to conceive a strong pedestrian focused scheme, ultimately resulting in a network of walkable zones and bridges.
Technology keeps bringing us new avenues and allows for efficiencies and innovation, but throughout the evolution of architecture, the one thing that has stayed the same is the traditional use of the physical model, and we are big believers in the value they add to our work from start to finish. Models give the architect and the client ability to pick up and view the project up close in a way that would otherwise not be possible – and they represent an evolving design process that is continuously being modified to best serve its community and end user.
