Commercial Architecture June 2017 - 12

FEATURE

mixed use

On the Boston waterfront, The Architectural Team Inc. combined new construction and adaptive reuse at Lovejoy
Wharf. Now home to the corporate
headquarters for clothing manufacturer
Converse, the complex also offers retail
space, a recording studio, and outdoor
public amenities such as a 30,000-sq.ft. wharf space along the water's
edge. Photo: Gustav Hoiland

12

COMMERCI A L A RCHI T EC T URE

JUNE 2017

ects can be a complication, however. "Most of the drivers of the econ-

didn't care about the permeable part. They didn't care about the

omy in the Bay Area are offices. Silicon Valley companies want big

neighborhood, so the Silicon Valley companies would build these

floorplates, as big as 50,000 to 200,000 sq. ft. It creates quite a chal-

little fortresses with parking around them. You wouldn't even dream

lenge to integrate that with a neighborhood when you've got build-

of wandering over to the building. There was no pedestrian scale."

ings that are that big. We're wrestling with how to create a human

That separation between private and public may be blurring,

scale when clients want megabuildings with large horizontal floor-

however. "Generally, if you're going to develop a plot of land in a

plates," Form4's Marx said.

community's town or city, the public wants to know that there's

Marx says his firm is trying to encourage developer clients to work

something in it that has meaning and value to them. This is an-

on two things. One is to involve a cultural activator into the mix

other example of how the line of who owns what space is, from

beyond just normal retail and restaurants. Another component is

my perspective, blurring. If we create an office building, and a

maker space that is street level and affordable. "There's a lot of artists

Starbucks opens at one end of it that has doors into a nice lounge

in Oakland and San Francisco who are looking for inexpensive space,

area and a lobby, half of the people in that lobby at any given time

and that arts-driven part of the economy creates an incredible

probably don't have anything to do with what's going on in the

amount of vibrancy in neighborhoods."

building. They just like a great place to go hang out. This new

While most of Marx's projects are new construction, he noted

generation likes to be seen, but they also like to feel like they're

there has been a lot of pressure in the older cities, such as Oakland

empowered to go where they want and do what they want to do,"

and San Francisco, to maintain the look and feel of older buildings

commented Russ Holcomb of Duda|Paine Architects.

because some residents there don't care so much for the character of

Mixed-use designs "demand a certain strategic and creative

the new buildings. That's an issue that architects need to wrestle

balance to find the right proximity of uses but still maintain

with: how to create buildings, new modern buildings, that people fall

enough separation," Szymanski noted. "For example, food-service

in love with, he said.

operations come with loading and trash-removal procedures that

Another issue in Silicon Valley is public-private space. Clients

are sometimes a challenge to mix with residential uses. Acoustical

"want their own space, but they also want it to be permeable so that

separation is always a concern. The action and activity associated

they're part of the neighborhood," Marx said. "In the old days they

with a restaurant/bar, for example, might be considered a nui-

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Commercial Architecture June 2017
