Posts about Harvard

Public Spaces

Building real community in Allston

by David Alpert   •   June 29, 2007 10:00 am

Drawing a pretty architectural diagram with lots of pictures of people is easy. Creating a real vibrant community where people want to go is harder. Harvard has noble intentions and many very good ideas for the new science campus (PDF) it is planning in Allston. I've thoughtful column in the Harvard Crimson earlier this month outlining how the well-meaning Allston plan could either turn into a great community or an empty shell, depending on whether the streets become places students and community members want to spend time, or just conduits to travel to and from work or class in faceless research buildings. "Here's the acid test," he writes: "It is 6:30 p.m. or 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday or Friday or Saturday—and if you don't think it would be great to go to Allston, if 'back to the Square' is on the tip of your tongue and you would never think of going 'back to Allston,' then we will have failed."

Galison identifies two major components that could tip the balance - performing and visual arts spaces for students and faculty, and the sort of street activity Richard Florida calls "street-level culture" - late night coffee shops and jazz clubs and other attractions for spontaneous enjoyment.

I'd add a third: student organizing space, including the arts studios and performances spaces Galison focuses on but also meeting rooms and social lounges in semi-public areas. A vibrant campus needs opportunities for people to congregate for organized purposes or just spontaneous socialization, places that are outside of individual rooms and don't require booking far in advance, which are quiet enough to permit conversation but public enough that people feel part of a larger community rather than isolated in a quiet corner. Well designed office spaces exhibit this characteristic with glass conference rooms and "water cooler" spaces; the best campuses do as well.

Harvard has put great thought into their Allston plan, and elements of the proposal such as performing arts space and a student center suggest they are on the right track. I'm hopeful, for the sake of the institution, the students, and the larger community, that they succeed in creating a real center of activity that is more than just a collection of buildings.

Development

Harvard's Allston plan: wow

by David Alpert   •   June 13, 2005 9:55 pm

The architects hired by Harvard University to study locating facilities in Allston have created an interim report, and it's really nice. If Harvard really implements most of it, rather than getting cheap and cutting the more expensive pieces which improve quality of life, it sounds as though a really nice new campus might result. I'm pleasantly surprised, given Harvard's lousy space policy decisions in the past.

The basic idea is to create new undergraduate Houses along the river, possibly in current athletic facilities, in the Business School buildings closest to the river, or some of the existing graduate housing. These houses would replace the Quad houses (which would probably become graduate housing, though this isn't covered by the report), moving the focus of the campus toward the river and away from the Yard. In the new land, they would construct replacement buildings for the Business School, new science research and teaching facilities, and cultural buildings which could be utilized by the University and surrounding neighborhood.

I am particularly pleased that the University asked the architects to include plans for performing arts spaces and a student center, both extremely important uses where the space dedicated to each declined from an already low point during the '90s.

The plan also recommends a lot of transit, bike, and pedestrian improvements, including depressing Soldier's Field Road to create a wider swath of parkland along the river, something Boston should consider doing along other parts of Soldier's Field and Storrow Drive; adding transit-only lanes and dedicated bike lanes from North Harvard Street across the bridge and up JFK Street, and widening the bridge by essentially building new pedestrian and/or bike bridges on either side; and most interesting of all, building canals in and around the athletic facilities, to visually break up the space, drain water from the field, provide "places of repose" and create opportunities for ice skating(!) in the winter.

Anyway, I'm impressed.