Get ready Boston, someday you might just have this incredible floating city within a city located in your harbor. The BoA, short for Boston Arcology, is a sustainable mega structure designed by Kevin Schopfer, who also designed the amazing New Orleans Arcology Habitat (NOAH). The BoA will house 15,000 people in hotels, offices, retail spaces, museums, condominiums, and even a new city hall. Built to LEED standards with golden proportions, this amazing building would serve as an expansion of the city without impacting what is already currently built.
To be located on a buoyant platform of concrete cells right in the Boston Harbor next to downtown, BoA would sit perpendicular to the waterfront, thus minimizing the view sheds of existing buildings onshore. The massing of the structure was designed using the principles of the golden triangle. Angles and towers criss-cross inside of a fixed border, giving structure to the projections inside. Elevators and moving walkways aid the transportation of the residents, employees and visitors in order to create an all pedestrian environment.
Sky gardens will be located every 30 floors and act as public squares for gathering spaces. BoA will also include a bevy of sustainable elements in order to achieve a LEED building certification. Energy will be generated via wind turbines, solar panels and harbor based water turbines. Natural daylight will flood the building with the help of a passive glazing system. BoA will also include a fresh water recovery system, greywater recycling, and sky garden heating and cooling vents. And while the design seems pretty incredible and maybe even impossible (especially considering the economy and lack of funding), it truly is a spectacular mix of architecture and ecology.
+ Kevin Schopfer
Via Yanko Design
Images via Tangram 3D
It is unbuildable. The FAA would not approve of a structure that tall that close to the airport. Structures on shore can’t get approval to be that tall.
This structure is completely hideous. It has no contextual significance. It is not site specific. Not to mention that several ferries operate out of that part of the harbor. As a Boston resident and Architecture grad student, I would move away if that ever got built. I dislike so many things about it. Not to mention… the night rendering is pretty shoddy.
too big – hideous
Not a good look, or place to live……these type of buildings do not encourage community spirit (i.e. not enough areas for people to gather and meet)
I concur with terpstram. ‘hideous’ was the word that popped into my head. Have you designers even studied Boston as a city? How do you even think this building fits in?!
hmm. nice to see but really it is not good for surrounding. moreover it talks about green but itself breaking the greenery
hmmm. nice but not good for surrounding. Moreover it talks about green but itself breaking the green concept
all you whingy luddites need your heads checked! humanity has to take radical steps forward in habitation, sprawling all over the place, laying waste to landscapes and laying hectares of tarmac, isn;t culturally or aesthetically righteous, it’s just stupid. vertical living, closed systems, intelligent communalism… what’s your problem! sure, utopianism is generally a total failure, but at least show some enthusiasm for new ideas. the proposal is to build in polluted waters, not erasing any existing fabric or ecosystem, so you can keep your dirty, dopey twentieth century urban environs, the waste slums of the the future.
let’s have some fun!
… yeah, something like this would probably never be actually implemented. It’s … pretty to look at, in the design portfolios I suppose. But wholly impractical and not exactly the best way to go about creating a sustainable future. But an admirable attempt! I think!
Linked this article on my blog, too: http://cityofnever.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/reticulating-splines/
I think this is great! Boston has long needed a new landmark, something big and modern – this is it!
Why don’t we add another X to the structure and ahve Balentine Ale sponsor it… I agree with cityofnever. Pretty in desgin but wrong building in the wrong place in the wrong city… move it to somewhere else and maybe you have a potential to build it if it has roof top gardens like the “Hanging Gardens of Babylonia”.