05/14/2008, 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Learning Units: 7.00-Walking Tour
Training Units: 1.75-Training Area 17 (Planning)
Spend the day in Cambridge, just across the Charles River. Roger Boothe, AIA, director of Planning, and other city officials will lead this tour through some of the best of Cambridge, a city for the new century. In the morning, we focus on housing; in the afternoon, we turn to the biotech sector.
Cantabrigians live in a diverse physical environment with 44,000 housing units, approximately 15 percent are affordable. Affordable housing ranges from older large-scale developments to recent infill housing, some incorporating green technologies. High costs of housing makes it challenging for long-time residents to afford to stay, and entry into the housing market is often difficult, especially for first-time buyers. Discover what the city is doing to address these challenges through its Affordable Housing Trust, innovative programs, and partnerships with nonprofit organizations.
Since the end of rent control in 1995, the community has invested more than $75 million in the creation and preservation of more than 2,800 units of affordable housing. Visit an architecturally diverse set of new projects in the University Park/Cambridgeport neighborhood, including 100 affordable units.
After lunch, we look at Cambridge's biotech epicenter This city enjoys one of the world's largest concentration of biotechnology companies. Since 1998, 24 of the 100 largest biotechnology firms in the Boston region have located here. Learn about the transformation of dozens of acres of former vacant industrial land into a vibrant, mixed-use city that is drawing life sciences companies from around the world. We will visit Millenium Pharmaceuticals, Novartis (now located in the former NECCO candy factory) and visit Correa's elegant Brain and Cognitive Sciences Building, across the street from Gehry's Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our final stop will be the soaring lobby of Behnisch's Genzyme Headquarters in Kendall Square. Lunch is included.
Learning Objectives:
- Analyze the design of cutting-edge biotech facilities, integrated into a mixed-use urban milieu
- Determine how to balance the housing needs and design goals of a major academic institution with those of its neighbors, both residents and businesses
- Evaluate the interface between the public edges of biotech companies and the private, internalized spaces of several major facilities in Cambridge
TP02 Wednesday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m., $110
Core Disciplines: Design
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