MBTA redesigns Boston’s Government Center Station

Written by jrood

The Government Center T station has the charm of a bomb shelter - and that's its most winsome feature, the Boston Herald reports. Impressions only get worse up close.

"It feels like you are
walking into a cave," said Frank DePaola, the MBTA’s assistant general manager
for design and construction.

DePaola is heading a
project to give the dreary, circa 1964 station a $72-million, top-to-bottom
facelift that will replace its bunker-style "head house" with a glistening,
three-story tall glass tower, add two new elevators and rebuild the platforms.

"This will feel like you
are walking into the lobby of a hotel or the atrium of a shopping area,"
DePaola said of the new structure – scheduled to be completed in late 2015 –
that will serve as a giant skylight to filter daylight right down to the Green
Line platform.

The transparency of the
windowed cube is twofold: It increases security by allowing passengers and
police to see in and out of the entranceway and it also blends in with the
surrounding buildings.

"It’s more of a minimalist
architecture, the exposed-steel framing with glass," he said. "By being
transparent, it doesn’t really block or intrude on the architecture of the area
or make a big statement."

Some wonder why anyone
would be sensitive about overshadowing the nearest landmark, the much maligned,
concrete brutalist behemoth that is City Hall, which incidentally leads Virtual
Tourist’s list of the "The World’s Top 10 Ugliest Buildings."

That is exactly what a previous
concept would have done had it not been scrapped several years ago after coming
in $20 million over budget. That design envisioned the station headhouse
looking like an enormous sail made of cables, columns and "engineered fabric"
extending from Tremont Street to City Hall.

But DePaola said MassDOT’s
new leadership resulted in the hiring of a new architectural-engineering firm,
HDR, and the creating of a new, more Spartan-like design that focuses resources
more on improving the transit experience than on flair. The new concept calls
for an 8,000-square-foot headhouse – 3,000 feet larger than the existing one –
with 10 fare gates, double the amount now that tend to bottleneck at rush hour.

The platform improvements
will include brighter lighting, new tiles and raised Green Line platforms to
allow people in wheelchairs or with canes and strollers easier access to
trolleys. It will also include totally rebuilt connections to the Blue Line and
a new evacuation stairwell for that line.

But the biggest addition
will be two new elevators, which will make the station ADA-compliant. Adding to
the project’s huge price tag will be the building of a temporary, nearby headhouse
so that the station can remain open during construction.

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