2012 Tucker Design Awards: Dynamic Dozen

North End Parks
Boston

Click photo to enlargeDesigners: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, Seattle; Crosby/Schlessinger/Smallridge, LLC, Boston
Stone Installer: United Stone and Site Inc., Canton, Mass.
Stone Supplier: Fletcher Granite, Smithfield, R.I.

Built on three acres of new land on the “Big Dig” tunnel roof, the area’s spaciousness had to be balanced against the brick-pavement expanse of City Hall Plaza just a block away while retaining a sense of intimacy, complexity, history, and texture. In the “home-crossing” design, a series of zones are crossed as one moves from city (government center) to home (North End).

A granite “front porch” with metal pergola top provides an entry to home. The “front porch” is designed as a conceptual extension of the granite-planked sidewalks that characterize much of the North End. its historic granite sidewalk slabs, long-ago hand-chiseled in a rustic diagonal pattern have become softly worn by hundreds of years of footsteps.Click photo to enlarge

The design team looked to modern stone-finishing methods and domestically sourced (yet visually Italianesque) Silver Cloud granite to be patterned into a field of 4’ wide granite slabs that create the North End’s new “front porch.” The porch includes a smooth- planked, balcony seating area and a diagonally-routed water scrim surface just below.

The field of granite slabs appears to be stacked in several layers at the veneered face of the porch’s low balcony wall, “floating” over a 4” reveal along the base, from which water emerges and, at night, light glows. At the base of the wall, the 4’ wide slabs continue with the machined interpretation of the historic, hand-chiseled diagonal texture. The water emerges from a recessed source in the base of the balcony wall, and a thin flow of water sparkles over the stones’ diagonal textures.

Further interpreting the masonry traditions of the historic neighborhood, Silver Cloud granite is incorporated with brick to represent the famous Freedom Trail as a playful inset “cobbled street” through the parks.

The roles of the contractor and mason teams who built this project and installed the stone were instrumental in taking a thoughtful design into the realm of a timeless, crafted landmark.

Juror Comments:

• A wonderful use of stone in the public landscape. The texturing of stone and the use of water with the stone “wet deck” is unique and playful.

• Creative and inventive use of stone to create a timeless urban landscape.

• A seemingly simple combination of highly expressive element – pergola, podium, pathways, water plazas and grassed terraces – are given lively substance and tactile appeal through the use of stone in a variety of dimensions, coursings and textures. The park place has activated this vibrant Boston neighborhood for residents and visitors alike.

Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia

Click to see restorationDesigner: VITETTA, Philadelphia
Stone Installer: Dan Lepore & Sons Co., Conshohoken, Pa.
Stone Supplier: Vermont Quarries, Danby, Vt.

Philadelphia City Hall is constructed of Lee marble and stands at a height of 337’ with an 18’-high granite base from New England quarries. There are over 250 marble sculptures originally modeled in plaster by Alexander Milne Calder that represent industry, the continents, government, human attributes, arts and science.

Planning studies and a demonstration project to restore a portion of the exterior envelope for the building began in 1992. The plan for the exterior restoration established techniques to restore/renovate all of the stone surfaces, as well as the cast-iron cresting, copper gutters, flat roofs and wood windows.Click to see restoration

All of the stone surfaces of the building were cleaned with a low pressure micro-abrasive system along with an intermittent water misting system used prior to the general cleaning. The stone restoration included repointing of all stone joints with a compatible mortar material. Areas of unsound stone were tooled back, creating a drainable surface and minimizing future deterioration. Cracks in the stones were repaired with composite patch material, including the addition of stainless-steel pins where the stones were displaced, or injected composite patch material where stones sounded hollow.

New Vermont Danby stone dutchmen, matching the existing stone in color and veining, were installed in the larger areas of spalled and missing stone. on the west elevation, significant deterioration of a fluted pilaster was found and replaced with a 15’ high by 30” wide section of newly carved stone. On the south side of the building, two decorative column capitals were replaced; the existing capitals, which supported several floors of the building with loads ranging from 94,000-186,000 lbs, were cut back to receive the new carved stone capitals.

Juror Comments:

• A beautiful restoration using classical stone carving and details. Truly an artist’s challenge.

• Exhaustive, careful and painstaking effort can’t go unnoticed in this awards program. The painstaking attention to detail and the completeness with which this was taken on is worthy of merit in and of itself. Exceptional quality of execution.

• The before and after images of this restoration provides clear evidence of the importance of such efforts for civic image and pride. The revelation of the original, enduring brightness of the stonework is testimony to the quality of the material. The labor involved in the detailed restoration is truly impressive.