‘Shifting Gears’ by Henry Moss, AIA, LEED AP is a part of ArchitectureBoston’s spring theme — RENEW.
The article focuses on the historic Charles River Speedway complex as it gets set for a reawakening. The complex will be energized by a brewery and taproom (Notch), a full-service restaurant, small-format shops featuring local makers and artisans, food purveyors, social enterprises, and creative office space. The renewed Speedway site is now under construction, with the courtyard retail and taproom scheduled to open in the fall of 2020.
If winter is cold and dark, at least snowdrops and the promise of spring give us hope and hint of new life. The cycles of change—to cities and the natural world—can remind us that places have souls to lose. Emotions may be mixed. There is a quiet richness to the reworking of existing buildings that has crept into the psyche of the design professions as they resurrect past aesthetics, juxtaposed against new imageries and an overturning of previous uses. Those cycles of change reel from catastrophic to delicately nuanced, and architects try to counter one and orchestrate the other.