Nicole Flanary

Nicole Flanary

In Copley, the glass and brick create a distinct industrial or commercial atmosphere. The large glass panes that let you look inside the building. It helps that “Neiman Marcus” also boasts a giant sign indicating that the department store lies within. The walkway as well identifies the space as wholly commercial as a glass walkway between apartment buildings in a downtown area would be quite strange. The combination of buildings made of similar or identical striped brick unifies the whole commercial spaeces as belonging to one entity (Copley Mall). Finally, the map in the top left corner, which is placed in various places throughout the inside of the mall, shows the purely commercial use as well as the way in which the Prudential center (seen from afar from this entrance) is connected to the building. On Newbury street, the older buildings are much better integrated into the whole setting –it’s not a bunch of identical buildings but rather the original residential character of old downtown Boston shines through. That character is seen in the dimensionality as well as the different colors of buildings. What distinguishes the commercial from the residential spaces on Newbury Street to me are the differences in windows as well as the minimal signage that appears on some of the buildings. The windows are so interesting because the lower floors of the buildings, those used for retail, have large glass windows that take up the entire façade, letting customers see the wares inside. Old-fashioned signage and awnings show customers the names of the stores they may go into. A secondary structural element that maintains the residential character is the intact fire escapes that connect higher floors to the sidewalk as well as to other buildings (it seems). I tried to maintain those differences in my sketch despite not using color.