Settling into our new spot this weekend. Any recommendations on what to do in the area design wise? We became ICA members.
Some shots of things I like in the neighborhood:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57265&l=a402f&id=678790983
Welcome to Boston Yo…
I’m swinging the ‘design’ stick wide so bare with me…
Art Interactive
http://www.artinteractive.org/
MIT Museum. See Arthur Ganson’s cool mechanical art in living color, among other cool stuff.
MIT Architecture School has a public lecture series. Santiago Calatrava spoke a couple a couple years ago.
http://architecture.mit.edu/architecture-lecture-series.html
Other public lectures
http://www.rle.mit.edu/nanolectureseries/
I’ve heard that the MIT Radio Society flea market can be interesting.
http://w1mx.mit.edu/flea-at-mit
Boston Architectural College (BAC) has lectures and shows now and then.
For architecture in general there are a handful of buildings.
MIT has a couple well known ones such as the Stata center by Frank Gehry. Not my thing. I found the interior too visually chaotic for my tastes.
Also in the same area (Kendall Sq) are some newish buildings of note (LEED Platinum rated).
http://www.kendallsquare.org/500kendall.html
There are a couple other buildings (at MIT and Harvard) that show up in The Phaidon Atlas, for what it’s worth.
There are various architecture tours. Some are neighborhood oriented others site specific. I have been on a couple cool ones around parts of the Big Dig and the Zakim Bridge (lead by the designer). I found them in the Boston Globe’s Thursday Calendar section.
The Boston Public Library (BPL) has lectures by various groups around Boston. Although I missed most of them, last year they seemed to have a number of interesting architecture lectures. I think there is a series about green architecture but I can’t seem to find it right now
http://www.bpl.org/news/upcomingevents.htm#Copley
The Museum of Science, Boston, now and then has design-esk things such as MIT wearable technology fashion show. Also there have been concerts by groups like Robot Ensemble as well as interactive art installations. Again they can be far a few between but they happen.
A little bit out of Boston is the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park
Further away there’s Mass Museum of Contemporary Art. Take roads less traveled and it can be a decent road trip.
Support your local artist/designers
Buy a really nice bike hand built by very cool local folks that love what they do. Great custom paint.
http://ifbikes.com/
A paint job they (Jill) did for me.
Fort Point Artists have shows and open studios now and then.
http://www.fortpointarts.org/cgi-bin/FPAC
There are a couple other artist groups around but I don’t seem to be on top of their shows and such.
Since you are into sneakers, a friend’s urban clothing/sneaker store. I had a hand in designing, consulting and building some of the in store ‘novelties’. http://www.yelp.com/biz/bodega-boston
Off the design topic.
I would check out these places.
Silvertone bar and grill.
Folks like the vibe and they are known for their Mac & Cheese. I’m not a m&c fan but I have had more than a few friends rave after every bite.
http://www.silvertonedowntown.com/home.html
Pho Republic.
I haven’t been in a while but they used to have an amazing pan seared tuna amoung some tasty apps.
The Bee Hive
Same owner as Pho. The place opened a year or two ago and has been getting rave reviews. I was there a year or so ago and liked the music and place.
Toad
Local crowd, usually good music. Small. Good restaurant next door (Christopher’s organic free range and all of that - same owners). You can bring the food over.
http://www.christopherscambridge.com/home-flash.html
OK went on a bit longer than planned.
Enjoy.
-Peter
Awesome! Thank you so much Peter, I’ll be making my way through that list! I hit up Bodega and the Bee Hive. Thanks for taking the time to write it all down.
I’ve popped into Attic Life a few times here in Cambridge to check out sneaks:
http://www.theatticlife.com/blog/index.php
Also, going to go down this list: though I was surprised how little Superfuture had on it for Boston.
http://superfuture.com/city/city/selected.cfm?city=16
We should get unscene.com to do a listing.
I walked by the MIT museum yesterday while walking the dog and was wondering about it. Will check it out for sure now.
PS: That custom Bike paint job you had done is sick! I’d love to get one done in the powder blue, orange and white of the old Gulf Ford GT40 racers.
Michael
yo, welcome back to town. I’m right off comm ave as well and in school, its definitely a good time
Where is the Converse HQ anyway?
I’ll be joining the Beantown crew this winter for a footwear internship! Yihaa!
North Andover… so a bit of a hike for me everyday, but worth it. A designer I know from Astro actually just moved into my building… funny: http://sprout.cc/
On the actual events, this is coming up
http://idsaboston.org/2008/10/real-green-conference/
One of my best friends and mentors is speaking there, Aaron Szymanski, about the work Evo Design did for Recycline… Aaron taught me most of what I know, so blame him…
Hey Yo,
How’s Boston treating you so far? Hope well.
-Peter
Great, thanks man. I’ve been super busy at work, but we are finally settling in. Been checking out a lot of of Cambridge… saw the head of the Charles the other week. Got down to the Fort Point open studios… It’s been great to catch up with old friends as well.