One Boston Place Building vs One Beacon Street Building

Comparing the One Boston Place Building and the One Beacon Street Building is interesting because they both stand in Boston, MA, and were completed within 2 years of each other, but they were designed by different architects.

This offers a unique glimpse at how rival designers approached projects in the same city during the same era.

The One Boston Place Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 600ft (183m) with 41 floors above ground, while the One Beacon Street Building reaches 505ft (154m) with 36 floors above ground.

Of course, each project may have faced different briefs or regulatory constraints, which we don't really know about and could also explain the outcome.

Both the One Boston Place Building and the One Beacon Street Building were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the International Style style.

The One Beacon Street Building was designed at a moment when the International Style style was already in decline, making it more of a lingering expression of the movement. In contrast, the One Boston Place Building was built when the style still carried greater cultural weight.

Both the One Boston Place Building and the One Beacon Street Building were designed to serve as commercial towers, and that has remained their main use since their completion, serving similar roles in the urban fabric.

The One Boston Place Building also provides 146 parking spaces.

The two buildings opted for different structural and facade solutions.

The One Boston Place Building uses a Trussed Tube In Tube system, which combines a central core with a perimeter tube reinforced by diagonal bracing, while the One Beacon Street Building uses a Frame system, that relies on a regular grid of columns and beams to sustain its weight.

And when it came to the facade, the Curtain Wall went with a Curtain Wall facade, which uses a lightweight glass curtain wall hung from the structure, while the One Beacon Street Building opted for a Window Wall facade, that uses panels fitted between floor slabs, leaving slab edges visible.