Another New Look for Columbia Square?

Work is already underway on Kilroy Realty’s Columbia Square development, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to change the project’s design…again.  Rios Clementi Hale Studios, one of three architectural firms collaborating on the project, recently posted updated renderings of Columbia Square to their website.  While a PR representative for RCH has informed me that these plans are in no way finalized, the new renderings indicate that a redesign may be in the works for the project’s 22-story residential tower.  Gone is the boxy, minimalist high-rise unveiled earlier this year, and in its place an asymmetrical glass tower, featuring misaligned windows and vertical lines stretching the length of the building.  RCH has designed the ground-up structures to mimic the architectural massings of the William Lescaze designed CBS Studios complex, with “shifted upper-stories to allow the buildings to adapt as they rise.“  RCH’s project may not be as ambitious in scale as Johnson Fain’s original vision for the development, but it may in fact mesh better with the adjacent 1938 buildings.  At the very least, we are spared a five-story parking podium.  Columbia Square is expected to open in phases staring midway through 2014, with the residential tower ready for occupancy in early 2016.