Westin Residence Condominiums
The recent years have seen the boom of condominium complexes in Providence, Rhode Island. This trend is the urban developers’ answer to the increase of population and the increase in demand for livable space that goes with it. One of the recent luxury high-rise condominium projects is The Residences at the Westin. It is located on West Exchange Street and stands at a height of a one hundred sixteen meters. The Residences at Westin has a total of thirty-one floors. The first fifteen floors function as the extension of the nearby Westin Providence Hotel, while the top sixteen floors contain luxury condominium units built with top of the line building materials and equipped with all modern conveniences. The Residences at the Westin were designed to cater to the modern market and its more challenging and shifting demands. The Residences at the Westin was built by TRO Jung Brannen in 2007. The TRO Jung Brannen is the largest and most prominent international architectural and design firm in all of Boston.
The TRO Jung Brannen is the product of a merger between the TRO (The Richie Organization), founded in 1909, and the Jung Brannen Associates, founded in 1968. The unification of the two companies under one name happened last July 2006. As the pool of talents from both companies joined to form an even bigger and more inventive group of architects and designers, the firm rose in popularity and became one of the most in-demand international architectural and design firms. Apart from the Residences at the Westin, among the notable projects of the TRO Jung Brannen firm are the Media 1 Tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; the World Trade Centre Residence at the Dubai International Convention Center, which is also in Dubai; The Residences at Manchester Place in Manchester New Hampshire; the Grandview in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Ten Park Row in Providence, Rhode Island.
Beside the Residences at the Westin, also along West Exchange Street, is the Neo-Traditionalist high-rise, The Westin Providence. It was constructed from 1992 to 1993 by Nichols Brosch Sandoval & Associates, Inc. It is one hundred meters high and it has twenty-five floors. As of February 2007, The Westin Providence was the fourth tallest building in both the city and the state. The Westin Providence is home to the Westin Hotel. Having a total of three hundred sixty-four rooms, it nabbed the glory of being the largest hotel from Providence Biltmore, which was constructed back in 1922.
The hotel, although impressive in height, is not particularly remarkable. It has an old-style brick façade and a pitched roof that do little to improve the building’s overall visual impact. Respected local architecture historian and member of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission McKenzie Woodward describes The Westin Providence as bland, lacking in character and far from architectural innovation.