It's not about meeting demand; it's about dominating the market. If Walgreen's opens up a new store on Street Corner A, then CVS must open up a new store a block away on Street Corner B, even if they're losing their shirts in revenue at that particular store. Same with bank branches and other retail chains, which is why our cities end up looking less like cities and more like Woodfield Mall every year.
here in indy they put up a walgreens on the corner of the main drag Meridian Street and 16th which is a sort of unofficial entry to the downtown. it went up in about a week and of course cvs wants to build one right across the street even though there already is a cvs one street over and two blocks up. the unofficial gateway to the city with a walgreen's a cvs a mcdonalds and the parking lot for a chase bank branch. welcome to indy. at least right now theres a pancake house there. the real recockulousness of these pharmacies is that most of their products ie high fat high salt processed food, booze, soda, smokes feeds their drug bidness. now thats a bidness plan.
Back on the topic of books about Chicago. I just picked up "Chicago Architecture and Design" by Jay Pridmore. My initial impression is that it is what I was looking for. It seems to strike a nice balance between beautiful full color images and informative text. It is considerably more than a coffee table book, but not an all informative tomb. The building selection is pretty extensive, with a nice balance between major landmark buildings and other small projects including some nice residences I've never seen before. Anyhow I haven't read it all yet, but it looks to be on the right track. I'll let you know when I finish it up.
First highlight, seeing the other entries in the Harold Washington design competition.
Yeah I looked into that one as well, and may well still purchase it, but I decided I wanted something a little more current. This one goes up to and Includes more recent work such as the much discussed McCormick Tribune Campus Center and Dorms at IIT and Millenium Park.
Lynn Becker's blog has a depressing post about the current project stoppages in Chicago at this time. The hotel you mentioned is included.
I'd love to go down there, but it's not in a very convenient location so I can't always get there. Sorry for discussing Chicago books and buildings in the Aggregate Chicago thread, what was I thinking...
" prairie avenue books" I BET IT GOES UNDER IN 5 YEARS.
Its website is lacking to say the least and thats it's future. Its the kind of business that just doesnt survive anymore in brick and mortar form w/o significant web sales. I hope Im wrong but given the last 10 years where anything unique in this city has disappeared, its just a matter of time.
So, am I supposed to debate whether or not to south east loop is convenient to my schedule? I've got a pretty good sense that I could win that argument.
Beside that, I simply asked on the thread for some book reccomendations and last night thought I'd follow up on what I've found. What is the big deal?
Speaking of unique - did anyone catch a tribune article a few months ago about the decline of the porn shack, err newspaper stand? There were about 1,000 20 years ago now theres less than 100
Yeah, i was refering to your comment about the newspaper stands not prarie avenue, but I do agree with your comment, why go there when most of the material is readily available for cheaper online....of course that is the logic that is effectivelly destroying this country brick by brick.
well if bookstores aren't that vital and catching an el to the loop or a metra if youre a suburbanite on a saturday to look at and maybe buy a book that relates to your profession is too much and you can get it all online than why bother. why bother complaining about the deteriorating urban fabric, the alienation of contemporary society the lack of quality architecture. if you can be and do anything with your iphone what do buildings really have to do with it. what does experience really have to do with it. just stay in your room.
Not chicago specific, but a friend just sent me this link of url=http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=210&p=0&id=387&fid=0]Buckminster Fuller[/url] sketches.
Prairie Avenue Books offers a lot more than just books... There's service and a great deal of knowledge. If you're looking for something beyond pop-architecture titles, you should go in and spend a few hours there. Ask questions. I love looking at Japan Architect and GA. They also have used books and a great selection of original furniture, drawings and prints.
The place is a little hpkey with the names of the people like Dirk Lohan on the tops of the shelves and the website needs work but I think they'll survive. My favorite bookshop is still Bill Stout's in SF.
For sure, I appreciate Prarie Avenue, I've been purchased books there in the past, my comment was intended to be rhetorical.
At the same time, I can understand why people buy online, the price is right, and it's easy to forget/ignore the cultural issues that come from shopping online or at massive chain stores in the spur of the moment.
As for myself, certainly I can find some time to shop there, and will again some time I'm sure. But as I said earlier it isn't always convenient. The hours they are open certainly don't help. Who closes at 6 anyways? Not open on Sundays? They aren't exactly making it easy.
Ive shopped there plenty but it really seems like a tuff thing to keep going foreward. They must do some tremendous online sales.
Vado - Wabash was one of the most interesting shopping districts in the world with awesome shops everywhere including Prarrie. Theyre all but dead. Im not advocating the new way over the old way but I am saying that theres obviously something wrong with the old way since it cant survive in most forms. maybe the future really can all be done from your i-phone.
I think your comment hit it on the head - "catching an el to the loop or a metra if youre a suburbanite on a saturday to look at and maybe buy a book that relates to your profession is too much"
Yes - for 90% of people why would they jump on train and schlep on down to Prarrie Ave? I would, but I like to wander. Most people dont. Chicago is a big city but most of it's inhabitants are fairly docile creatures who dont wander too much. Chicago is a city of interiors - life happens on the inside behind doors not as much on the sidewalk as say NY or San Fran. Could be the cold, could be the heat - who knows.
Its a gem and we should cherish it - but Ive been here long enough to know nothing lasts in Chicago long before its bought by some NYers or absorbed into some foreign wealth fund. We just keep making new novel shit to sell them.
wow that is Aqua again right? Is the color on the top photograph reading right? I had no idea it would have a gold appearance like that. How are they accomplishing it?
Don't feel bad, I've lifted every photograph I've ever posted on here. I don't have stock images of all the random things we discuss just laying around.
synergy: another book (i don't know if it was mentioned or not) about the history of chicago architecture that is very thorough is "Chicago Architectural Club: Prelude to the Modern" by Will Hasbrouck (who also owns Prairie Avenue). If you buy it at Prairie Avenue, you can sometimes even get an autographed copy...not a ton of incentive, but a nice little collectors item. it doesn't really go into any contemporary projects (hence the "prelude to the modern" part of the title) but it is still a very in depth, well-written book.
i personally love prairie avenue and will be sad to see it go, whenever that may happen. as great of a store that is, it is also getting swallowed up by all the development around there. there may come a point in time when it makes too much sense to just sell the building and relocate the store elsewhere. i usually go there every other saturday and browse all the new books and try to leave without emptying my wallet. as great as it is to buy books cheaper at amazon, there are some books you just want to look through first before buying and make sure it is worth even purchasing. there have been many times where i have bought a book online without looking through it first and been somewhat disappointed by the book when it arrived.
as for the duke miglin/hotel post above, my firm is actually doing a large nightclub development for him and two other partners and that project has been put on hold as well. miglin isn't the money in this project, though. he is just going to be one of the guys running the business end of it. the money-guy put it on hold because the other two partners have been spending too much time trying to value engineer as we design the building, which in turn is wasting a ton of our time on the architectural end of it. i do have to feel a little sorry for the guy...he is actually a very friendly and nice person.
the 92nd floor of the trump will be done within a month they are saying... its looking pretty intense, and i believe ive said it before, but i am pleasantly surprised... it has definitely grown on me... and its looking really nice from every angle
I think it's really awful! There's no volume. The proportion is odd. There's no expression. There's nothing apparent about the engineering that is interesting or provocative. There's nothing interesting in terms of sustainability or the ingredients used. What about the lake breezes? It's a 1990s corporate-schlock building that has been stretched.
There have been maybe 5 interesting high rise buildings built or under construction in Chicago in the last 10 years. Three are by Ralph Johnson:
1. Contemporaine
2. Skybridge
3. 235 W Van Buren (under construction)
And then the other two:
4. 230 W Erie by someone with a clue in the office that makes the high rise McMansions
5. Calatrava's Chicago Spire
The other stuff comes up short including the Jahn building on Columbus.
A lot of the buildings you mentioned have the same asthetic, perhaps it is just your current favorite style?
What about 600 N Lakeshore drive? The renderings look alright, but when you drive by and see it in person, I think it looks much more impressive.
Personally I really like Trump Tower and 600 N Fairbanks.
What about Aqua?
Am I the only one that likes the Heritage?
Anyhow, how about going into a little more detail instead of just shooting off a top 5 list. What is your criteria for "Interesting". I think there are many buildings built in the past ten years that are succesful and attractive, but may not be jaw droppingly "interesting".
Don't forget, many of the really crazy, innovative towers need something a little less sparkling around them to give proper context, otherwise you get that amusement park like effect that Dubai seems to revel in. Each building trying to outshine the entire surrounding city it is within.
If Aqua is nothing more than a wavy take on 320 W Oakdale, then skybridge is nothing more than a mixed use tower that happens to reveal a large part of it's program on the exterior. I doubt it is really the first to that anyways. Of course I don't believe that, I really like skybridge, but the point is, what makes one buildings innovations and changes more "interesting" than another?
I'm very familiar with the engineers who did Skybridge and 600 N LSD. 600 N LSD has an extremely impressive structural system. It is a hybrid system consisting of a minimally sized concrete core and an exterior concrete moment frame system that circles the entire building. The "slabs" you are identify are not shear walls, though they are part of the lateral system of the building, they are moment frames. On nearly all concrete high rises, you'll typically see a massive concrete core that resists all laterall loads, and all other columns are simply part of the gravity resisting system. This system reduces the overall material required in the building and allows for greater light penitration into the building by reducing the inner core dimensions.
As for the criteria, you'll have to be more specific and apply them to actual physical objects and buildings for them to have much meaning to me. As far as I can tell, the Volume, expressed through the unity and Consonance of 600 N LSD, is just fine.
500 posts, huh? I didn't realize that. Which job number do you put down? I need to find one. ;-)
Skybridge is a 3-d volume that has been pushed, pulled and punched with openings. Its glass bridge is a light, transparent connection between the heavy, opaque masses. Structurally, it's two towers. And it's detailed that way And Contemporaine is a ...
If you think that 600 N LSD is somehow interesting... There are a million student projects on the net that express their frames well. The frame's window openings look like an after thought. Why are there windows that look across the way into each other? It looks really thrown together. Look at the Neil Denari building in NY. It is much smaller but has a moment frame.
None of the developers here has the balls to use natural ventilation... And, yes, it does work in our climate. If you make a bioclimatic chart for Chicago, you'll see. Did you have to learn how to make one in school?
There are windows looking across because there are units there that face one another. The buildings are seperated enough that they will recieve plenty of light and have reasonable views of the shoreline.
I find the structural system very interesting, it is just a subtle distinction. You might understand better if you were looking at it from an engineering persepective.
I don't have a problem with your selections, they are interesting projects, just questioning the brevity of the list, not to mention purpose of listing "interesting" buildings in the first place.
As for the New York, I assume this is this building you're getting at?
I didn't work on it, but if those lines are true to the structural system, it isn't a moment frame, it's a braced frame, which by your previous argument makes it really just a shorter version of the John Hancock Tower in Chicago.
It's a nice building, very cool to look at, but I imagine it isn't marketed for the same economic bracket as the residents of 600 N LSD. Do only the super rich get to have interesting buildings? What of the semi super rich, who will speak for them?
makeArch, im just going to go ahead and assume your on PW's payroll...
all three of those are nice buildings, but i wouldnt consider them earth shattering by any means. They are largely neighborhood level icons at the most, in terms of their influence.
i think aqua has the potential to be a city level icon. i dont intend that to be a value judgement... but make of it what you will.
Make, I think you're assessments are why people think architects are so arrogant and disconnected. You're starting to sound like one of the classic self righteous pseudo professor types who spends considerably more time criticizing than designing. People might take buildings like 600 N LSD drive seriously because it was built and most people would be lucky to live in it. You sound really foolish railing out against "developers", the big bad boogie men, right? nice try.
There are developers who value what Architects do and those that don't. The ones that do are fantastic. The guy from CMK Realty is one. Greenwald was another. We owe our fantastic skyline to men of vision like these. They develop(ed) buildings made by Architects who are also Artists. These things that you think are so fascinating are vehicles for pension fund investors, not Architecture. There's a big difference. Sticks and stones... but I know the difference between something done really well and SOS.
As for the Denari building, the shear wall is on one side of the building rather than in the center as in a symmetric one like the Hancock. It is also not very tall which means the wind loads are small and the wind loads are from 3 sides and can be transfered and absorbed by the single shear wall.
I like 600 LSD - Ive been trying to figure out why the deep edge beams every other floor - I told my boss I think its the frame - He insisted no way. This from a man who designs highrises. i think it really gives the exterior a nice rythem. its not high art but a really well executed concrete tower in my opinion. I like buildings like that or or the chesnut apartments by kahn better than anything Zaha or Rem do - true honest structure is always better than gimicks any day.
Make - i think everyone agrees Denari has done something special in NY with that
Aggregate Chicago
well, collectively I guess we do, though they also sell pop, smokes, alcohol (some convenience store anyhow) , so in the end I guess it pays the rent.
It's not about meeting demand; it's about dominating the market. If Walgreen's opens up a new store on Street Corner A, then CVS must open up a new store a block away on Street Corner B, even if they're losing their shirts in revenue at that particular store. Same with bank branches and other retail chains, which is why our cities end up looking less like cities and more like Woodfield Mall every year.
here in indy they put up a walgreens on the corner of the main drag Meridian Street and 16th which is a sort of unofficial entry to the downtown. it went up in about a week and of course cvs wants to build one right across the street even though there already is a cvs one street over and two blocks up. the unofficial gateway to the city with a walgreen's a cvs a mcdonalds and the parking lot for a chase bank branch. welcome to indy. at least right now theres a pancake house there. the real recockulousness of these pharmacies is that most of their products ie high fat high salt processed food, booze, soda, smokes feeds their drug bidness. now thats a bidness plan.
Chicago, Milwaukee, Ogden Ave Intersection, c.1913:
c.2008:
wow, that is seriously disappointing Pocz.
Here is an intersection in Chicago I still really like.
Yep - although it has been thoroughly yuppified. Here's another good before and after:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kim_scarborough/91479203/
Back on the topic of books about Chicago. I just picked up "Chicago Architecture and Design" by Jay Pridmore. My initial impression is that it is what I was looking for. It seems to strike a nice balance between beautiful full color images and informative text. It is considerably more than a coffee table book, but not an all informative tomb. The building selection is pretty extensive, with a nice balance between major landmark buildings and other small projects including some nice residences I've never seen before. Anyhow I haven't read it all yet, but it looks to be on the right track. I'll let you know when I finish it up.
First highlight, seeing the other entries in the Harold Washington design competition.
Chicago Architecture and Design
looks interesting - similar title to Chicago Architecture andDesign 1923-1993
looks interesting - similar title to Chicago Architecture andDesign 1923-1993
Yeah I looked into that one as well, and may well still purchase it, but I decided I wanted something a little more current. This one goes up to and Includes more recent work such as the much discussed McCormick Tribune Campus Center and Dorms at IIT and Millenium Park.
Lynn Becker's blog has a depressing post about the current project stoppages in Chicago at this time. The hotel you mentioned is included.
just go to the prairie avenue bookshop already.
I'd love to go down there, but it's not in a very convenient location so I can't always get there. Sorry for discussing Chicago books and buildings in the Aggregate Chicago thread, what was I thinking...
ahh its right downtown dude.
" prairie avenue books" I BET IT GOES UNDER IN 5 YEARS.
Its website is lacking to say the least and thats it's future. Its the kind of business that just doesnt survive anymore in brick and mortar form w/o significant web sales. I hope Im wrong but given the last 10 years where anything unique in this city has disappeared, its just a matter of time.
So, am I supposed to debate whether or not to south east loop is convenient to my schedule? I've got a pretty good sense that I could win that argument.
Beside that, I simply asked on the thread for some book reccomendations and last night thought I'd follow up on what I've found. What is the big deal?
Looks like a good book - maybe I'll go down to Prarrie ave at luch and get - its only 2 blocks from office and I never go there either.
Speaking of unique - did anyone catch a tribune article a few months ago about the decline of the porn shack, err newspaper stand? There were about 1,000 20 years ago now theres less than 100
Ha! i never thought of that, but it is true. I suppose it is related to the general loss of printed media sales.
I think its more at one time Prarrie was like the only place you could get these books, now you can find them online fairly easily
Yeah, i was refering to your comment about the newspaper stands not prarie avenue, but I do agree with your comment, why go there when most of the material is readily available for cheaper online....of course that is the logic that is effectivelly destroying this country brick by brick.
well if bookstores aren't that vital and catching an el to the loop or a metra if youre a suburbanite on a saturday to look at and maybe buy a book that relates to your profession is too much and you can get it all online than why bother. why bother complaining about the deteriorating urban fabric, the alienation of contemporary society the lack of quality architecture. if you can be and do anything with your iphone what do buildings really have to do with it. what does experience really have to do with it. just stay in your room.
Not chicago specific, but a friend just sent me this link of url=http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=210&p=0&id=387&fid=0]Buckminster Fuller[/url] sketches.
doh. here it is: Buckminster Fuller
Prairie Avenue Books offers a lot more than just books... There's service and a great deal of knowledge. If you're looking for something beyond pop-architecture titles, you should go in and spend a few hours there. Ask questions. I love looking at Japan Architect and GA. They also have used books and a great selection of original furniture, drawings and prints.
The place is a little hpkey with the names of the people like Dirk Lohan on the tops of the shelves and the website needs work but I think they'll survive. My favorite bookshop is still Bill Stout's in SF.
For sure, I appreciate Prarie Avenue, I've been purchased books there in the past, my comment was intended to be rhetorical.
At the same time, I can understand why people buy online, the price is right, and it's easy to forget/ignore the cultural issues that come from shopping online or at massive chain stores in the spur of the moment.
As for myself, certainly I can find some time to shop there, and will again some time I'm sure. But as I said earlier it isn't always convenient. The hours they are open certainly don't help. Who closes at 6 anyways? Not open on Sundays? They aren't exactly making it easy.
Ive shopped there plenty but it really seems like a tuff thing to keep going foreward. They must do some tremendous online sales.
Vado - Wabash was one of the most interesting shopping districts in the world with awesome shops everywhere including Prarrie. Theyre all but dead. Im not advocating the new way over the old way but I am saying that theres obviously something wrong with the old way since it cant survive in most forms. maybe the future really can all be done from your i-phone.
I think your comment hit it on the head - "catching an el to the loop or a metra if youre a suburbanite on a saturday to look at and maybe buy a book that relates to your profession is too much"
Yes - for 90% of people why would they jump on train and schlep on down to Prarrie Ave? I would, but I like to wander. Most people dont. Chicago is a big city but most of it's inhabitants are fairly docile creatures who dont wander too much. Chicago is a city of interiors - life happens on the inside behind doors not as much on the sidewalk as say NY or San Fran. Could be the cold, could be the heat - who knows.
Its a gem and we should cherish it - but Ive been here long enough to know nothing lasts in Chicago long before its bought by some NYers or absorbed into some foreign wealth fund. We just keep making new novel shit to sell them.
and this is why mark cuban should buy the cubs.
note the test railings in the bottom photo
wow that is Aqua again right? Is the color on the top photograph reading right? I had no idea it would have a gold appearance like that. How are they accomplishing it?
the slabs are painted white, though the perceived color will change a lot during the course of the day and the seasons.
Ahh yeah that makes sense. It looks nice, I guess the natural light gives it that warm glowing appearance.
I lifted it from flicker
Don't feel bad, I've lifted every photograph I've ever posted on here. I don't have stock images of all the random things we discuss just laying around.
I once lifted a picture of a Daisy......
synergy: another book (i don't know if it was mentioned or not) about the history of chicago architecture that is very thorough is "Chicago Architectural Club: Prelude to the Modern" by Will Hasbrouck (who also owns Prairie Avenue). If you buy it at Prairie Avenue, you can sometimes even get an autographed copy...not a ton of incentive, but a nice little collectors item. it doesn't really go into any contemporary projects (hence the "prelude to the modern" part of the title) but it is still a very in depth, well-written book.
i personally love prairie avenue and will be sad to see it go, whenever that may happen. as great of a store that is, it is also getting swallowed up by all the development around there. there may come a point in time when it makes too much sense to just sell the building and relocate the store elsewhere. i usually go there every other saturday and browse all the new books and try to leave without emptying my wallet. as great as it is to buy books cheaper at amazon, there are some books you just want to look through first before buying and make sure it is worth even purchasing. there have been many times where i have bought a book online without looking through it first and been somewhat disappointed by the book when it arrived.
as for the duke miglin/hotel post above, my firm is actually doing a large nightclub development for him and two other partners and that project has been put on hold as well. miglin isn't the money in this project, though. he is just going to be one of the guys running the business end of it. the money-guy put it on hold because the other two partners have been spending too much time trying to value engineer as we design the building, which in turn is wasting a ton of our time on the architectural end of it. i do have to feel a little sorry for the guy...he is actually a very friendly and nice person.
Ahh Value Engineering! the bane of my existence!
these images were too dramatic not to post...
the 92nd floor of the trump will be done within a month they are saying... its looking pretty intense, and i believe ive said it before, but i am pleasantly surprised... it has definitely grown on me... and its looking really nice from every angle
I think it's really awful! There's no volume. The proportion is odd. There's no expression. There's nothing apparent about the engineering that is interesting or provocative. There's nothing interesting in terms of sustainability or the ingredients used. What about the lake breezes? It's a 1990s corporate-schlock building that has been stretched.
There have been maybe 5 interesting high rise buildings built or under construction in Chicago in the last 10 years. Three are by Ralph Johnson:
1. Contemporaine
2. Skybridge
3. 235 W Van Buren (under construction)
And then the other two:
4. 230 W Erie by someone with a clue in the office that makes the high rise McMansions
5. Calatrava's Chicago Spire
The other stuff comes up short including the Jahn building on Columbus.
A lot of the buildings you mentioned have the same asthetic, perhaps it is just your current favorite style?
What about 600 N Lakeshore drive? The renderings look alright, but when you drive by and see it in person, I think it looks much more impressive.
Personally I really like Trump Tower and 600 N Fairbanks.
What about Aqua?
Am I the only one that likes the Heritage?
Anyhow, how about going into a little more detail instead of just shooting off a top 5 list. What is your criteria for "Interesting". I think there are many buildings built in the past ten years that are succesful and attractive, but may not be jaw droppingly "interesting".
Don't forget, many of the really crazy, innovative towers need something a little less sparkling around them to give proper context, otherwise you get that amusement park like effect that Dubai seems to revel in. Each building trying to outshine the entire surrounding city it is within.
600 LSD -
Heritage -
WOW!
The Heritage? You gotta be kidding?
600 N Fairbanks gets close. Aqua... Is it more than a wavy take on 320 W Oakdale. Is there something beyond the skin? I dunno.
600 N LSD?
That building has these slabs that are supposed to be blank shear walls facing each other and yet they have windows punched in them. It's total BS
Here are some criteria:
1) Consonance
2) Unity
3) Dialogue of opposites
4) Volume
5) Expression
And there's more...
Hey, I think that was your 500th comment.
If Aqua is nothing more than a wavy take on 320 W Oakdale, then skybridge is nothing more than a mixed use tower that happens to reveal a large part of it's program on the exterior. I doubt it is really the first to that anyways. Of course I don't believe that, I really like skybridge, but the point is, what makes one buildings innovations and changes more "interesting" than another?
I'm very familiar with the engineers who did Skybridge and 600 N LSD. 600 N LSD has an extremely impressive structural system. It is a hybrid system consisting of a minimally sized concrete core and an exterior concrete moment frame system that circles the entire building. The "slabs" you are identify are not shear walls, though they are part of the lateral system of the building, they are moment frames. On nearly all concrete high rises, you'll typically see a massive concrete core that resists all laterall loads, and all other columns are simply part of the gravity resisting system. This system reduces the overall material required in the building and allows for greater light penitration into the building by reducing the inner core dimensions.
As for the criteria, you'll have to be more specific and apply them to actual physical objects and buildings for them to have much meaning to me. As far as I can tell, the Volume, expressed through the unity and Consonance of 600 N LSD, is just fine.
500 posts, huh? I didn't realize that. Which job number do you put down? I need to find one. ;-)
Skybridge is a 3-d volume that has been pushed, pulled and punched with openings. Its glass bridge is a light, transparent connection between the heavy, opaque masses. Structurally, it's two towers. And it's detailed that way And Contemporaine is a ...
If you think that 600 N LSD is somehow interesting... There are a million student projects on the net that express their frames well. The frame's window openings look like an after thought. Why are there windows that look across the way into each other? It looks really thrown together. Look at the Neil Denari building in NY. It is much smaller but has a moment frame.
None of the developers here has the balls to use natural ventilation... And, yes, it does work in our climate. If you make a bioclimatic chart for Chicago, you'll see. Did you have to learn how to make one in school?
Where did you goto school?
Call me Torquemata! ;-)
There are windows looking across because there are units there that face one another. The buildings are seperated enough that they will recieve plenty of light and have reasonable views of the shoreline.
I find the structural system very interesting, it is just a subtle distinction. You might understand better if you were looking at it from an engineering persepective.
I don't have a problem with your selections, they are interesting projects, just questioning the brevity of the list, not to mention purpose of listing "interesting" buildings in the first place.
As for the New York, I assume this is this building you're getting at?
I didn't work on it, but if those lines are true to the structural system, it isn't a moment frame, it's a braced frame, which by your previous argument makes it really just a shorter version of the John Hancock Tower in Chicago.
It's a nice building, very cool to look at, but I imagine it isn't marketed for the same economic bracket as the residents of 600 N LSD. Do only the super rich get to have interesting buildings? What of the semi super rich, who will speak for them?
makeArch, im just going to go ahead and assume your on PW's payroll...
all three of those are nice buildings, but i wouldnt consider them earth shattering by any means. They are largely neighborhood level icons at the most, in terms of their influence.
i think aqua has the potential to be a city level icon. i dont intend that to be a value judgement... but make of it what you will.
Yeah, I am on PW's payroll. ;-)
Aqua's facade is great but did the developer allow her to do more that that?
I hope so.
I guess that's why the Architecture is so lacking... People take projects like 500 N LSD seriously. It's really mediocre.
Iletdown,
I'll take money from Helmut too!
Small bills in a manilla enveloper just like on the 9th floor! ;-)
Make, I think you're assessments are why people think architects are so arrogant and disconnected. You're starting to sound like one of the classic self righteous pseudo professor types who spends considerably more time criticizing than designing. People might take buildings like 600 N LSD drive seriously because it was built and most people would be lucky to live in it. You sound really foolish railing out against "developers", the big bad boogie men, right? nice try.
There are developers who value what Architects do and those that don't. The ones that do are fantastic. The guy from CMK Realty is one. Greenwald was another. We owe our fantastic skyline to men of vision like these. They develop(ed) buildings made by Architects who are also Artists. These things that you think are so fascinating are vehicles for pension fund investors, not Architecture. There's a big difference. Sticks and stones... but I know the difference between something done really well and SOS.
As for the Denari building, the shear wall is on one side of the building rather than in the center as in a symmetric one like the Hancock. It is also not very tall which means the wind loads are small and the wind loads are from 3 sides and can be transfered and absorbed by the single shear wall.
I like 600 LSD - Ive been trying to figure out why the deep edge beams every other floor - I told my boss I think its the frame - He insisted no way. This from a man who designs highrises. i think it really gives the exterior a nice rythem. its not high art but a really well executed concrete tower in my opinion. I like buildings like that or or the chesnut apartments by kahn better than anything Zaha or Rem do - true honest structure is always better than gimicks any day.
Make - i think everyone agrees Denari has done something special in NY with that
Syn - who did the Structural on 600?
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