tangledwoods

i wonder if they are still doing the illuminated crown that was shown in a lot of the early renderings. If it ends up looking anything like the BHP tower in uptown then it will definitely stand out more at night.

yeah, because below grade infrastructure makes so much sense in Houston......

That is some seriously clear glass they are installing. I wonder how many mole people will be accidentally walking into that!

What's crazy is that for a long time the design was to have a green roof but for it not to be accessible to anyone but maintenance people. This is at least a 2-3 million dollar amenity that they are adding, I am curious if BOA is chipping in or if this is what they needed to include to get BOA signed as a tenant. Regardless, this going to be one hell of a feature and will likely have one of the best downtown views.

This will be a public RFP so the Gensler's of this world probably wouldn't even pursue it. PGAL, EYP (formerly WHR), Kirksey, etc will be in the hunt for this.

I would put good money on NOTHING happening until the I-45 realignment is either done or well on its way. Who would want to office or live right in the armpit of 10 years worth of freeway construction....

before Chevron got put on hold it was going to be 55 ish floors. The master plan even included a second matching tower, no one has appetite to go much higher when you have so much un-developed real estate.

Six Houston was NOT part of the brookfield deal.

Its nice to see the four sided silicon glazing at the corners contrasting with the vertical fins on the main elevations. This thing is looking sharp.

Brilliant Idea: Form a shell company called "freeway view builders". Build a 1 story cheapo building but pay your contractor $50 million to build it citing "hurricane material escalation" as the cost driver. Then negotiate the sale to TXDOT for "fair value" and then you make a killing...... On second thought that's probably against the rules.

I'll be over in my corner talking about construction, anyone else is welcome to join. There are a number of architects / developers / contractors that read these threads every day. We need more people to ask random questions, I am always happy to answer. Buildings are supposed to be fun, I know my job sure is! Fun facts of the day: That spiral staircase a few post up in this thread likely cost $100-200 thousand dollars. Think about that folks, one staircase that cost as much as a starter home up in the burbs. HOW COOL IS THAT. Oh and there is another picture of structural glass windows with laminated glass strongbacks, WOW super freakin cool. That stuff cost $175-250 / PER SF.

What you are looking at is a Solider Pile with Timber Lagging retaining wall. These systems are a common way of doing soil retention on deep excavations. They are almost always left in place once construction is complete. Sometimes they are used as the backside of form work for concrete placement (if that is where your permanent wall goes). Other times the permanent wall is formed away from the lagging and the open void is back filled with soil or gravel. If you would like to continue to nerd out on deep foundations check out two of the big contractors that play in this space: https://www.berkelandcompany.com/sheeting-and-shoring http://www.haywardbaker.com/solutions/earth-retention-shoring

WOW, bringing back the reflective glass! I wonder how stark the transition will be from garage to office floors. Good thing about this is that you definitely won't see any cars.....

Concrete vs Steel is a big debate on lots of projects. Here is a quick rundown on Healthcare related steel vs concrete: The best way to make a tall building cheap is to use concrete with LOTS of post tensioned steel. This allows you to use less rebar, less concrete. The downside to this is that post tensioned steel is NOT GOING TO MOVE. Once you put tension on it, relocation becomes EXTREMELY expensive. Healthcare Facilities like to make changes to their buildings. Moving bathrooms, labs, etc happen ALL the time in these buildings. If your slabs or beams are post tensioned then you are going to be extremely restricted in where you can put stuff. This building is using concrete shear walls in the stairs and elevator tower to help with the rigidity of the structure. This is a hybrid design which helps reduce the amount of cross bracing or moment frame welding required. There are a bunch of other reasons, but I should probably get back to work so this will have to do for now.......

This roof garden gives you a front row seat to some of downtown's best architecture. I'm glad to see they turned this into a true amenity. Until now the green roof was sold as a pretty thing but not accessible to tenants. Looks like they decided to pony up the extra cash for what will be a really cool space.