UrbaNerd

Once again, I'll have to park near the freeway and walk all the way to the COA this semester. Parking is especially bad if you have later morning classes, but I'd rather not get up at 5:30 AM like I used to.

What is the value of a post?

$0.02

Oh joy, more EIFS clad, faux-mediterranean, red tile roofed, turreted "luxury apartments" just west of downtown.

It would be absolutely phenomenal if they renovated that structure like they did to the Keeland Building, just outside the College of Architecture.

It's sad that I go to UH, and I have no clue where these projects are going up. I blame the fact that I am a hostage in the architecture building 24/7...lol

Any of my fellow students care to fill me in?

I went to Market Square park after classes yesterday...it was buzzing with activity, and the line was rather long at Niko Niko's; I waited about 15 mins before I got to the front. People kept talking about how much nicer the park was, as well as how nice the weather was. I took some pics, and I'll see if I can post them later or something.

Pelli ex-Enron building on cover of this AutoCAD book

Hmm, maybe they decided to lay Bermuda sod instead of St Augustine? Ya know, since Bermuda requires less watering and the like...

Nope. The parking for Embassy Suites is wholly contained within its garage, and the adjacent lot is owned by Dallas-based investors doing business as MIPS Parking, LLC.

Oh, that's interesting. The irregular shape would also allow for an interesting scenario of whatever gets built there. Hopefully, it's tall enough to block the view of the ES from DG.

I'm hardly even an "amateur photographer", and I've been "escorted away" from various buildings and sites many times, and questioned by employees and bystanders countless times in the past couple of years. Yes, security and all that is important, but I don't get why they have to be so paranoid about a harmless architecture student with a crappy little point and click camera!

They might just be testing the lights for now or something. Perhaps they will change it according to seasonal events/etc. It would be neat if they could emulate another "big sleek box with a hole on the top"; ie the Memorial Hermann tower, whose lights change colours now and then. But hey, as stated by others, there is elegance in restraint.

Yeah, it COULD be a lot worse. IIRC, there were more windows on the renderings on the narrow ends. We'll just have to accept the fact that they have made some changes, and wait for the final product.

What's with the lack of windows? The narrow ends seem to have more cladding than glass! And of course, the thing does not have the "top tier", as someone discussed above. IDK, but this thing might be giving the Mercer some competition as one of the ugliest new buildings in town...

Yeah, T&C itself actually constructed some more "dense" retail along the border with CC, and it seems to help bring the two together.

Well, some related bad news

Three boats from the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, including a fire-destroyed tour pontoon, were recovered early this morning after vandals untied them from their dock and sent them floating down the bayou Tuesday night.

Authorities are investigating whether the release of the boats is linked with a 2 a.m. Tuesday fire at the Drennan field office where the boats are docked.

The fire destroyed the pontoon boat, valued at $50,000, and damaged the bio-vac boat, which helps clean the bayou, said Trudi Smith, director of public relations and events for the partnership.

Initially I was going to write in "The Woodlands" to emphasize how boring it would be. Then I realized that the aesthetics of "The Woodlands" are more or less dictated by one entity, the Woodlands Development Corporation, and that that was not only not an instance of groupthink...but that boring actually seems to work out for them pretty well, all things considered.

Then I thought of Portland, OR, the poster-child for over-planning, activism, and obstructionism....

Ah, gotcha. Would you say the same thing about say, Denver? Their skyline and overall architecture isn't exactly impressive, and they are also trying to "urbanize" and go dense like Portland. I am not too familiar with the regulations and economic conditions in Denver, but I have this one friend who constantly crows about how "progressive" they are up there.

Let's say that you could dictate your standard to the Houston city council. What would it be? How do you think that that would contrast with their groupthink standard? Don't get me wrong; places like Uptown Park are hideous, but at least it isn't derivative of CoolTown, USA. You know that that's what would happen, and it'd have the opposite of the intended effect.

What do you mean by "CoolTown" USA? Just wondering. Your definition of this would probably be quite amusing to me.

It's really interesting how Upper Kirby seems to be the epicenter of higher density, pedestrian friendly development. Might have something to do with the demographics, I guess. Just a few years back, it was basically your usual Houston boulevard, with mostly autocentric developments, and a total near total disregard for pedestrian activity. *pokes at TheNiche or someone else for a proper explanation*

oh yeah, and unless Tootsies is expanding in Houston, I'd say this video is at least a few months old. But I checked this website a few weeks ago, so I know it's recently new.

Yeah, AFAIK, Tootsie's is supposed to relocate and open up in West Avenue sometime in early 2011.

Well it looks like this one...is dead in the water...

It is starting to become visible from the 59 South approach!

BTW, I've seen a scale model of this in the college of architecture; it still has a decent ways to go before topping out.

Ya know, the floorplantes only look smallish because it seems that the first two levels or so in the rendering have higher ceilings (almost double height) than the rest of the floors. If you compare the size of the structural members to nearby vehicles, then the floorplates seem to be more reasonable in size.

Lookin' good though! I wonder when this will top out?

Once again, more photos from my most recent outing. I'd prefer a bit more authenticity, as well are more colours than three shades of beige, but this is still quite a nice infill project. I just hope that improvements to the connectivity are improved, and some of the surrounding properties are redeveloped into higher density mixed use as well.

Looks like a glorified strip mall of some sort!

Hotel Sorella

The Green

The base of the Sorella is quite nice!

Ok, I finally got Imageshack to work properly! I didn't want to use up too much of HAIF's bandwith and all.

Anyway, I took these pics sometime around New Years.Still quite empty, but they were putting the finishing touches on everything.

I actually took some pics about two weeks ago, but am having issues with imageshack. How can I upload to HAIF, anyway?