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aachor

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  1. aachor
    Yeah, that's escaping the worst of it. From what I can tell, demand dropped enormously, but prices only fell a little. Certainly less than most other parts of the country. I grew up in Michigan and in 2009, the market value on my parent's home had dropped to 65% of what they paid for at purchase. Many, many people ended up owing the banks double what their homes would fetch on the market. It took a decade to recover. New construction wasn't down by 85%. It went to zero. Projects that were underway were halted. Half-built homes sitting abandoned were a regular sight.
  2. aachor
    If the data is to be believed, I think we're in for a 2008-style housing bust. However, in 2008, Houston escaped the worst of it, and I think that will be true for this bust too. My wife and I bought last year, so I am familier with Houston pricing. In comparison, in other major cities (including DFW) the prices are crazily inflated. They're eye watering in comparison to Houston's affordability. Those inflated prices won't be sustainable with 30yr mortgages at 7%. A lot of people in those other major cities will be feeling a lot of hurt as they end up in serious negative equity when the bubble does burst. In contrast, Houston's housing prices seem to me to have only just kept pace with inflation. That means we didn't boom as hard as Dallas or Austin in the last 5 years. But we won't bust like them either.
  3. aachor
    Zoning and regulation won't give you good architecture. D.C. has strict zoning regulations and the Federal Government has more money than God, and yet they managed to poop this out. I don't know what's worse, the FBI's HQ, or a 10-story storage building in Houston. And I don't even hate brutalism.
  4. aachor
    There are a number of storage facilities in this city that are less of an eyesore than this.
  5. aachor
    Same. Then I describe what it's going to be, and she asks "how do you know all this stuff?!" 😏
  6. aachor
    I've always thought 2727 was one of the uglier high rises in the city. To each his own, I guess... 👍
  7. aachor
    The city is healing.
  8. aachor
    L O L
  9. aachor
  10. aachor
    I feel like the renders that TMC puts out fail to do justice to the scale of this development. Every time I drive by and see it, it's almost jarring. Sure, it doesn't have the height of MDA's mid-campus building. But the size of all of it together...it's massive.
  11. aachor
    Yes. Typically when discussing architecture, the term setback refers to when an upper portion of the building is recessed away from the forward face of a lower portion. When discussing land-use, it would refer to the distance between the building and the lot line. I was speaking of the building's architecture. I think there is a very loose comparison that can be made between the multiple regular intervals in its setbacks to how art-deco design uses regular or regularly diminishing intervals in setbacks: (Fisher Building, Detroit) The old Art Deco skyscrapers that you find in New York, Chicago, and Detroit are my some of my favorite buildings.
  12. aachor
    I really like the setbacks from the one angle. It almost looks art deco in it's massing. I like setbacks.
  13. aachor
    The impact of a few LED strips is minimal compared to the dozens of square miles of parking lots with unoptimized high-intensity LED lights. If you want to fight light pollution, ensuring that your parking and road lighting isn't also illuminating the moon is a good start. However, I think that aggressively fighting light pollution in an urban core is a fool's game. I think the better strategy is to, on a statewide level, champion and promote dark sky preserves and accept that a city has a land use type that is distinct from the Davis Mountains of West Texas. Fortunately for us, the earth's curvature makes isolating light pollution, on a large scale, easier than controlling it at the heart of the nation's fourth largest city.
  14. aachor
    One of the things I've enjoyed seeing in Chinese cities is how many of their modern highrises and skyscrapers are outlined and lit by colored LED lighting like this. It really makes the cities look more vibrant and exciting at night. I'd love to see it catch on in the United States. At night, so many of our buildings are just formless, lifeless blocks. Sadly, the most exciting illuminated features are often the dim aircraft warning lights.
  15. aachor
    I'll be really happy to see this lot being developed. For how many people that the med center employs, there is a serious lack of good housing options in the area. My wife and I lived in the area for six years, and lived in two separate apartment complexes in that time. Both times that we were shopping for a rental, it was shocking how limited our options were if we were trying to stay within two miles. This location is a couple hundred feet from the MacGregor bus line which puts you within a stop or two of MD Anderson, St. Lukes, etc. With the TMC3 and Levit Green developments going on, I don't see how any competent housing developer could lose in this area. Especially if they can keep rents in the price range of a nurse or office worker. In my opinion, a mid-rise condo building would also be a great fit. What ended up forcing us out of the area is that we wanted to buy rather than rent. There were simply no good options in our price range, unlike other neighborhoods within the loop like Montrose, Upper Kirby, Midtown, or the Heights. Heck, the Downtown has much better condo options and has the advantage of being on the rail.
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