Highway6

The Chronicle had an article on the building this morning - http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7512279.html

There will be a ribbon cutting and open-house for the public this Saturday.

The following was nice to see, it appears the City, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, and Gensler were all working pretty close together on this one -

That does really suck, sorry to hear that. I do kinda dig the interior. Can you share the designer?

Is this only for utilities, or would it include railway row as well?

I think the bill was tailored to protection for utility companies. However, if you look at the map, in some places, the RR ROW is adjacent to CP's ROW... I'm particularly excited about the possibility of that N-S trail connecting Brays bayou trail, Memorial Park and its trails, and up to TC Jester and the White Oak trail. I would have to think that's top of the city's list too.

I don't know how much, if any, it actually helps.. but I've put in calls to Sen Duncan, Rep Jackson, Sen Rodney Ellis, and Rep Sarah Davis, encouraging them to support these two bills.

Rep Davis is the one that filed it in the House, so her staff was pretty enthusiastic about it.

I don't know if it's true because I don't know how committee scheduling in the Texas leg works, but the facebook group supporting this cause mentions this is a vital week to show support.

To find out who your state reps are...

http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/

Houston Press had a good article this morning on the potential of adding hundreds of miles of bike and jogging trails through Houston.

This is a map of the current Utility Line easements in Houston. In the past, CenterPoint has been unwilling to allow trails on their land due to possible liability issues. However, there are two bills (SB 1793 and HB 3802) working there way through the Texas leg. that would treat these biketrails on private land as City Park land and thus protect CP from personal injury lawsuits.

How Houston cyclists and runners can help --

Call 512-463-0128 and tell the staff for Sen Duncan (chair of the Senate Committee considering SB 1793) that you support the bill.

Call #2: Call 512-463-0468 and tell the staff for Rep Jackson (chair of the House Committee considering HB 3802) that you support the bill.

Call #3: Call your state senator, and ask him/her to support SB 1793.

Call #4: Call your state representative and ask him/her to support HB 3802.

When we moved to the Heights a couple of years ago, my (Brazilian) wife was kind of shocked that people here actually build and live in timber-frame houses (she calls them cardboard), so the idea of a masonry house ought not to be considered radical.

Concur. The CMU isn't the issue and hardly radical. CMU can be beautiful.

One of the goals was privacy. One was apparently industrial loft look. Well, the first could have been better implemented. Privacy doesn't have to mean zero street facing windows.

The 2nd goal.. think they achieved it a little too well. That front facade is just harsh.

In contrast:

Zemanek's house - Privacy? Check. Somewhat Industrial Loft feel? Check. Beautiful use of CMU? Check. Landscaping and terracing used to soften CMU? Check.

Not a Brake Check? Check.

Dissapointed I missed this thread 4 years ago. I'm usually a big fan of CMU architecture, and reading the comments from the beginning, I didn't have any problem the lack of windows in the front, the desire for privacy, nor the choice to be original and not attempt to fit into the Height's style. I really wanted to like this house and was ready to jump to the owner's defense... unfortunately i then saw the photos.

Putting a positive spin on it, at least the Jiffy-Lube architecture is appropriate for car-centric Houston. Was the designer's identity mentioned earlier in the thread ?

He is not concerned for resale, he built what he wanted and intends to stay there for at least another 25 years. He is not stupid, and he knows he has limited his resale.

From a uniqueness standpoint, I'll be curious to see how this fares on the market.

PS.. the complete lack of landscaping really doesnt help here. Concrete, grass and zero trees... looks like a new suburb front lawn.

PSS.. I sort of like the Craftsman sink in a weird Monster House kinda way.

Some lucky UH students (including Case Keenum) were given free tickets to the Championship Game to help fill the UConn student section.

When I was at UH I got free t-shirts in exchange for signing up for credit cards...I don't recall being handed tix to national championship games!

I had a friend who went the 1st night.. Kentucky fans dwarfed Uconn fans. After the game, he said there was a good mix of UK fans trying to sell their tix for anything they could get and some just giving them away in disgust.

Hopefully tonight's game, Aggies vs Irish, is a lot better than that snoozefest last night. I'm still hearing *clank clank* in my head with all those bricks.

Weren't they planning on expanding? Has this already happened ?

Haven't been there in a few years.. great stuff though.

At what point did the preferred method of building skyscrapers go from steel-frame to poured concrete?

Not so much anymore since most of our steel is imported, but it used to be typically that steel was more prevalent in skyscraper construction the NE and Midwest due to proximity to steel producing cities. Concrete was more prevalent in the south. Concrete is still more prevalent here, but i don't know what the norm is now for other parts of the country.

Gig'em Lady Aggies... Hell of a game.

So... april fools, eh?

UGH !! Outted so soon.

Happy April's Fools Day, HAifers !!

do you have a link from where you found it? i cant see the picture

The site was flash.. had to grab a screenshot. I don't remember the full name of the firm.. you'll have to wait till i get home this evening to get the link to their site.

It's the elusive giant lipstick that Midtown has sought for so long.

Concur. That makes midtown the pig, yes?

Just not sure this part of midtown could support it. The area around there is still kind of a no-man's land...

Don't see why not. It looks to have structured parking and is next to the spur. Its right next to a rail stop. Maybe it would start a midtown trend for office buildings and we'd have a string of buildings connecting the DT and TMC skylines.

Midtown doesn't really have a lot of talls, if BG Group Place on Main Street was 1 Million Square Feet and this is a bit bigger, it would probably be around the same height or greater than BG Group Place. I'm all for this, I like to see talls go

Yeah.. looks to be in the 45-55 range.

Had the beef fajitas last night. Awesome.

Since they still don't have a full menu online.. quanto costo ?

Our HAIF project update sheet has it as "canceled": http://www.towrs.com...ouston%2C_Texas

Emporis has listed it as "planned/proposed" and it was meant to be a medical facility or clinic: http://www.emporis.c...-houston-tx-usa

But the project at the height of the recession was probably scraped. Ah Houston, still waiting for something exciting to take off here. Seriously, transit, Regent Square, Boulevard Place, Earth Quest, something please just start already!!

Same location, but it appears to be newer project... this one isn't 20 stories and medical/clinical.

Grabbed this screenshot from a small design firm in Atlanta.

It was only in their proposed works section, so who knows how old it is or what the story is behind it... It's kind of boring, but at least this has the height to get excited about if something like this were to ever come to Midtown.

On the plus side, I think that the restaurant mix is really good so far.

I don't think the developer knew what he wanted his tenant mix to be when they started that project. They have leased to way more restaurants than they initially planned for.

They had numerous issues with additional plumbing and waste needs... all made the more difficult because the slabs were prestressed, so they couldnt just drill all willy-nilly to add 2nd level plumbing.

Bldgblog had a nice article on the Architectural ruin paintings of Gerry Judah.

http://bldgblog.blog.../anti-flat.html

For some reason, the video on the blog mesmerized me... all I can keep thinking is how much fun that must be to create something like that.. Admittedly, I'm hardly the art connoisseur, but never having seen a piece of art that evoked that response in me, I'd love to one day have one of these up on my wall.

<<< Still has not resolved his Streetview issue.

On 3 different computers, I can't use streetview with Firefox 3.

The blue lines are there, but you can't drag the orange guy to get streetview. You can drag him, but he turns gray when you stop moving the mouse. Furthermore, I no longer have the ability to just zoom into streetview.

Between the streetview issue and google taking away their realestate syncing with HAR... google maps has gone from hero to zero in like 4 months time.

Ouchi!!! Are you serious? That could totally hurt my man boobs.

I was suggesting a barb-wire strap for a more manly touch and so you and your girlfriend don't accidentally get your purses confused

Bleeding is manly... moobs are no exception.

Lockmat.. it doesn't look bad. But i do think it would be more of a man purse if it at least had barbed wire for the strap.

Well... All our picks pretty much have stunk since the 2nd round. Damn you, Cinderella.

Puma, looks like I'm gonna squeak by ya for the win. It was so squeaky close, look at it this way...The UCLA-Mich St game, a game decided by 2 pnts, where neither of us picked the winner to go past the following round so only 10 pnts were at stake.. ..Michigan St went 10-25 on 3pnts baskets. Had they gone 11-25.. You'd be the Champ.

Over in the women's bracket, A&M and Baylor square off tomorrow night in the Elite 8

Westpark Tollway is my Autobahn.

Shepherd Curve is my Monaco.

I've been trying to sell my wife on eventually buying land in the East End and letting me design something.. but i think I'm losing the argument. I had her hooked until kids came into the discussion. All of our family live in NW burbs, and when Highway6 Jr comes along in a yr or 2, we're going to need grandparents nearby if we're to both work. I'm now trying to sell her on the SpringBranch area as a compromise... not quite innercity, not quite suburban hell and 45 min commutes.

That article is way depressing by the way.