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H-Town Man

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Everything posted by H-Town Man

  1. H-Town Man
    Wow. It looks like you haven't let that old argument go, even though you said at the time that you were done and I gave you the last word. Now you're bending my words really hard in order to call me childish. I'm going to keep voicing my opinion on architecture as this is an architecture forum. If that upsets you, I don't really have anything to say.
  2. H-Town Man
    I see something there, can't really say if it's stars....
  3. H-Town Man
    Do you have a photo?
  4. H-Town Man
    So does the reflexive defense of every decision any developer makes, along with the implied "You're not important because you don't have the money that they do."
  5. H-Town Man
    Unless we get more stars at the bottom. The problem with stars, aside from the fact that they're a kitschy substitute for real design, is that it marks this building out as part of the 1990's-2000's (hopefully waning now) star fad in Texas architecture. This building was built in 1912 in Houston. It was not part of the Texas star obsession. It was not built in Austin or Fort Worth. We have an architectural tradition here that is independent of and transcends the state of Texas. Main Street is not Sundance Square. We are not aiming to be featured on Texas Highways for our candied jalapenos and homemade ice cream and soda pumped by hand from a real old-fashioned soda fountain. Our trajectory is higher than this.
  6. H-Town Man
    "Why design something complicated when you can just put stars?" ---Every mediocre Texas historicist architect
  7. H-Town Man
    With people trying to pick our pockets and massive blocks of Japanese tourists taking photos and long lines waiting to pay a Euro to get into the church and American women draping their maps over their bare shoulders to pass the dress code requirement... It would be great.
  8. H-Town Man
    You are right that very few renovations are seen long-term as improvements. I disagree about the Wortham, I've always kind of liked it, and it got some good national reviews when it opened. And the George R. Brown isn't terrible, there's actually a rather flattering photo of it on wikipedia. But I think convention centers are pretty much destined to be transformed, reshaped, repurposed. They're just way too big and pragmatic by nature to ever be given the amber treatment as period pieces, much like airports or perhaps sports stadiums. Plus, this renovation leaves much of the original 80's facade intact, and it's not like you need the whole thing left intact to get the point, the front facade has that sickening repetitiveness and a-centeredness that one normally associates with college dorm hallways. We'll have a section of 80's style and a section of 2014 style, it'll be like one of those Gothic cathedrals that was built and reworked across different periods!
  9. H-Town Man
    This is not meant to express an opinion on whether it should be altered, btw. I just thought it was a funny sentence.
  10. H-Town Man
    Have you ever heard anyone say, "My jaw dropped when I saw the George R. Brown Convention Center?" Have you ever heard that sentence?
  11. H-Town Man
    Heavily utilized could mean Rockefeller Plaza or it could mean Washington Square, Greenwich Village. One of those works with tall buildings looming over it, the other wouldn't. The thing about Market Square is that it has the oldest buildings in all of Houston, and is one of the only places in the whole city that could be called quaint or charming. I just don't want to risk building a giant glass highrise on one side. If the character of this place is damaged, then that's it... Houston doesn't have any other square with quaint old-timey buildings around it.
  12. H-Town Man
    An increased interest in a more urban lifestyle and public transportation might do the trick as well, along with a middle class that doesn't feel "pressed" quite so easily.
  13. H-Town Man
    There's always the bayou a few blocks away. Lots of small parks in New York have much higher populations within a three block radius and seem to do well. If there's too many people walking in this part of town... what a nice problem to have!
  14. H-Town Man
    Classic haif pile-on, I love it. mfastx that 75 story building is three blocks away and doesn't loom over Market Square at all. But its looming presence hasn't exactly done wonders for street life along Texas Ave., so I wonder what your point is? cloud713 I thought your response was the strongest, but the 40 story tower is only half a block wide, not a full block, and will probably present a more interesting facade than the expanses of glass on the International Tower. So I'm not as concerned about it. Moore713, that is a very optimistic picture. I don't think though that just the presence of many workers in an office tower guarantees that they'll all go down to the street below and foster urban life. All else being equal, yes it is good to have lots of workers in close proximity, but there is a danger in brutalizing the space. Classic example of brutalizing a space by the way is the Tour Montparnasse, which so overwhelmed the neighborhood below it that two years later Paris passed a law banning all buildings over 7 stories anywhere in the central city. The Montparnasse neighborhood never fully recovered its charm, although there's some places where you don't see the building. I have mixed feelings about the International Tower... I love what it would do for the skyline, extending it north, and we can all agree it's better than a parking lot, but the point of my original post was to say that I think there might be a hidden blessing if this doesn't get built, assuming something else does in a few years. Just one man's opinion, though.
  15. H-Town Man
    Thanks Triton, and agree with cuevas.
  16. H-Town Man
    I mean, did the article say anything about the RIDA hotel?
  17. H-Town Man
    Will it be a nice little urban area though with 40+ stories of glass looming over it? Think about it.
  18. H-Town Man
    Did the article mention anything about the hotel being on track? It looks like the Chronicle has figured out a way to elude my google searches.
  19. H-Town Man
    Clever use of glass to reflect the row of parking spaces below, a nod towards the dynamism of this area that drew them from the Galleria area.
  20. H-Town Man
    Posted this in another thread, but it probably belongs here... I don't understand how Shell signed a lease for 1.3 million sf of space downtown in 2011, and then decides now that they don't need 357k of it. A couple of interesting statements from an article in 2012: Today, Shell’s downtown offices occupy space at One Shell, Two Shell, Pennzoil Place and Two Houston Center, but by 2014 the company will be in One Shell, Two Shell and 1000 Main. Shell is working towards modernizing its workplace, to allow for greater collaboration and less isolation of employees. The company expects the size of the staff to stay the same, but the workflow and interaction will become more efficient. “Following a very detailed analysis of options available within downtown and in suburban areas, a renewal at One and Two Shell most closely matched our business needs and employee experience we wanted to create,” says Jeri A. Ballard, vice president of global real estate strategy & portfolio for Royal Dutch Shell. “This included access to amenities, public transportation options, minimized commute time, economics and total carbon footprint of the location.” Ballard adds that no other part of town offers the depth of amenities found downtown. “We did evaluate constructing a new building in the Houston central business district, but the One and Two Shell options most closely meet our needs,” says Ballard. “Hines will be going through a major base building modernization of One and Two Shell, which will ensure that they will remain class A buildings for years to come.”
  21. H-Town Man
    Didn't the old Bank of the Southwest building have a renovation like this on it's lower floors at one point? They look kind of non-50's. I'd add the Bender/San Jacinto Hotel to your list, and maybe the Chronicle building.
  22. H-Town Man
    I don't understand how Shell signed a lease for 1.3 million sf of space downtown in 2011, and then decides now that they don't need 470k of it. A couple clues from an article in 2012: Today, Shell’s downtown offices occupy space at One Shell, Two Shell, Pennzoil Place and Two Houston Center, but by 2014 the company will be in One Shell, Two Shell and 1000 Main. Shell is working towards modernizing its workplace, to allow for greater collaboration and less isolation of employees. The company expects the size of the staff to stay the same, but the workflow and interaction will become more efficient. “Following a very detailed analysis of options available within downtown and in suburban areas, a renewal at One and Two Shell most closely matched our business needs and employee experience we wanted to create,” says Jeri A. Ballard, vice president of global real estate strategy & portfolio for Royal Dutch Shell. “This included access to amenities, public transportation options, minimized commute time, economics and total carbon footprint of the location.” Ballard adds that no other part of town offers the depth of amenities found downtown. “We did evaluate constructing a new building in the Houston central business district, but the One and Two Shell options most closely meet our needs,” says Ballard. “Hines will be going through a major base building modernization of One and Two Shell, which will ensure that they will remain class A buildings for years to come.”
  23. H-Town Man
    Very interesting article in WSJ this morning about the financial situation with Chevron, Exxon, and Shell, but it's behind a paywall unfortunately: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303277704579348332283819314?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303277704579348332283819314.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_hp_EditorsPicks Had a graph showing expenditures vs. production at each of the three since 2009, and Chevron looked the worst: capital expenditures have soared 89% with production down 3% in that time. The Australia project in particular has gone up over 40% since it began, and remains a very tricky endeavor. They're under pressure to show investors that their balance sheet looks good.
  24. H-Town Man
    I think the qualifier is sound. The fact that office developers who have no previous anchoring in a certain area are mainly concentrating on the north end is an indicator that the north end is hotter than the other sides of downtown.
  25. H-Town Man
    Because it's not like the people who own Allen Center or Houston Center are going to develop a building on the other side of downtown. But they will try to develop something to capture some of the growth. So I think buildings that are independent of any existing campus are a better indicator of where the hot area is.
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