H-Town Man

As new as I am to this town (7 months - I work in oil and gas and I am from the other hemisphere of this planet) I dread that am starting to feel as if creativity is definitely NOT allowed to enter this city. I kindly request someone to put forth an alternative. Thank you.

You can't find architectural creativity in Houston, Texas?  Have you looked?

Which other hemisphere - southern or eastern?

John S. Watson told me it's for the sunken plaza and the ice rink. Expect big things, folks.

Ah, so we can thank the gulf sign for that.. Interesting that while we hated the gulf sign, Dallas embraced their Pegasus sign.

 

Dallas got lucky - the Pegasus sign is a bit more elegant than the Gulf sign was. Although I loved the Gulf sign at gas stations, particularly the one at Louetta and Stuebner-Airline that I always saw as a kid.

I'd be more for taking down billboards that purposefully block the beautiful skyline with their tackiness than a corporate logo on a building which can show pride for a company and strength for our local economy.

Those are banned too.   But it's hard to get rid of them, especially on interstates, because they're protected by federal law.

The Gulf sign was hardly alone - we also had "T E N N E C O" across the top of its building (now El Paso), Bank of the Southwest on what is now 919 Milam, Central Bank (still there, sorta), Conoco (complete with weather ball)...I'm probably skipping something or another.

Some of those really were tasteful, especially the Tenneco one which matched the grid of the building facade just right.

The city is so severe with downtown signage in part because of our bad reputation for billboards. City Hall basically decided while we can't get rid of all the freeway billboards, we sure as hell can control what goes on our downtown buildings, and that's exactly what we're going to do. We will NOT be Sign-town in the one district that matters!

Nope, it's a ban. Continental Airlines had to go through lengthy City Council hearings to get permission to illuminate their globe logo at the top of their building, just the globe not the name. The reason for the ban has to do with a giant 40 foot neon orange rotating Gulf sign that basically held our entire city hostage to its tackiness for about a decade in the 60's-70's.

Subdude should have a picture of it.  Actually, there's a thread on it in Historic Houston.

Difference is on Gray they have to maintain the whole environment themselves, whereas here they'd be adding to an existing scene of sidewalk retail and pedestrian life.

My wife who is from Dallas commented the other night that Houston's skyline is so dark compared to Dallas's. I gave a long, boring explanation of how Houston being a city of wholesale businesses rather than retail never learned to market itself the way Dallas knows how to, and that difference still shows itself in things like our poorly lit skyline. Driving back into Dallas last night I noticed that its lighting really only comes from a few buildings, including the BoA tower, the one with the X's, the Reunion Tower/Hyatt Regency hotel, and the new convention center hotel. The rest of their buildings are just as dim as Houston's. Only other difference is the lit up corporate logos on their buildings, which we don't have because we banned them.

Site plan for this is something only a mother could love. Why is the retail separated from the park? To bring the building nearer the rail station so the residents don't have to walk too far and risk getting slightly more exercise in their commute than the typical suburbanite?

Only great idea for this was Crossley's full length park. Short of that it would be better if it were chopped up into normal size blocks and one of those blocks was a park. A park glued to a run-of-the-mill mid rise with no ground floor retail and the other sides of the park already developed is a big wasted opportunity.

I for one am hoping somehow Camden goes under before this thing happens and the land gets sold to Post or someone else with vision and a pair of ballistic architects who will design this right.

Two things:

1. Can we keep this thread about Chevron tower? Posts have had to be removed, and already we're debating that Montgomery County crap again?

2. Anything north of FM 1960 = boondocks.

I would guess that it is a harder problem than it seems. They need to think through who are the shoppers, what kind of stores would work, how the physical layout should work, etc. If the focus is to be on residents, they would probably want things like a Dominos Pizza, McDonalds, Home Depot and a good supermarket. Downtown office workers and convention visitors would not care for these. I think it will be a really tough nut to crack to come up with a viable mix.

I don't think planners will be choosing physical layouts or types of stores other than as a suggestion for renderings. A downtown retail district is always going to need to be flashy and oriented towards visitors... a display of the most amazing things we can offer. The essential stuff for downtown residents can go on side streets.

Home Depot?

Boonies? You speak like you're from a small little town somewhere. You people need to wake up and realize that The Woodlands is a major economic hub now in a county pushing over 500,000 people. I'm not sure ''Boonies'' is the word I would have chosen for it. The campus (Exxon) is sitting on the Harris/Montgomery county line. If it were in Willis or Huntsville, then I could agree.

The Woodlands is a shining emerald in a sea of booniness. You might say it's the Houston of Montgomery County... As Houston is to Texas.

Yes. Reworked. As in, as originally laid out, New York had much smaller blocks. The Olmsteadification of Manhattan was then copied throughout the country, including in more western cities/towns like Minneapolis and Houston Heights. (Downtown Minneapolis, which was laid out a bit earlier, has square blocks.)

I wasn't aware that Frederick Law Olmsted had anything to do with lengthening blocks?? Thought he hated rectangular street grids, hence his plan for Riverside, Illinois...

To be fair, I don't know if you can google earth, "more interesting areas."

This was clearly in reference to the several neighborhoods I had named in the post he quoted. Gotta read more than one post back.

Could you post links to these more interesting areas you mentioned?

As for the modern urbanism, I think the original urbanists did a better job of creating lively spaces so I will stand by my opinion that longer blocks (not streets) make for a more urban environment.

To me a city with streets at 1/20th a mile intervals would make for a nice human scale environment. Any closer and it seems like your encountering cars to often.

On the other side, I think of the blocks are overly long it creates a problem for crossing. But I don't think that is much of an issue with double blocks downtown.

I'm not taking the time to post links, you can google earth them. Modern urbanists are trying to return to the principles that made classic urbanism so successful. If you read some of the literature on this I think you'll find they've taken a lot of the considerations we discuss into account (the short answer by the way is that while there are more streets to cross with small blocks there is more directional freedom and meeting points). Start with Jane Jacobs.

For a convenient comparison of larger and smaller block sizes, take Houston and Dallas. Downtown Dallas has larger blocks, and the feel is more deadening vs. livelier in Houston, even when no one is actually on the street.

By the way, your ideal 1/20th mile interval would be 264 feet - actually smaller than downtown Houston at 300 ft, a very small block size indeed!

I disagree with this part if your post.

I think you have it completely reversed.

Thinking of London, Paris, Berlin, Prague, even Philadelphia, Boston, etc... all I remember is long blocks and narrow streets.

I think you are confusing long blocks with long streets. Long streets like those in Houston don't create a strong urban experience but long blocks do. A 30 Mike westheimer is hard to urbanize. 500-1000 feet blocks all squeezed together gives you a more closed in and urban environment.

Houston has many no nos that mange it hard on pedestrians. It has a higher than average percentage of road to architecture. Wide streets, long streets, thin blocks.

Think of it this way, which would you think would be easier for a walker? Having 10 store fronts between each pair of streets or having to cross five lanes of traffic after every two stores? Pedestrians have a more leisurely walk when the number if streets they have to cross are less.

I am not for closing major thoroughfares in the middle of downtown, but I am not worried at all about smaller streets in the more sleepy parts of downtown. Closing Louisiana or Smith would be a nightmare. Closing Prairie one block from its end...hardly an issue with me.

London:

http://www.london-attractions.info/images/attractions/oxford-street.jpg

Prague:

http://www.europeancastlestours.com/tours/imperial/gallery/Prague_Street.jpg

Philadelphia:

http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/broad-street-facing-philadelphia-city-hall-in-sepia-bill-cannon.jpg

Boston:

http://bostoncompletestreets.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Broad-St_1.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jcviAgRYitk/Tu44JBLotuI/AAAAAAAAJbQ/_kSKFVk57u0/s1600/Ferrara1.jpg

Baltimore:

http://www.pps.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Baltimore_Market_Street_WEB.jpg

New Orleans:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Orleans.bourbon.arp.750pix.jpg

The area in Contrast looks like this:

http://d16wm5mxkuw2qn.cloudfront.net/images/13547.png

http://d16wm5mxkuw2qn.cloudfront.net/images/13543.png

In the most interesting and lively parts of Paris, Latin Quarter and Montmartre, the blocks are short. Same is true of the Leicester Square/Covent Garden areas of London, the Old Town of Prague, and French Quarter New Orleans.

Jane Jacobs talks about this in her book, and I think most urbanists since her are pretty much agreed. I've actually heard a planner from out of town say that downtown Houston has an ideal block size at 300 feet. This might have been in the old Main Street Master Plan.

Thanks

Have some big files to download/upload on a short time fuse.... Anyone know a good place to go, preferably north or central?

Everyone agrees that the units are a plus, which is why we all want this to happen. But something is lost with the street closure. You formerly could stand on main and look down Prairie and see the arcade of the left field wall and seats on the other side above it. It was a great vista. And long blocks are bad for urbanism bc they create dead zones and stifle circulation. This building would look great on San Felipe somewhere, but it's not ideal here.

Haven't read the entire thread here, but I'm a little sad that they're tearing down the Texas Tower. While I'm sure renovation would be a fortune, I've always liked this building. Ah well, I guess that's progress.

It does seem a shame.

Good news. Wish they could stand it on its side.

I like having cute kitschy little domes downtown. If all we have are modernist shards, we look like any modern city in the world. This gives us charm.

This may sound strange but I'm actually much more excited about these smaller residentail projects than I am about any of the big commercial highrises planned. Downtown will continue to grow and diversify if we can get a healthy number of people living down there.

More residents = need for more services = need for more space for more services = need for more buildings. Growth in population will keep Downtown viable for many decades to come.

I'm with you, but the 600 and 1100 blocks of Main are huge eyesores right now, and we need those buildings to go up for the sake of aesthetics in the area. But in general, yeah, residential space > office space.

Just recently read an article saying that, barring major regional conflict in the Mideast, oil prices are heading way downward soon. Not looking good folks!

Think I just pulled a muscle yawning.

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