H-Town Man

Jackwood, I'd prefer we both just tolerate each other. I've been on here eleven years and don't intend to quit now. I like discussing architecture and critiquing it. But I have nothing against you except your attitude towards me.

No. You did.

Then why are you still posting? You said you think Urbannizer should be the only one allowed to post. Be the change you want to see in the world.

I think I understood your implications pretty well. As soon as the word "stupid" gets thrown in, subtlety is pretty much gone.

Now you're adding some value to the internet.  You should stick to re-posting quotes that were thought up by smart people.

I think you missed the implication...

I think this website would be more of an asset if Urbanizer was the only one allowed to post.

You must be the change you want to see in the world. - Gandhi

Wow now.. He is a great asset to this board! He was only pointing out holes in some poster's logic.

He's welcome to point out holes in my logic. In this case, I think the hole was in his (see prior post). And I will go on voicing my criticism of designs.

BUT YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL IT'S A DAMN GARAGE.

From the rendering all it looks like from main is a 7 or 8 story glass building with ground floor retail. Hell from what we can tell the cars wont even be entering from main, so what difference would your "zoning" rant even make? I swear the incessant whining on this board is downright pathetic. If you want to complain that the building perhaps should be taller I'd at least understand but from a desgin perspective it isn't like any building I can think of in houston and it sure as hell isn't just a "box."

Y'all have become downright insufferable.

Don't understand why you get so angry. I've said it before... if you don't like hearing people criticize architecture and design, maybe an architecture forum is not the place for you.

And, since you mention it, you can tell it's a garage. The garage floors are clearly visible through the glass. I imagine cars will be too, although whoever did the rendering chose not to depict them.

This is downtown Houston, it will be an extremely rare occasion when something will be built without a garage.

I didn't say anything would have been built without a garage. But zoning could have required that any new developments on Main put their garages on Fannin or Travis.

want makes you you thing that the ground floor will not have reatail ?

Still a parking garage even if it has retail.

If zoning had been approved the last time it was voted on a couple decades ago, Main St. would have 2 parking garages between Texas and Dallas instead of 7 (8 with this one). Makes you think.

the ground floor retail needed to face Main, and you cant blame them for not wanting the corporate entrance being on the same side as the pedestrian activity along Main. it would be weird if retail was in front of a corporate building next to the entrance.

No reason why a corporate entrance can't be on the same side as the retail.  It takes a little effort though...

The garage entry is on Dallas and the exit on Lamar.  The ramps might very well be in the middle, so the floors look flat from Main.  It's interesting that the "front" is on Travis.  I would have expected Main.  

Okay, but look at that glass section on the corner of Dallas and Main, going up a few stories. Does that look like the corner of a parking garage? And notice how the exterior above the garage entrance on Dallas looks very different from how it looks as you go toward Main.

Ok, now please tell me I'm wrong. I'm thinking that's a garage on the Main Street side above the retail, but those floors look awfully level for a garage. That's clearly a garage entrance on Dallas St. though. Could it be that there is some kind of a thin conference center along there, with the garage sandwiched in between it and the building? 

It's a garage on Main with ground floor retail. It's about as tasteful a garage as you could want (and Main Street has become, in many ways, a showcase of tasteful parking garages), but you'll still be looking up to see cars as you stroll down Main.

A strong factor in garage location would be Main Street Square and the difficult driving conditions there. Something on Travis would be much easier.

I suspect the buildings and streets in the rendering might just be stock and have nothing to do with what exists there.

Hm. It looks like that might be a parking garage facing Main. Hopefully it has ground floor retail...

Gotta up that ratio. Right now Main averages 1.17 parking garages per block between Texas and Dallas. If Hilcorp/Hines puts their garage on Main, it will be 1.33 garages per block. Main Street will pretty much be an international paragon of what happens to your signature downtown street when you don't have zoning.

Anybody else think the first and only rendering we've seen is cheesy at best? Somebody said they saw more updated, realistic renderings! Please elaborate!!!!

Chevron building gonna go away if you keep complaining about the renderings. Only complete faith in the unseen will bring Chevron building.

H-Town Man your story of the Chevron CEO telling you of the construction in a secret location in the Arctic, then flying the building in to Houston is totally believable. However, I gotta call BS on the playing golf this morning part. There's no way you could have made it to the golf course........ with all the traffic and all.

Congrats on your first post and welcome to the forum. John S. Watson and I both live in Eastwood so it was only a walk to the golf course.

BUT - he added one caveat. He said he doesn't like to hear that some of us have been doubting this. We must drive the doubters from our midst. Chevron doesn't want to put its new building in a city of doubters. Chevron building will only come to the city that is most sincere. One false word and it could fly back and land in San Ramon.

How certain is this info?

How certain? I'll tell you how certain. I was just playing golf this morning with John S. Watson, whom you may know as the CEO of Chevron, over at the Gus Wortham, and he was laughing about all the doubting on this forum, where he is a longtime lurker. Says not only is this a done deal, but the building is actually already being constructed as we speak in a top-secret location in the Arctic, and will be flown into Houston by helicopter already finished next May as a big surprise and thank you to Houston for being such a great city. And hanging from the building will be a giant banner that says "Houston, the Eagle Has Landed - New Chevron Corporate HQ!"

I understand why others here are getting worked up 

Doesn't take much. If you doubt a project, question a project, don't like something about a project, wish a project were in a different location, or just about anything else other than cheering for the project as-is and hoping it gets done fast, people will get worked up.

Is this the worst rendering, in terms of image quality, we've ever had on here?  Maybe only Shamrock Tower was worse...

how is skyhouse any less TOD? it's denser, has just as much retail and is directly on the redline. same with mid-main. in fact i think mid-main is far and away the most TOD out of all of them.

 

to me it's just more bawking from the chicken littles.

Not to split hairs, but SkyHouse isn't proposed, it's under construction. He said this was the closest thing to TOD proposed. Mid-Main is also very TOD, but seems further down the pipeline than this one.

I think 3 Allen Center is a fine, handsome building with good texturing. Hope it doesn't get redone. As Mies van der Rohe once said, "God is in the details." What I think he meant by that is that really careful handling of details in an otherwise minimalist building can have a greater effect than big splashy design elements. The opposite of this approach might be the Memorial Hermann building on Katy Fwy.

Redoing the exteriors of buildings can be like redesigning sports team uniforms - even if the initial design is only average, it will likely gain in quality in the long run. The Yankees pinstripes was a pretty average design a hundred years ago; now it's a classic.

Looks like a creative adaptation of a parking garage for urban living. Come to think of it, this is brilliant. Can't think of a better postmodern statement you could make than to take an old parking garage and put lofts in it, exposed concrete I-beams and all. I can just see the NY Times raving about the "subtle commentary on the auto-centric lifestyle of Sunbelt cities."

I like the simple stateliness of the existing building, although I agree it's kind of meat-and-potatoes compared to the buildings around it. Is that travertine marble on the facade?

I hope we don't enter a trend where all the older, less-is-more buildings with stone or masonry finishes get covered up by sleek sexy glass skins in order to attract tenants. (This will probably attract the usual people who complain that I'm complaining.)