Alec

From the Walgreen's at Washington and Studemont:

Are those cutouts as asymmetrical as they appear in the photo?

Are those cutouts as asymmetrical as they appear in the photo?

^I have donated services to several Star of Hope residents and got the same impression. Not how I'd do business, but they're a net positive by far.

^I respect your position, Triton. I just wish more concerned neighbors would organize a targeted response like yours that requires parking for the major attractions that truly need it, rather than supporting blanket parking minimums that stifle walkability.

Will The Ivy have protected bike parking? The site is eminently bikable from downtown and not bad from the med center.

It will still cost more? If they have the same amount of units at the same price then they wont make as much.

If they *sell* the same number of units at the same price they won't make as much. But if they sell no units or don't even get it built because of the location, they make significantly less than if they invested in a desirable location.

^I knew I wouldn't be the only HAIFer there (Dunlavy meeting). Also interesting to hear that RS would allow public parking in their project to make up for removal of on-street parking.

What amenities will be shared with the adjacent project? I think of parking when I hear that, but this is it's own pedestal. Gym? Pool?

I bet the meth dealer on this particular job site makes a FORTUNE.

He's making pocket change compared to the guy selling horse tranquilizers and Xanax a couple blocks north.

^Great shot of Market Square Tower (far left of the skyline). I like how MST and 2016 Main are about the same height now and look like a set of bookends for the city.

Looks taller but certainly lost it's edge.

Interesting that they changed the design right after Ivy Lofts stole it.

EDIT: I checked the website and spring 2016 was the original completion date, so this is probably just rehanging the old banner, not a groundbreaking date.

I could have been distracted by the smell of my Kam's take-out on prior occasions, but I don't think I saw this banner with "Spring 2016" before tonight:

^I thought it was bad enough that these full-block complexes don't accomodate pedestrians during construction (most major cities would have the builder put a barricaded walkway out in the street). To make that problem permanent is absolutely ridiculous. The only silver lining here is that I just built up a cyclocross bike, and I've been looking for a nice route with mixed pavement and off- road...

Progress has been made on this after TowerSpotter's June photos, but just another wall stucco'd and the scaffolding removed as far as I can tell. From today:

A lot of comparable apartments went up faster than this, but most of those don't look half as nice. I'm not saying those two things are related in this case, I'm just saying speed isn't everything.

Check out the PBS docs Super Skyscrapers and City of Cranes. Those will answer some of your questions and feature some spectacular views.

Found a cool piece of retro future while I was on reddit. This is documentary called The City from the 1939 New York City World's Fair! It's definitely an interesting watch. I say it's a cool piece of "retro future" because we never really achieved this vision of the self sustaining, walkable, balanced, nonexpansive, suburban utopia. Instead the dream mutated into a quiet nightmare that stretched the city so thin it became almost unrecognizable. Instead of the dream of self-sustaining hamlets and towns of suburbs it became industrialized and like any machine hit the expansion button and never ceased. Yes, there were many interesting experiments which could be options on how to reform suburban culture and planning, but didn't really ever live up to the dream as portrayed in this documentary.

I personally love retro futures. It's so interesting to see where we thought we would be years in advance and how naive we were to what could transpire later on or how we could even assemble such a dream world of suburban life. Any opinions? Give the doc a watch. It's along 30mins and is a neat portal into the past while looking into a potential retro future we came close to achieving.

Hopefully this doesn't get turned into a urban vs. suburban battle. That's not what this is about. What did you think of it? Did we ever really achieve this kind of new city?

Please share your recommendations for documentaries, lectures or books on urban challenges, living and design.

To start us off, I recommend episode 1 of BBC's Generation Earth (available on Netflix); it has great stats on urban dwellers and a very unique look at Brazil's response to urban favelas.

I mean I'm not upset or anything. I guess I was just expecting more transparent walls to view the activity inside. Either way the building is awesome. Our design team does the same thing with their renders, in that they make certain areas semi transparent to get an idea of the inside. 

The mesh is transparent when the brightest light source is opposite the observer; inside activity should be very visible with the lobby lights turned on in the evening.

From this afternoon:

I dig the concept of a minimal renovation for affordable (in the market sense, no need for subsidies) units. Just to give an idea of how cheap and easy that renovation could be, these drop-in fridge/sink/stove units retail for about $1250- I'm sure less when you buy 600:

Holiday Inn keeps moving to the next and the next quarter. What is up with that development.

I think Chingy is the general contractor on this project, because it sounds like they're chillin' at the Holiday Inn.

If the courtyard was a small private park with trees, it would look just like Tudor City in Manhattan. Dedicating that unique space entirely to garage access is such a waste; at least plant a few caged trees to shield the garage doors from back views.

The rapid progress on this just blocked my view of 3400 Montrose Life is hard in a Houston construction boom.

Wow, just wow...Maybe it is just the angle but that almost seems dangerous. A careening truck has an accident and goes of the pass like happened a few years back in our area where a commuter bus just dumped over the side of I270 and fell 30 feet.

I don't know the specifics of that crash, but I would assume the bus went off the edge of a straight section, or more likely the outside of a curve. Not only does momentum direct vehicles away from this building, but the curved barrier closest to the building would get hit from the convex side, so it should better resist impacts that do occur.

^Interesting development. The light rail line just isn't quite close enough to the venue to accomodate the light rail crowd. I bet they'll try to get the path to loop past the venue and go to the rail station to give rail riders an easy path - more about that accessibility than the bayou network.