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Luminare

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Everything posted by Luminare

  1. Luminare
    Wow. This is some of the most naive garbage I have seen in a long time lol. I actually feel sorry for them. 1. Most of the "natural" vegetation that is there right now isn't even natural to the bayou. The stuff that was there for long ago was ripped up when they were redirecting the flow of the bayou to help try and control (which of course trying to control any river/stream/creek/bayou is futile). 2. All recent efforts have been to restore the bayou to what it would have been long ago. This includes adding vegetation that is native to Houston, and even creating wetlands to help curb flooding while also creating new habitats for animals that do call the bayou home or will call it home in the future. 3. In one of the post this loony tune 'claims' this: The dotted red lines show the riparian forest and wetlands to be bulldozed and scraped on both banks of Buffalo Bayou and into Memorial Park. According to the HCFCD, 80 percent of the targeted area will be stripped of trees and vegetation. Note the areas to be cleared of trees extends into the interior of Memorial Park towards the maintenance facility. This is for access by heavy equipment to the bayou. This is a textbook example of environmentalist cherry picking things which they want to hear and then regurgitating it without any context. It's no different than if you tried talking to an extreme creationist! The plans are actually return the bayou's natural twist and turns meaning this is a complete reversal of flood prevention policy which is fantastic! It means that instead of fighting the flood they are going to instead use natural forces. I mean lets not play around here. All that vegetation that is there is not "virgin" xD pffffft give me a break. 4. I'm ashamed that so many of these people are so easily fooled by this nonsense and it apparently has over 1000 likes! I don't understand why environmentalism hasn't yet been deemed a cult because that's what it is! What people should practice is good stewardship of the land/environment we live in as well as common sense conservation. Now of course this is just my opinion on the matter, and maybe I am wrong, but from what I have read and analyzed this is actually for the betterment.
  2. Luminare
    hmm I also posted a thread about his maybe a few weeks ago. Anyway I already stated my opinion on this and that is that something has to be done about infrastructure. I'm sure the people that built these treats would be disgusted that what they built is in such poor shape. Both the community and the city should have kept better car of these areas and instead let it go into the crapper which is why so many historical buildings ended up being knocked down because they were beyond saving and an endangerment to those around them :/.
  3. Luminare
    I guess they have been out so long that I have to make the confession that I never knew that these ever lite up >.>
  4. Luminare
    Had never really driven down Harrisburg or Navigation Blvd's before so took some time to do so yesterday. As I was passing this intersection they were already at work demolishing the old stuff, so looks like this one is well underway.
  5. Luminare
    because...reasons!?
  6. Luminare
    omg a hostel would be perfect! Do we even have hostels in Houston?
  7. Luminare
    That is a very good question. I normally walk this way back to greenway plaza after workouts or just walking around the area, but I have no clue whats going on with these two areas. The first one is the mentioned office building which you show images of and the second is the now empty lot where two homes and a couple of trees were demoed a couple of weeks ago. The way they been building this one office building has been a bit unorthodox. I'm guessing the back area is parking, but are they using the Willow Creek property to access it's garage?? I have no clue what they are doing. My guess for the land where the houses where demoed will be a sort of mini-midrise or town homes. EDIT: after further analysis, it looks like that back part can't be a garage due to the floor type that's there. Now I'm completely baffled at what it is lol.
  8. Luminare
    Exceptional analysis! The infographics were to notch. The visuals of the possible streetscapes or possbilities for what these new spaces could look like was very lazy, and underwhelming. Sometimes I'm disappointed by these surveys in terms of what could be possible and their own interpretations of these kinds of interventions. Why not throw in a design of a midrise you came up with yourself or a park space that you came up with yourself. That brings home to those reading possibilties that can actually happen. Simply showing stock images of other precendents only illustrates further what we don't have and what was possible in those places. Of course those images are important to give as examples which were good examples to give, but instead of just giving them to the people so they can simply glance over them give them to architects or designers to reinterpret and to re-imagine them in the context of Houston which is a very different city than most. Plus some of those photoshop visuals were pretty.....blahhhhh. This is just a healthy critique of the amazing hard work they must have done for this. The appendix is what really steals the show for me in how it details each streets conditions, typologies, and visual impacts on a level that no survey done on downtown has done yet. This will certainly help others in their further analysis of this once blighted part of downtown which is finally getting the attention it deserves....even though it is slow as malasses lol.
  9. Luminare
    relax and take it easy?? lulz This guy should be turned into the HAIF shocktrooper. He gets in and gets out with all the info we could ever need Plenty of work still to do.
  10. Luminare
    Ok so never been to an Alamo drafthouse. Are they always that small? Looks only big enough for one theater.
  11. Luminare
    To be honest, yeah its bit of a loss, but come on guys look what is still there o.o. Officially my fav development moving forward! Not to mention that cramming that highrise condo just across the street from that large cemetery was kind of awkward.
  12. Luminare
    Triton, first, awesome recon mission Second the drafthouse and midrise should be moved over. They will be on the corner of brand new street. Right now you have them in the middle of what is a cemetery which isn't owned by the developer.
  13. Luminare
  14. Luminare
    What the.......darn it! Where are you.....Al Gore did you mess with this chart? Did you put all these hockey sticks on here???
  15. Luminare
    darn it Urbannizer! I'm still at work. Go recon >.>
  16. Luminare
    could you provide the link to the booklet and renderings, please?
  17. Luminare
    A roundabout would be very nice. Really they should be putting more roundabouts in this town as they are better at maintaining a continuous flow of traffic and are better for connecting multiple intersections. The rendering looks good, but holy crap they need a new webmaster xD that image is super tiny on that webpage (of course when you click on it it's fine, but still).
  18. Luminare
    outstanding!
  19. Luminare
    In other news the Ashby highrise is on schedule, Elevated Living Houston will begin construction next week, and Metro has pulled their heads out of their rears More at 5. Really though, wouldn't that be something if a trio of towers were built? This forum would crash instantly!
  20. Luminare
    Initially those were my thoughts as well and from seeing the schedule it does look like this is very much locked down in terms of design. I was just very fishy at what that one quote was from saying that they are moving out of "Schematic Design". That was a bit confusing. We are also looking at stuff that was put out 3 months ago! I agree with you unless there is serious intervention on the part of contractors during the bidding process then this design isn't going anywhere then (pretty sure those letters will be listed as an alternate xD) At the end of the day you have to pat the architect/designer on the back for doing what he was paid for and that was giving the client 'exactly' what they asked for (no matter how much he/she probably wanted to change it). That's an architects job. We can only do so much or go as far as the client will let us at the end of the day Finally, designing an auditorium/assembly space is always a tremendous challenge so I applaud the designer for at least walking out sane after all this lol.
  21. Luminare
    Whoa Whoa Whoa wait??? Ok lets just get this out of the way lol Is that correctly quoted??? Because if this is "Schematic Design" then we still have a LONGGGGG way to go here xD Like...this building might not look the same a couple months from now. If they are at the tail end of SD then that means that there is still lots and lots of room for this to change. If they mean they are at the end of Design Development "DD" then it's to late and they are about to begin Construction Documents. Big BIG difference so either whoever quoted that has no idea what the architecture nomenclature is or we might be in for one heck of a design ride if this still isn't even in the actual Design Document phase yet >.> EDIT: after looking at those floor plans this is actually a very well assembled building! My last project in architecture school was to design a black box theater and if you haven't designed one then you have NO idea the hell it is to program one of these things lol. It looks like they did a really good job of it though. From the "renderings" though it looks like this is still very basic. I don't even see material choices or any kind of style instead the building and the Exterior is just a "skin" on the building. Because of these I think we are still long ways away from seeing "real" look of this building. Just my hypothesis.
  22. Luminare
    Because unless the designer of this building was flippin high as hell lol I don't think this would have been real design. Maybe a conceptual idea, but not the real thing. I love big media graphics on buildings like this, but this isn't clever at all and is very literal. I don't even think some overachieving intern would have produced this also. As for why I think it was the client who envisioned the design, because it is soooooo conceptual. A client only really has a building they are imagining at a very conceptual level and it's up to the architect to mold and shape that vision into something that is unique, creative, proportioned correctly, and practical. The super large "structural" lettering alone wouldn't have ever gotten past the first iteration or at least the first option review. It probably would have been something to be sort of an exaggeration to sort of gauge where the client is looking to go with the project and be done with it. Obviously the client did not care for the process, thought their vision was picture perfect, thought the letter was very innovative and cool and wanted that in there. Beige for the longest time has been seen as a color of academic buildings (especially in texas) and the client probably liked that on the building. Client wanted lots and lots of glass most likely especially in the lobby for the auditorium and so their you go its there. All I'm saying is that some of the design choices in this are not very sophisticated and there are areas that would have refined further along in the design process. Now let's not completely write off the large lettering. In different situations it would have been a cool feature. If this was some kind of children's school maybe a younger age magnet school or even if this was at the childrens museum or childrens hospital then I can see it because it's such a huge exaggeration. Maybe if this was to more of an art statement in an art district or cultural district, but it just seems so out of place here. Not to mention the font is bland and the proportions of those letters are enormous! The architect also copied some elements that I have recently seen on academic buildings on archdaily. While it isn't criminal for architects to copy others it's pretty clear what are some of the inspirations for this project and maybe the client already had a few favorites of his/her own. Now of course none of us know the client or architect and eithers intentions, but this building simply looks more like the first month into a design rather than 3-4 months later and about to go into CD work. Just my analysis/opinion.
  23. Luminare
    AGAIN! I don't think its fantastic either, but just looking at it from another perspective I also agree with Arch in that it's clear that the client had a VERY specific vision for this school even if it is very drab. The fate of this one was sealed long ago and I'm sure Gensler did all it could to make something out of nothing. I just had a situation with a project I'm working on for a school as well. When a client gets so fixated onto a certain 'look' that they have attached to their minds then they are really going to do everything they can to keep it. My guess.....it's also going to have the clients name on it Their is definitely politics at play here as well. When a client (especially with schools) is going to get a name on the building then of course they are going to put all their hands all over it!
  24. Luminare
    if anyone has access to the floor plans or interior images that would be good. Honestly lets not bash it too much. It isn't horrible just not really pushing the envelope. I mean its way better than their current building and from the article it seems that this current design is something that the client likes (of course anything would be better than where they are at right now >.> ). I know I'm essentially saying 'lets be positive' or 'lets find the positives in this' , but really whatever gets built there is going to be better than a surface parking lot. I think we should start looking at this as 'will I be able to live with this or driving by this for the next 30 years'. If the answer is yes then ok lets move on and hope this gets built. If you think its an damnation of mankind then really discuss why. Other than that lets just be glad that this idea has gotten this far. 10 years ago putting a school like this in downtown would have been insane!
  25. Luminare
    There are some big moves and massing in this that I actually really really like. It is definitely a more contemporary design than what many people in houston are used too This design is going to need some more work though. It still looks very unresolved and a little massive sitting on that site. Also not liking the exaggerated HSPVA on the ground or the one being used as a shading device -.- My younger sister actually went to school at HSPVA I'll have to show her this and gauge her opinion on this. Finally, don't even get me started on the beige brick >.< After being at A&M for 4 years I swore that I will never, during my whole architectural profession, put beige into or onto my buildings like this!
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