Montrose1100

I would hope we don't get a supertall. We need 2 50-stories, or 4 25-stories, or, honestly, 20 5-stories way more than we need some symbolic supertall.

Exocet those 20 5-stories are in the Energy Corridor.

Here's what's going up instead If Apache's tower:

http://blvdplace.com/news/Houston%20Chronicle-37%20Story%20Building%20to%20Soar.pdf

Check the date on that article.

Looks like a modern house I built in Minecraft. I dig the shape.

It's not an atrocious design. I will wait until the final product. I bet we will be surprised.

Interesting Montrose1100...  I've always figured Montrose @ Westheimer was one of the top 5 "signature" intersections in Houston.  Maybe the top intersection.

 

How would you propose massing the elements surrounding this space?  Height limitations?  Size limitations?  And I think a rather hefty cultural institution would need to find itself among the buildings surrounding the outer periphery for the greatest benefit.

 

** Oh, don't like the palm tree idea.  Houston has great oaks.  Leave the palms for the coast, where they belong, not 75 miles inland.  (just my $0.02)

Well depending on the design of the Hotel, I think 10-12 floors should be the max. As for the apartment buildings, 6 floors. Hoping it would spur similar developments along westheimer with more apartment/office buildings of similar height. 

 

As for the Palm Trees vs. Oak trees, Palm trees would leave more space for the openness of the plaza. Oak Trees could take a couple decades to reach their full potential, and would require more space as well as possibly having the roots damage/lift the surrounding area. As far as shade, the restaurants could provide their own with canopies over "their" outside spaces on the rim of the plaza. 

 

Ok I am going to ask a few questions, but so that you don't think I am being mean with all these questions let me say now I am impressed with the plan. I especially like the ring of Palm trees.

 

Ok so when you say the blocks remain the same do you mean the buildings and streets stay as is including the street between Valero and Burger king? The southern blocks are huge while the blocks that Valero and Aladdin are on are tiny.

 

I like the L shaped building idea, it would work well to create the enclosed feel of squares. So would the buildings be behind the palm trees? 

 

 

Remember that giant chandelier that they put up for the Pride parade? What if a giant gaudy thing like that is installed in the center of your square? :D

By the intersection remaining the same I mean the configuration of the streets (Montrose & Westheimer). Obviously everything on those blocks would be completely dozed. If it were completely up to me, California would reach Crocker, and thus providing more space. Lincoln (in between the Valero & Burger King would not need to exist. 

 

And yes, they would encompass the square. The Apartments would be uniformed in design, not necessarily twins or triplets, but uniform. The Palms would provide a break up of the man-made materials. The Hotel could be unique and preferably something with a solid glass facade.

 

^Nix the palms!  Palms are ugly and provide almost zero shade.  If you're going to install palms why not install public art in their place?

 

And why not focus that intersection into more of a circle?  You would utilize more space for development and allow a curious solution to traffic flow around the square/circle?  Given its size would be interesting?

While I do like public art, I do not feel it would be necessary. Having huge sculptures would not go with open flow. The giant LED rainbow would be about the size of the arches over Post Oak Blvd. However, I wouldn't mind if it was a little bigger and was somehow a pedestrian bridge. I would even scratch the the rainbow for tall cylinders that light up appropriately for each holiday on each corner.

 

Also, if artistic sculptures were incorporated with the fountains, I could go for that.

 

A bike sharing station could go in. The fountains could even be ground level so kids can run through them in the warmer months.

Don't apologize, 

 

tell us more.

 

Just to be clear, you are talking about the following blocks  (going clockwise):

Aladdin to Uchi on the north east

Smoothie King to Ruggles on the south east

Half priced books, Specs, Papa Johns and  jack in the box on the south west

on the north east would it be just the Valero or would you include the Cafe behind and Burger King across Lincoln?? Close off Lincoln?

 

Would you divert traffic away from the intersection or have a roundabout or something in the center?

 

traffic access to that area is horrible.

 

If the underground parking is located under the square a good idea would probably be running the intersection underground at different levels so that flow would unimpeded. Kind of like a stack interchange but underground-- with Montrose being on level one and Westheimer on level two and a public transport level on three.

 

No visible pass-trough traffic on ground level, but also no retail below ground. 

 

Who would be the statue in the middle of the square? a drag queen? lol

No the intersection would remain as is. 

 

 

Just a quick sketch on a sticky note. Sorry for the dark background, I didn't want my co-workers to realize the level of nerdiness that I just achieved by sketching a make believe square on a sticky note and taking a picture of it to post on a website.

 

The Green dots for palm tree locations. L shaped buildings behind the plaza to make the best use of space. The power lines would have to be buried and the garage would go under the current intersection. Obviously I'm not some master plaza designer but I don't have the time or skill to draw how I actually see it in my mind. 

 

Edit: F is for Fountain.

I would really like to see all 4 blocks of Montrose @ Westheimer redeveloped to include a cohesive "square" plaza with a huge LED rainbow beaming across the intersection from Aladdin to the Specs strip center. So, an open square plaza with fountains on opposite sides. A big open gathering space with tall palm trees, places for vendors during pride, underground parking, a boutique mid-rise hotel over looking the intersection, and mid-rise apartments surrounding the rest of the square with ground floor retail/restaurant space.

 

Of course all are welcome, and the rainbow should not be "just a gay thing", but an everybody thing. It should represent all the colors of the racial spectrum, and religious, a monument to the diversity shared not only by our city but our whole world. With a plaque that reads "Diversity - Unity above everything else". 

 

I feel like this is the center of the neighborhood and really one of the last stretches of urban westheimer that has yet to be fully developed.

 

Sorry for the fantasy.

Galveston looks like that one city you had in Sim City 4 that had a couple high-rises but would never kick off. 

 

 

82-years-old, and still more futuristic looking than any modern skyscraper.

I'm going to have to disagree. It is the Mona Lisa of skyscrapers, but I personally don't think it looked futuristic past 1952.

How could I forget the Shard. 

Moscow's new financial district is futuristic.

 

 

Clean design from afar, with many interesting details on the glass up close.

 

 

Twin Dragons

 

 

Solid, almost brutalist.

 

 

Cross-Hash Towers in Seoul.

 

 

I'm not crazy about the color but I love the play with shapes. The same for the Moscow buildings.

 and use it specifically for relaxing tubing runs.

 

Eeeeek!

I couldn't disagree more.

Market Square is the perfect place to stop and pick up some grub before going out Downtown.

The only problem I have with this is destroying a Disco Ball. Shame on you. Just kidding, looks cool. 

I would love to see your own designed models. Looks forward to more updates!

what will never happen? the pipeline bringing tar sands down to Houston for the profit of a Canadian company? good, i hope it doesnt... so we wont be getting a new TransCanada tower in downtown (or in the suburbs).. so what? Houston already tops the lists of pollution in the US. i have asthma thanks in part to it.. i dont want to see our pollution get any worse. 

im not saying they should close the refineries that are already there.. where did you read that? im saying we dont need any of that extremely filthy oil coming to be processed in our backyards. if the Canadians want it processed they can do it themselves and pollute their land even further. my proposal for only burning stuff off when the winds are blowing off shore would be for if we were to bring the tar sands down to our area, though it would be fantastic if they could implement something like that with all the industry we already have.

 

 

Maybe if they passed a (local) law that they could only burn off nasty stuff when the wind is blowing offshore to dump the pollution into the world largest carbon sink (the oceans), instead of dumping it inland on the city, I wouldn't be as opposed to bringing down more oil down to refine.

I was replying to this statement. I didn't say close indefinitely, but closing on certain days when the wind is shifting to the north west. Aint gonna happen. Unless science can come up with some sollution for air filtration/carbon/pollution collection from the source stacks, they will continue to burn.

Awesome work! A hobby I dreamed about but never picked up. Please post updates! Have you ever thought about making models for buildings like the Bank of the South West Tower and other that never were built?

i'm seeing this mid-century look everywhere now.  i'm afraid it's the next big thing.  i like it, but most of these are simply generic apartment complex boxes with a unique feature in key places.  nice, but it's still just boxes.

infill is infill. It's a  thousand times better than the garden style apartments. Thankfully those only go up in the burbs now.

Cloud seriously that will never happen. Oil pipelines would help our economy. If you want to see more buildings in Houston you have to want the oil/energy business to do their best. If they collapsed this whole city would turn into Detroit over night.

No company would put closing their plant (extemely long process), in order to leave billions of the table so we don't have a smoggy day here and there.

 

 

 

 

There's also another project on page 69 that I think is for Houston, but I'm not fully sure.

 

http://www.humphreys.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/MFEC_FutureDesigns_FINAL.pdf

That curve is wicked awesome. Also, the street level looks to be in cohesion with BLVD place. This project rendering gets the Montrose1100 stamp of approval. I'm guess the tower behind it is just for kicks. Where there 3 phases to the entire project? It does look like the bottom section of the tower could be hotel, until the gap halfway up.

For an international perspective, in a lot of cities with very low bridges, there are tour boats available where the tourists actually sit below the water line and look up through glass. I've been on these in Amsterdam, Toronto, and Tokyo (even most people in Tokyo don't know that Tokyo has river cruises, which I bet is what would happen in Houston). And I've seen similar ones in Paris:

That might be more appropriate for Buffalo Bayou from 610 west to Downtown. They could even have informative guides like the waterway. Except it would be more historical.

Probably the only apartment complex I've been excited about in years. Make that ever.

It occured to me yesterday Houston downtown server lack of Tourist based attaction all our good stuff is just outside the city.. Hell even the next theme parks will be outside the city...That is when I began to think about allen Landing and the coffee sunset renovations. I remembered that in the 1800 to early 1900.. Houston had a river boat that traveled along buffalo bayou to galvaston.. I was wondering why doubt we restore that  and use it to ferry tourist to places like Gavestion ilsand... It would be a hell of alot more intresting a route than telling them, yeah hop in a car and travel about a hr in that direction !!!!

 

In fact steamboats were quite common  sights along the bayou back thenhttp://civilwartalk.com/threads/u-s-s-st-clair.77534/

 

Using the new sunset coffee house as the boarding station/ restrauant/ canoe rental shop.. Of course a shedcule would have to be worked out  to prevent  the steam boat from being on the bayou the same time as the kayakers and others, but that not to hard....But would,nt having a steam boat parked by the coffee house have both and tourist benifit and a nice visual?

Hm... an hour & a half drive? or a 5 hour boat ride? The boat would have to be pretty short. Some of the bridges have lower height until the turning basin.

Pretty sure I've seen those renderings long ago...

You have, It was either pre-enron collapse, or like 2004 when those renderings came out. 

The monopoly Comcast has in certain areas did build their latest tallest.