infinite_jim

InfiniteJim - checked out D. Adjaye's latest major US commission?

It's Denver's "MOMA"...VERY tough site (shoehorned-in). It's not gaudy, but remains appealing day or night and "fits" the hood.

(it's not to be confused w/the higher-profile Liebskind(sp?) museum commission, which is cool in a very different way.)

There was a model of this project at Artpace. Looks good, I guess it's kinda true what everybody says about boundaries making Architecture.

My new favorite is J. Prince-Ramus's hubris and how he back hands the prevailing "high baroque post modernism" that is all the rags. http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-b...ince-ramus-1208

You're confusing architecture with a profession that isn't interested in attracting clients.

You're right to point out that (one aspect of a future with higher energy costs is that) people will live in more compact housing arrangements. However, the majority of these will be run-of-the-mill apartments built by developers for whom avant garde design is a gambit not worth taking on 300 units at once. Such housing has to have broad appeal, and is basically an exercise in one-upping competitors by adding a salt water resort pool, a salt water lap pool, and something billed as a "full service spa" that actually is only a jacuzzi next to an outdoor kitchen. Big whoop. :shrug: With spaces as small as I've seen in cities like Seattle or Portland, the architecture becomes so extremely uncomplicated (just anal) that the real challenge falls to the interior designer. It's just the same old ticky-tacky on a bigger scale.

Aside from the business-to-business clientele, the only meaningful income to be made is from wealthy people looking to have a custom home built; those clients think that 2,000 square feet is small. In the context of their peers, it is. These are the homes that are relevant to architects. And while there are certainly a handful of new custom-built homes that are less than half the size, they're outliers. The RDA can put on an event for smaller houses if and when the market for designing them matures.

As for green designs, there's a reason that they've been slow to catch on in the residential marketplace. It's that commercial real estate gets sold on the basis of its Net Operating Income, and green technology can save on utilities costs in a way that is reflected on the P&L statements. Such benefits are more difficult to measure or translate to an apples-to-apples comparison between residences, so they cannot be as effectively marketed to price-conscious consumers.

Cook is the modern day equivalent to Boull

Landscaping is the best preventative method to avoid being a billboard again.

"Goof Off" and then pressure washing is probably your best method for removal.

UH main campus bldgs constructed in the Brutalist manner.

Farish Hall

UC main

Conrad Hilton

Good call Jax!

I stopped by Bodegas for dinner tonight and they had a nice lil happy hour still going. Food was good too, definitely better than Freebirds, and reasonably priced.

When are yall gonna get a proper sign?

I tryed Crave a couple monthes ago, it was good, my wife liked the cayenne pepper on the edamame. If we'rte ever out and about in the wee we'll stop by again.

Parking is a problem all over midtown and valet parking tends to exacerbate the problem imo.

I have a mailbox at the UPS off McGowen and it's simply a hassle when all the available parking is coned and all the street parking is taken.

Here are some more construction pics from the architect's website for the Wyly Theater.

I agree that they ought to be made more transparent. HCTRA would serve as a good model. It isn't as though their financial reports aren't available, however, just that you have to request them. This is actually true of a lot of TXDOT's information. Their website is just inadequate is the problem, is all. Don't get me wrong--they have lots of other administrative problems. But that's basically the one you're complaining about here.

Yes, I think it is not asking too much for them to web-publish and RSS feed their finances. Thank you for the link.

What is worthy? How did you arrive at that conclusion? Have you bothered to initiate your own cost-benefit studies or are you basically just claiming that their opinion is wrong, yours is right, and not bothering to back it up with substance?

I'm claiming their decisions have weighted political bias towards a vested minority group. I could make a laundry list of inner city projects that would appear more appropriate but I do not have cost-benefit studies in support of, say for example the 610W/59S interchange impeovement, US290 widening, or the realignment of the 45 just north of downtown.

Also see Speiler's blog post today:

http://www.ctchouston.org/intermodality/20...-but-not-rails/

The North and Southeast METRORail lines, which have completed their environmental process, have a contractor selected, are ready to break ground, and are slatred to be done in 3 years, are not “shovel ready.” But the Grand Parkway segment E (as seen in the New York Times), which even its supporters admit has been rushed, which has not completed environmental clearances, and which does not have a contractor selected is “shovel ready.”

Cypress isn't distressed by a commute down 290? The failed developments and ridiculously high rates of foreclosure in North Katy aren't indicators of distress? Houston as a region is not distressed as a result of plummeting commodity prices?

Is Cypress or North Katy as populous as Houston? I'm sure "distress" is a pretty subjective term here but empirically its hard to justify potential minority problems in light of pending majority problems. I tend to think of the Houston's inner city infrastructure problems as an oak tree for whom a gnarly tumor-like growth near it's base branches leads to it's instability but the tree is well positioned nearby a gully and has a plethora of Texas sunlight so it continues to branch out to it's own long-term detriment. Correct me if my metaphor is flawed; as the way things on the ground look, it appears that this project is inappropriate for this money and for these times.

.

Apparently this debate is going on nationwide

An earlier NYTimes Article

TXDOT should be required to publish their financing. The lack of transparency in Texas stinks to high heaven and in what good sense does it make that real time traffic problems are brushed over in the city and allowed to metastasize by building more peripheral highways and basicly subsidizes crap developers at taxpayer expense?

Frankly, I'm appalled that anyone could support this by parroting the corrupt excuse of "shovel ready." Worthy projects have long been pushed aside while their licking their chops over a twenty year old plan. TXDOT priorities need to a paradigm overhaul.

The stimulus bill specifically says that funds are to be allocated to infrastructure projects that help "economically distressed areas." This project is defiantly not in the spirit of the stimulus.

Yup.

They have a judge on call to issue search warrants. I know this is already currently done in Montgomery County. If they have you detained and you say no, it's just a matter of time for them to get your blood.

Despite not being part of the design intention, the final height complements the "street valley" scale versus the canyon effect we normally see in downtown high rise densities. It may not be as iconic as the original rendering but, as in life, scars are what make you beautiful.

Glad to hear he's gonna be alright.

The worst element of that part of the East End is the frustrated drivers coming and going from the tow impound lot.

Thanks for the heads up.

Did you glue the panels directly onto the gypsum? I have seen wood paneling done this way up north with cheaper materials (~2'x4' horizontally arranged MDF panels gridded 1/4" apart, with the gyp painted black in the interstitial for a garage interior by Max Levy AIA). How did/do plan to detail the base of the panels w/r/t the floor material?

Let us know how the room acoustics turn out when you finish.

Nice home.

This is actually a design comp atm

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/seast...ompetition.html

The cultural possibilities for these offshore spaces are effectively without limit – and they would be self-policed, falling outside the bounds of international law. This opens up a number of legal (not to mention moral) quandaries.

Baker reports that Patri Friedman, the Institute's co-founder and executive director, speaking at a Bay Area conference held last fall, "notes that some enterprises – like euthanasia clinics – would incense local authorities, but almost all the ideas attendees [at that conference] come up with would capitalize on activities that skirt existing laws and regulations: Fish farming and aquaculture. Prisons. Med schools. Gold warehouses. Brothels. Cryonics intakes. Gene therapy, cloning, augmentation, and organ sales. Baby farms. Deafeningly loud concerts. Rehab/detox clinics. Zen retreats. Abortion clinics. Ultimate ultimate fighting tournaments."

It's not the material; it's the commercially available designs and applications. I could see vinyl being a material update on the international mod design paradigm of the 50's (think clean white abstracted planer surfaces). I'd have to talk to a fabricator or search through prefab catalogs before design/build.

Sounds like the site is reverting to it's pre-development identity of "brownfield."

I still want to know what happened in 1938. That was the only period of worsening unemployment since the New Deal started.

The reality of 1938 was the political fallout from the 1936 elections.

Six immigrants who were prequalified for huge mortgages are suing Bellevue Towers and JP Morgan Chase Bank after they lost a combined $174,050 in earnest money. They allege the preferred lender put down false numbers for their income, which made it possible to prequalify but not to qualify for the actual loan, resulting in the loss of their earnest money.

By Nancy Bartley

Seattle Times staff reporter

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...etowers20m.html

REALLY?

...

REALLY?

David Smith, the slumlord of the Ben Milam Hotel next door.

Thank you.

OT:

Having dealt with his people; I can tell you that he tried, in a very roundabout manner, to get us to eat our fee. I feel sorry for anyone of such naivety to work with such a myopic person.

Why the city has not condemned the abandoned hotel is a mystery to me.

Too bad they already demo'd a dream house for many of us.

Can you imagine folks of our value set in 50 years lamenting the lose of whatever will be built on this property?

I can hear the slogan already..

"Save the McMansions!"

Tower 42

wow, you got me there..

I'd take the Gherkin over it anyday, but I've never been to London so I don't wanna jump to conclusions.

My issue with the Hobby was it's programming lead to it's turning it's back on the bayou which was/is to be developed into some sort of park. Now it's a no man's land affronted by a hulking parking garage.

Postmodernism is winding down now and we are in a transition between it and a new form modernism.

spoiler alert!