Heritage Plaza: Office Skyscraper At 1111 Bagby St.

[dbigtex56]

26 minutes ago, mollusk said:

OKfine... I get it, I'm less than hip.  But what IS it with the "social stair" fad?

 

Ever since Rome banned sitting on the Spanish Steps, other cities are eager to have places for people to sit and be in the way.

[H-Town Man]

I remember thinking the sky lobby had a really cool futuristic look, like an 80's idea of the future but a great period piece. But I haven't been in it in 15 years.

[X.R.]

12 hours ago, mollusk said:

OKfine... I get it, I'm less than hip.  But what IS it with the "social stair" fad?

 

 

If you've toured any medium/big startup HQ in Austin, Boston, SF, or Seattle this basically what you're greeted with upon entering the door. That is Square, btw. I think its actually a cool, ingenious use of the space. 

Edited September 27, 2019 by X.R.

[dbigtex56]

The new Glassell building also makes use of social stairs both as places to congregate and to exhibit students' art.

[Naviguessor]

Maybe a good and useful one (lately), but a design cliché never the less. As is the “live plant wall”. As ubiquitous as “ROWDY”.  

[Luminare]

On 9/26/2019 at 10:25 PM, mollusk said:

OKfine... I get it, I'm less than hip.  But what IS it with the "social stair" fad?

 

Its been around for a little while. I know it really started to take off as a concept in educational architecture like 5-6 years ago? Its definitely overused and has begun to be repetitive, but hey that's what happens when an idea gets into the mainstream. Its a great idea that has just gotten more diluted as it gets over implemented. I'll answer your second question below the this other quote.

 

On 9/27/2019 at 6:36 PM, Naviguessor said:

Maybe a good and useful one (lately), but a design cliché never the less. As is the “live plant wall”. As ubiquitous as “ROWDY”.  

 

Its absolutely a cliche, but one that does have staying power. The "social stair" not only has the perfect combination of what architects want stairs to be but also what current cultural trends want spaces to be.

If you haven't noticed, architects are very fascinated by stairs, but not really the stairs themselves, but the stairs ability to change space by changing ones elevation in relation to other things. A change in elevation is an intriguing concept for all architects not just for aesthetic arrangement, but for arrangement of people in space, and how that influences communication for people in space with one another and the building itself. A lot of architects really like this idea of the stair as being a place to congregate and communicate. I mean we all have to take a stair at one point or another. A stair can be a way to lead a person from one space to another. Its the perfect confluence of interactions between people and program. So that is the architecture side.

 

Culturally the trend is to essentially turn nearly every public or semi-public space into an interaction point or interaction opportunity, a time or moment for social interaction. The current trends are all about diverging or blending interactions. Its all about collaboration, diversity, multiplicity, and plurality. That's the cultural side of things.

 

Put the two together and you get the "social stair". There is more to it than these things on both ends, but its at least a primer.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Luminare

[Texasota]

It's also worth noting that "stairs as a social space" is not really a new concept. Think grand staircases in opera houses or the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They are places, not just to interact with other people, but to be seen interacting with other people. 

[scarface]

I noticed a few years ago that the Heritage Plaza lighting went back to the old looking beige Christmas lights on the shoulders of the building.  I always thought the building could stand to do more on the top of the building than just light the shoulders, but that's a different topic. But Whatever happened to the new "white" neon lights they had installed back in 2012 as shown in the picture below?

 

Photo courtesy of Triton:

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by scarface

[scarface]

Anyone?

 

[urbanize713]

 

This is pretty much done.

For comparison

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by urbanize713

[rechlin]

And another building with cohesive architectural style made incohesive in the name of modernization.  Looks as silly as 811 Louisiana and 2 Houston Center.  Pity.

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

So they added a facade to the faux-megalithic area?

[ttuchris]

I used to work for Brookfield.  Almost all design was done out of NY and they were notorious for shoehorning the "Brookfield look" into any building.  It created so many inconsistent designs.  That being said, other than the white stripe, I don’t think this looks too bad and is generally more welcoming. 

[Nate99]

No opinion on the relative look personally, but walking into or out of the lobby always seemed unnaturally cramped by the prior design. 

[Highrise Tower]

No stranger to adversity, a completely refreshed version of the 53-story building is being reintroduced to the Houston market in 2021 as the city revives from a coronavirus beat-down and last year’s historic oil price collapse. Office vacancy remains high – city’s the overall vacancy rate hit 24.4 percent in the second quarter, reports NAI Partners.

Led by Houston-based Kirksey Architecture, Heritage Plaza’s redesign enhanced the volume and geometry of the interior space and focused on creating a clean and modern design.  Lighter finishes replaced the dark and heavy. using a brighter material palette.

https://realtynewsreport.com/brookfield-properties-unveils-another-chapter/

[IntheKnowHouston]

In this week's real estate transactions column, Houston Chronicle reports on retails additions at Heritage Plaza. Located at 1111 Bagby St, the Brookfield Properties-owned building welcomed two food-related businesses this year:
 

• Grub - 1111 Bagby St, Suite ML-4 
• Sweet Stop 

The blurb from the article:

Grub, a family-owned and operated casual dining business for breakfast, lunch and catering, opened in the spring. Al Gabosch of Moody Rambin represented Grub. Sweet Stop, a local business from the operators of Sweet in CityCentre and Toute Suite in EaDo...

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/group-1-automotive-inks-office-lease-west-houston-18472993.php

Edited November 11, 2023 by IntheKnowHouston

[ChannelTwoNews]

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough law firm opens Houston office - Houston Business Journal (bizjournals.com)

"Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, a national law firm founded in South Carolina in 1897, has opened its first Houston office.

The new full-service office is in Suite 210 of downtown Houston's iconic Heritage Plaza building at 1111 Bagby St., which completed a renovation in 2021, and the firm hired 10 litigation and corporate attorneys to staff it."