What would your skyscraper designs for Houston look like?

[Sky-guy]

drew this up last week so I decided that i might as well have done a sketch up model.

I call it Discovery Tower. It's an 84 floor, 1095 foot tall mixed use skyscraper. located on the block bound by Austin/Lamar/Dallas/La Branch. ground floor retail along Lamar, Austin, and La Branch.

 

view from above disco green:

 

 

the footprint is sort of like 609, but without the garage on the side...

 

 

the garage goes up to that line almost half-way up. the entire central area that rises taller than the sides is hotel everything left of the hotel is residential, and everything to the right is office:

 

 

two views from above:

 

[arche_757]

Interesting... That building must be like 3million square feet!

 

And I think that building would look better in the empty lot where Bank of the Southwest was going to be built.

[H-Town Man]

Here's my take on this. As you can see, drawing is not a strong point for me. From the base, there would be about 2-floors of retail/parking garage + underground parking. A garden would be placed on the roof of the parking garage, like 609 Main. Tunnel access for the building would be something similar to Capitol Tower. The lower portion of the tower would be used for 40-floors of office space and 20-floors of hotel space. For the center portion, it would be two 20-foot floors, one for a restaurant and the other for events/parties. The upper portion of the tower would be 30-floors of residential units. At the top, a pool for residents, tenants, and guest. 94-floors at ~1,300 ft, so the city can re-claim the title of the tallest building west of the Mississippi. 

 

 

Ummm what sort of websites were you browsing right before you came up with this?

[Montrose1100]

drew this up last week so I decided that i might as well have done a sketch up model.

I call it Discovery Tower. It's an 84 floor, 1095 foot tall mixed use skyscraper. located on the block bound by Austin/Lamar/Dallas/La Branch. ground floor retail along Lamar, Austin, and La Branch.

view from above disco green:

DIS.TOWER1.PNG

the footprint is sort of like 609, but without the garage on the side...

DIS.TOWER4.PNG

the garage goes up to that line almost half-way up. the entire central area that rises taller than the sides is hotel everything left of the hotel is residential, and everything to the right is office:

DIS.TOWER2.PNG

two views from above:

DIS.TOWER3.PNG DIS.TOWER5.PNG

Cosmopolitian/First National Bank (Los Angeles) hybrid? I like the top portion, and IMO perhaps stream line it into the garage?

[brijonmang]

Small update to the design I worked on a while ago.  Obviously I haven't done much but I did find a texture to throw on there to make it look somewhat realistic.  I really don't want to have to go back and build this thing floor by floor to make it look real but I think that's the only way to make it work the way I want to.   Don't hold your breath on that render haha

[towerjunkie]

Small update to the design I worked on a while ago.  Obviously I haven't done much but I did find a texture to throw on there to make it look somewhat realistic.  I really don't want to have to go back and build this thing floor by floor to make it look real but I think that's the only way to make it work the way I want to.   Don't hold your breath on that render haha

 

Small? That's a HUGE AND PURELY AWESOME! If only this was actually being built. What would you do if someone was actually building this and the design was exactly the same as yours? Hypothetically of course.

 

[brijonmang]

Small? That's a HUGE AND PURELY AWESOME! If only this was actually being built. What would you do if someone was actually building this and the design was exactly the same as yours? Hypothetically of course.

 

 

Thank you very much! I have no idea how that would feel but it would be pretty cool...I'd have to at least ask for some credit from the architect on his design 

[cloud713]

Small update to the design I worked on a while ago. Obviously I haven't done much but I did find a texture to throw on there to make it look somewhat realistic. I really don't want to have to go back and build this thing floor by floor to make it look real but I think that's the only way to make it work the way I want to. Don't hold your breath on that render haha

woah.. that looks sharp. if only...

ive had a few ideas on this topic..

this one is definitely the least economic design, but a bolder one IMO. the over hangs at the top could be a restaurant on the lower one and an observation deck with a glass floor on the higher point. most of the building is accessible with one elevator, but the upper floors of the highest tip may need an escalator to go up the last few stories.

this one is probably the most basic design, though the most economical (go figure).. the entire building is accessible with just one elevator ride, and the glass wall at the top of right section would provide an epic view for the sky lobbies/observation deck.

and the last design, which i absolutely love. reminds me a bit of a cross between Lockmats design and the Chevron complex. (the skybridge/rings could have glass floors to make for a more thrilling experience). 4 buildings on 4 different blocks, all shaped like a sails of different heights..

i just realized these towers were all subconsciously progressions of the previous tower.

well i sketched up a large park spanning a newly trenched portion of 59 between downtown and eado, and across the large black asphalt surface parking lots, that are multiple blocks each, between Minute Maid and the north end of Dynamo Stadium. i didnt really know what to do with it, but it has a new high rise (15 stories [do you count the roof top as a floor if its utilized?]), two mid rises (one 9 and one 7 stories, if you count the rooftop decks), and a low rise (4 stories) as part of the development (i would probably increase the height of the oval highrise, and make the 9 story midrise maybe 12 or so stories), that i figured were relevant to this thread. the designs arent anything ground breaking, but they go with my recent theme of green roofs, and i especially like the oval high rise. all the current parking from the properties that the parks would be replacing are consolidated into two parking garages, one next to Minute Maid (with sky bridges for direct access from the garage to the upper decks of the stadium), and one on the southeast corner of the 4 block plot, just north of Dynamo Stadium.

there would be three 2-story penthouses in the oval condo highrise, all with their own grassy terrace/"backyard", and the top penthouse would have a green rooftop deck as well. the penthouse units would face south for views of downtown/museum district/TMC skylines, while the rest of the standard/lower units would face east overlooking the deck park (those balconies would be tucked into the side of the facade for a sleek looking exterior).

the 8/9 story midrise would likely be apartments, and have some luxury 2 story units on the upper levels with their own green "backyards" (the top floor having a second green area on the roof), overlooking the deck park/facing towards downtown. the 6/7 story midrise would be the same, apartments again, (or even a hotel i suppose? but if its a hotel the roofs would be all hotel guest access, with gardens and amenities like the pool area, ect, not cordoned off to particular rooms like the apartment building.

the 4 story low rise would just be either retail with really high ceilings, or two story restaurants with a balcony overlooking the largest portion of park space. and then a 2 story bar/club above the restaurant (above the kitchen likely so noise isnt an issue) with a large outdoor patio (with umbrellas in the renderings, lol), where you can hang out on nice days/nights, be able to smoke, possibly have a place to toss horse shoes or something.

there could also be the option to put an office tower on top of the new garage next to Dynamo Stadium..

[towerjunkie]

Wow cloud that's stunning, inventive, and really environmentally friendly!

[cloud713]

Wow cloud that's stunning, inventive, and really environmentally friendly!

thank you! thats pretty much what i was going for. and ive always liked the idea of having large grassy balcony/"backyard" setbacks on buildings. i figured it could help entice some suburbanites into living a more urban lifestyle if they are still able to have a place for their dog or kids to run around (nothing insanely huge, but like 500 sq feet of outdoor green space, maybe 1000 sq ft for the larger/more expensive units).

[cloud713]

This one is a downtown post office site redevelopment into a mixed use venue with an apartment building (Mayan looking terraced building), an office tower (in front of apartments, with attached GFRetail), hotel (in the back middle), and condo tower (on the right), along with a restaurant, the retail mentioned, a Phonecia sized grocery store, a movie theater, and last but not least, that high speed rail station they think would go well at the post office site (id probably alter the design to have a bumped up roof in the back/right portion of the building for a grand entrance hall with high ceilings and skylights. Then an escalator up to a skybridge across Louisiana/Smith to a new HSR terminal parking garage east of the site or continuing on to

UH-D/the light rail system.

I threw a little "bayou" in there to give the park a water feature, since I kind of shaped it after a bayou. The park slopes up over the road in the back between the hotel and the train station to get up onto a highline type structure/green space over the tracks (to reduce noise in the development) and on top of part of the train station.

[cloud713]

Dang, I can't edit my post anymore. The green space on top of the restaurant and grocery stores would be gardens to grow fruits and veggies for the restaurant, and to have the freshest-straight from the vine/tree produce to choose from for the grocery shoppers. Then the space on top of the movie theater could be cordoned off to the condo tower residents. Obviously the terraced building would be cordoned off into small sections for the individual units to all have their own little "backyard".

[cloud713]

Hardy Yards

2.5 million sq feet of office

-1.4 in the double triangle building (30 stories)

-1.1 in the 4 building campus (20/15/10/5 stories)

930,000 sq feet of condo tower (36 stories)

390,000 sq feet of apartments (6.5 stories over .5 floor of retail)

30,000 sq feet of retail

80,000 sq feet CityTarget (ORANGE w/ 2nd floor parking)

130,000 sq feet for a magnet school (PINK 2 stories)

70 town houses

10 acres of park space

[cloud713]

This one is a downtown post office site redevelopment into a mixed use venue with an apartment building (Mayan looking terraced building), an office tower (in front of apartments, with attached GFRetail), hotel (in the back middle), and condo tower (on the right), along with a restaurant, the retail mentioned, a Phonecia sized grocery store, a movie theater, and last but not least, that high speed rail station they think would go well at the post office site (id probably alter the design to have a bumped up roof in the back/right portion of the building for a grand entrance hall with high ceilings and skylights. Then an escalator up to a skybridge across Louisiana/Smith to a new HSR terminal parking garage east of the site or continuing on to

UH-D/the light rail system.

I threw a little "bayou" in there to give the park a water feature, since I kind of shaped it after a bayou. The park slopes up over the road in the back between the hotel and the train station to get up onto a highline type structure/green space over the tracks (to reduce noise in the development) and on top of part of the train station.

i redesigned the mid rise apartment building to fit in more with the rest of the complex. i also added the raised roof in the train station i was talking about doing for a grander feeling getting off the train/boarding the train in the main concourse and to allow more natural light into the building. the skybridge would lead from the new second level of the train station across the street to a parking garage east of the station/north of "Washington", before branching over the train tracks to UH-D to connect into the light rail system.

 

Hardy Yards

2.5 million sq feet of office

-1.4 in the double triangle building (30 stories)

-1.1 in the 4 building campus (20/15/10/5 stories)

930,000 sq feet of condo tower (36 stories)

390,000 sq feet of apartments (6.5 stories over .5 floor of retail)

30,000 sq feet of retail

80,000 sq feet CityTarget (ORANGE w/ 2nd floor parking)

130,000 sq feet for a magnet school (PINK 2 stories)

70 town houses

10 acres of park space

obviously a key to making this a successful development would be the extending of San Jacinto north of i10, through the empty properties before bridging over the train tracks into the Hardy Yards development. also bridging McKee over the train tracks into Hardy Yards, since there really is no current connection to the property from downtown (besides light rail).. Main tunnels past the property, and Elysian flys right over it. i tried to keep the more TOD stuff next to the METRO lot and a possible commuter/HSR station (if the Post Office site doesnt work out), but the property is so long that i dont see the people from the townhouses or the more suburban style 4 building office campus walking half a mile to catch the train (though i was thinking the company that leases the campus could run shuttles to the train station for the disabled and/or when the weather is bad). i just think Hardy Yards is going to need some other direct connectors linking it to downtown besides the train.

oh and sort of keeping on topic, the skyscrapers would obviously have an open garden/green area on top of the larger/shorter triangle of the double triangle office building, and a green terrace on the condo tower overlooking the park, along with a pool on the higher terrace overlooking downtown and the west side of town. after sketching up the condo tower i thought it kind of reminded me of a cross between the Times Square building (i guess more so the setting/footprint shape at Y fork in the road) and Trump Chicago. not sure what the double-opposing-different sized triangles office tower reminds me of but i really dig it and think it would have some interesting viewing angles with the opposing sections of building sticking out at different heights and all the different angles of the curtain walls (the triangles, and the diamond slants on top of each triangle).

[cloud713]

Getting back to a focus :solely on skyscraper design.. Here's an Eco tower I sketched up. Nothing crazy, it's meant to be relatively cheap, not some wild expensive engineering design..

It's a square at the base, and the 4 corners remain at the same sports all the way to the top of the building, while the middle of the 4 sides starts to bow inward as it rises, until it finally forms a rounded X at the top. Almost like the new World Trade Center, but with the 4 corners sticking out/staying in the same position creating fins, forming sloping valleys up the sides of the tower. The sloped sides direct the wind up the side of the building through 4 large turbines on the roof, while the 4 corners contain/focus the air flow. Along the 4 corners would be "shark gill" type inlets (possibly offset/staggered on either side of each corner, to force the across both directions of the turbines) to catch some of the excess wind in horizontal tubular turbines. They may need to be angled up/out so the upward forcing wind exiting the turbines can vent out the corners instead of back out the sides, disturbing airflow. There could be a spire/architectural feature rising above the roof but I left it open to show the 4 main turbines.

[arche_757]

^Say good bye to street level pigeons!

[cloud713]

haha. not sure where they would sit though. it would be insanely windy up the sides of the building. i guess they might hang out on the roof of the back side where its less windy/the wind isnt blowing from? you could put screens/mesh over the shark gil inlets, protecting the tubular horizontal turbines and keeping birds or trash from getting sucked into the turbines.

idk, i was just playing off the idea of designing the shape of buildings to be more eco friendly, in this case mainly through use of wind turbines. the shark gil inlet flaps could even be made of solar panels (at least on the 2-3 sides of the building that regularly get sun), since the areas in the corners wouldnt be habitable where the turbines are/where the floor plates get narrow, and thus wouldnt need translucent windows to see out of.

on a side/eco conscious note, do they have turbines in the plumbing of high rises? think about it, every time someone flushes a toilet or washes their hands on a floor above the ground floor, the waste water has to flow back down to the bottom of the building. couldnt they harbor some of that energy to, at the very least, counter act the energy it takes to pump water up to the higher floors?

[Luminare]

Small update to the design I worked on a while ago.  Obviously I haven't done much but I did find a texture to throw on there to make it look somewhat realistic.  I really don't want to have to go back and build this thing floor by floor to make it look real but I think that's the only way to make it work the way I want to.   Don't hold your breath on that render haha

 

I was actually quite impressed by this :3 Though the bottom portion doesn't really connect what you have going with the middle and top portions its rather good for something done quickly in sketchup! *tips hat* In my opinion I add something on the bottom portion that both plays with the streetscape but also plays more with the buildings verticality.

[Marcus Allen]

Sky-guy, I liked your drawing, BUT, I wish it wasn't so stark. I admit I am a proponent of having a spire (middle or off set of center) on a 80+storey tower in DT. Having said that, the placement of residential, hotel and commercial is brilliant. Instead of stacked on top each other, they are side by side. Also, a 30 something storey parking garage? Ummmm, please tell me there is a car elevator and one doesn't have to loop around and around and around. I can barely handle the one at the airport. LoL

[Marcus Allen]

^^^the above tower is awesome!! Would love that anywhere in Houston.

[brijonmang]

Thank you!

[cloud713]

i just realized i kind of took this thread over for a little bit last year with my crappy drawings.. lol. anyways here are more crappy drawings.

mixed use development on the property that is currently a Chase drive thru ATM to the north-northwest of Market Square Park. the two towers are (almost) triangle shaped (the back corner is cut off by the bayou), with pyramid tops. the left one is a little over 40 stories, the right one is around 30 stories. the garages would be bricked, the hotel and office portions would be brick with some glass, and the residential portion would be glass with some brick (trying to keep the feel of the building(s) somewhat historic towards the bottom for a more appealing/cohesive pedestrian experience).

Hotel with Residential in one tower, and Office in the other. the top floors of the hotel/residential tower would be penthouses/condos with large exposed balconies (flush into the roof line though), while the top of the office tower (connected to the residential portion of the other tower by a skybridge) would house all of the residential amenities (even more substantial than Market Square Tower's amenities). there would be retail in the southern most corner of each building, closest to Market Square, lining the street and the interior promenade.

the design is supposed to direct pedestrian flow from a theoretical staircase that would go down to an extension of the Buffalo Bayou trail system (the bayou literally runs below one corner of the property [the back corner in the drawing]), and lead foot traffic diagonally across the block and over to Market Square Park, hence "connecting" Market Square Park with Buffalo Bayou.

(for some reason i drew the lines of the streets and bayou through the buildings, but didnt draw the lines of the opposite side of the buildings)

[Montrose1100]

I took some pictures of some doodles I did for my obsession with placing a super tall on the BotSW Tower block. They are all coming out sideways. Tinypic and even attaching them in the reply. Once I overcome this technological challenge I will upload them in all there glory.

 

Edit: Of course, Once I figure this out the amount of e-mails and phone calls flooding in from around the globe to hire me on to their firm will be exhausting.

[Naviguessor]

I like the Squid tentacles, 'trose.   Kang and Kodos come to Houston. 

[Montrose1100]

I like the Squid tentacles, 'trose.   Kang and Kodos come to Houston. 

It's more of the design of different panels on my syringe/cylinder/Torre Caja Madrid to give it some zaza zoom. I'm sorry for not breaking out the water colors and pastel chalk to give you a more realistic render. I have let everyone down yet again.

[cloud713]

i started playing around with SketchUp a few weeks back and figured a lot out on my own.. here are some of my first projects. went ahead and included them all in one post.

Market Square Mixed Use Tower(s) where the single story drive thru Chase Bank is.

-Taller Tower
Residential over Hotel over Garage

Shorter Tower
Amenity Levels over Office over Garage







my second project was a mixed use urban/suburban Town Center for the city i grew up in..

open air roman shade covered shopping mall in the front. glass covered higher end stores upstairs above the parking garage. walkway from the shops through a hotel and onto a corridor of brownstones with "front doors" on the 2nd floor facing the middle walkway, garage entrances on the first floor. office in the back corner and a few retail spots for places like a food diner and bakery.





an "International Market" district for downtown Houston. sort of like NOLAs French Market or Dallas' Farmers Market District. placed smack between the planned Camden Conte towers to the right, SkyHouses, Alliance, and Houston House to the right, and the Leon Residential 5 story apartment and that 8 story apartment complex, both to the south. that area will be a residential haven in a few years, perfect for being the location of a new permanent downtown market place. i made the east block all permanent structures for the market, and the west block a residential tower and flexible green space with retractable roman shades overhead that would serve as park space the majority of the time, and host special events like friday night concerts and space for booths of an expanded market place on the weekends.







someone speculated in the Nau thread that there may have been other reasons behind the sudden cancellation besides funding, leading me to start playing with the idea of a 3 block L shaped mixed use development from the Nau site, the new GRB hotel/office/garage/transit station, and the property north of the Marquis that the city has been trying to get someone to build a mixed use structure on.

White: Existing (+Marriott Marquis)
Blue: Office
Yellow: Hotel
Red: Residential
Purple: Retail
Orange: Bars/Restaurants
Brown: Grocery Store (Trader Joes or TargetExpress type place)
Grey: Parking Garage
Pink: Light Rail Station
Green: Bus Station
Black: Green Space/Movies Under The Stars? (some sort of flexible outdoor rooftop space)

[Howard Huge]

We need a spire or 2 downtown, empire state, chrysler building style.

[cloud713]

well this one is certainly less captivating than my other designs, but i find it to be a neat idea after discussing the 16 story parking garage in another thread.

the semi-automated 16 story parking garage.

ground floor retail and valet station, 6 and a half levels of self-parking on top of that, with 8 levels of automated parking on top of the structure. i ended up with around 1,368 parking spaces, but I'm not 100% sure all the dimensions are to proper size. apparently they are able to double the amount of parking spaces with automated parking, so that would leave me with closer to 1,344 parking spaces for just the 8 automated floors alone, add in another 468 for the 6.5 levels of self park (for those doing the math, the self park floors have less than half the spaces due to the ramps between floors), and you've got one of the largest parking garages in downtown, on only half a block.

i think it would be ideal for a mixed use tower anywhere in downtown, with residents using the automated park on the the upper automated floors, and corporate employees and retail shoppers using the lower self park floors. or placed on a half block in the middle of the CBD.. along with the parking shortage in downtown, there seem to be multiple hotels that lack self parking (JW Marriott, Magnolia Hotel, I'm sure there are others), who's valet services could utilize the automated parking, while office workers use the lower self park floors.

the whole idea of the semi-automated garage is to minimize waits to park or exit the garage and keep people from having to drive to the upper floors of an insanely tall garage.

[pablog]

I've always thought that Houston needs something like the Space Needle in Seattle with views of the Medical Center, Downtown, and Uptown, so I drew my idea of what I would like to see.