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New Grand Rapids Art Museum


GRDadof3

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still... what are they going to use the old building for? it's one of the only really beautiful old buildings STILL LEFT in downtown. if it suffers the same fate as the old city hall and union station... I will have no more respect for our fair city.

It was my understanding that it will be part of the Ferris State University/Kendal School of Design downtown campus. They would like to have art studios, or class rooms in part of it.

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Since no one has ever seen this view there is no way of knowing exactly how the forms interact. But this may give an indication of the basic scale of the building. Just don't take it too literally.

There will hopefully be more transparency along the north and east facades.

I'm not sure about entrances. The west side appears to be the main entrance and, if so, it may be the only public entrance for control purposes. If so, I hope they don't treat the plaza at the intersection like a secondary pedestrian space. This is another modern building that is set back from the street at a very important intersection. The streetscape details will be critical.

What is becoming apparent is that this is a significant impact on downtown.

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Since no one has ever seen this view there is no way of knowing exactly how the forms interact. But this may give an indication of the basic scale of the building. Just don't take it too literally.

There will hopefully be more transparency along the north and east facades.

I'm not sure about entrances. The west side appears to be the main entrance and, if so, it may be the only public entrance for control purposes. If so, I hope they don't treat the plaza at the intersection like a secondary pedestrian space. This is another modern building that is set back from the street at a very important intersection. The streetscape details will be critical.

What is becoming apparent is that this is a significant impact on downtown.

Wacom? Creative with Sketchup? Looking good :thumbsup:

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It was my understanding that it will be part of the Ferris State University/Kendal School of Design downtown campus. They would like to have art studios, or class rooms in part of it.

That's right, and Ferris/Kendall petitioned to have the street closed between their existing building and this GRAM one. (Hasn't gotten far, last I heard.)

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Exactly. I think that there was a lot of underground and utility work that had to be done.

I also think that this will be a good fit for the area when complete... at least I hope so.

Regarding "fit," it is unfortunate that builders don't take into account the view that other established businesses will have of a site when all is said and done. I spoke with someone on Monroe Center (directly across from this concrete amazement), and he was not too happy with the prospect of gazing at a gray slab all day.

Similarly, when Rockford Construction erected the Cooley Law Library, they didn't give a thought to the people working in the building west of the library. Those people have the wonderful view of... gray concrete. It's terrible. You'd think they would at least have some Kendall students paint a cool mural or something. Or put brick siding over the slab. Anything would be better than... the gray slab.

BF

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Whenever I see a new building going up with exposed concrete on the base, I wonder what they have in mind after the first grafitti artist tags the building?

When I was in Montreal last month I noticed that several of the brick buildings had painted brick on the first floor. The color was meticulously matched to the natural color of the brick on the floors above so that at certain distances the fact that it was painted was barely noticable and grafitti could be easily and quickly covered over.

This idea wouldn't work very well into the GRAM's concrete design, but how grafitti will be dealt with is something that definitely should be thought about when designing a building for a city.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The concrete work is beautiful (but I remain concerned about 5 or 6 stories of a blank concrete wall anchoring such an important downtown intersection).

The concrete portion of this wall will more than double in height before they're done pouring.

There are some material changes on the east elevation (glass and metal panel ) that will break up the concrete and the first floor on the north elevation is primarily glass.

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188002822_11ba775639_b.jpg

Using the holes in the concrete as a guide, if we alternately paint each square black and then white, we could create a vertical chessboard on the side of the building to break up the starkness of the wall. Then using a peg system and those same holes, we could add moveable pieces.

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188002822_11ba775639_b.jpg

Using the holes in the concrete as a guide, if we alternately paint each square black and then white, we could create a vertical chessboard on the side of the building to break up the starkness of the wall. Then using a peg system and those same holes, we could add moveable pieces.

wait, this wall that goes along monroe center, just east of rosa parks, is going to be concrete??!! :cry:

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