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Tall House site at 45 Ionia


Prankster

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Do I need to send you guys to the Watering Hole :P

BTW: It's very much like Jagermeister, if I remember correctly.

:D That just made me laugh.....

back to the topic on hand.. we can talk booze else where.. we seem to get on that subject a lot :alc:

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Sometimes I look at City Hall and it doesn't look that bad.

I think a lot of our disdain for it and the County building are related to their prominent location. If they were tucked away in some obscure corner or were completely surrounded by high-rises, I would bet people would think differently.

If the city and county building, along with the plaza and the Calder, were surrounded by good quality urban buildings, that were based on a traditional principles of architecture, then they would be tremendously better. If these surrounding buildings framed the plaza on both the north and south and across the street, the plaza would be more enclosed, more defined, more active and actually may be a public place that people want to be in. The City and County buildings would then be part of a larger context, in which they could act as object buildings (as they were intended), framed and set-up by the surrounding fabric buildings.

As this ensemble currently stands, it is simply in a very poor overall context. Everything around it was designed as if it were an object building.

A city, or a block, of object buildings almost always fails. Object buildings need fabric buildings to succeed.

Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is a prime example of this. It is a civic building that is allowed to express fully the inspirations of its designer. Everything around it is restrained, creating a very silent setting. This juxtaposition is key and is lacking at every level around the City/County building.

It may not be these truly modern examples of architecture (the city and county buildings) that is the problem, but the relatively poor examples of "modern" architecture that surrounds them.

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If the city and county building, along with the plaza and the Calder, were surrounded by good quality urban buildings, that were based on a traditional principles of architecture, then they would be tremendously better. If these surrounding buildings framed the plaza on both the north and south and across the street, the plaza would be more enclosed, more defined, more active and actually may be a public place that people want to be in. The City and County buildings would then be part of a larger context, in which they could act as object buildings (as they were intended), framed and set-up by the surrounding fabric buildings.

As this ensemble currently stands, it is simply in a very poor overall context. Everything around it was designed as if it were an object building.

A city, or a block, of object buildings almost always fails. Object buildings need fabric buildings to succeed.

Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is a prime example of this. It is a civic building that is allowed to express fully the inspirations of its designer. Everything around it is restrained, creating a very silent setting. This juxtaposition is key and is lacking at every level around the City/County building.

It may not be these truly modern examples of architecture (the city and county buildings) that is the problem, but the relatively poor examples of "modern" architecture that surrounds them.

See, that's what I said :P Like the Federal Building in Chicago:

313293.jpg

DSCN5515_resize.JPG

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See, that's what I said :P Like the Federal Building in Chicago:

^^ :sick::sick:

I just can't get in to modernism at all. While I agree that modernist buildings can work when they are part of a quality urban fabric (architectural variety is a good thing, after all), most "modernist" places (Albany, NY, anyone?) are just terrible. The most boring-ass building in the world can positively add to the urban environment if it repects a few basic principles or urban design, but it seems like most modernist buildings were built with no regard whatsoever for those principles. How much of calder plaza is an excercise in modernism as opposed to some other idea, however, I cannot say.

As I've said before, I don't care all that much what the actual building looks like. Much more important is the building's relationship to the street, and to a lesser extent, the uses that will occupy the building. Tall house will be an excellent addition to Ionia if its uses add to the street life and the building has a positive attitude to the street. Heck, I'd even be on board with Moch if he added some gosh-dang windows and maybe some future retail space to the first floor.

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I like the renderings of tall house for the most part, I think an 8 or 9 story fits very well at that location but I sure hope that they can get the ground floor close to the street and make it it blend in with the neighborhood. It would be cool to see a 2 or 3 floor section with a brick and glass facade with stores up close to the street and a 9 floor glass residential section tucked back.

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I like the renderings of tall house for the most part, I think an 8 or 9 story fits very well at that location but I sure hope that they can get the ground floor close to the street and make it it blend in with the neighborhood. It would be cool to see a 2 or 3 floor section with a brick and glass facade with stores up close to the street and a 9 floor glass residential section tucked back.

The should just let us design everything from now on. I think we would do a much better jobs than everyone else. :P

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The should just let us design everything from now on. I think we would do a much better jobs than everyone else. :P

:rofl: Can you imagine the press articles:

"....Jim Johnson, who is developing One Rizzo Center, got another step closer to building his dream tower downtown at Lyon & Ottawa. City Commissioners approved the project and tax incentives, but he still has to go through the all powerful UP Board for approval, where many proposals (and a few alligators) have gone to the graveyard"

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I wouldn't mind seeing a little more modern architecture around town:

1_Willow_Court.jpg

I'll see if I can find some more examples.

I guess I envisioned something on Ionia like this:

1_Plaza_32.jpg

It's about the same height as surrounding buildings, it has some influences of the area with the decorative cornices at the top, but with a more modern look at the street level.

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Yah, at 9 (?) stories, tall house might seems a bit tall for the area. Maybe 5 would have been more appropriate. Ideally, new stuff on Ionia would be a little more traditional in style, as opposed to all glass. But I'm not gonna complain about it, though. :D

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  • 2 months later...

I don't want to be a cynic, but are these (and others I've seen for other developments) ads really for reservations, or it the developer just trying to see what kind of real demand there is for certain projects. I have seen ads for River House for a really long time now and yet the start date keeps getting pushed farther and farther. I know its the classic chicken and egg thing: once a building is actually there, more people will sign up, but I don't want to get excited that something is going to happen because I see ads only to find out that there wasn't enough interest. Sorry, I'm rambling.

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I don't want to be a cynic, but are these (and others I've seen for other developments) ads really for reservations, or it the developer just trying to see what kind of real demand there is for certain projects. I have seen ads for River House for a really long time now and yet the start date keeps getting pushed farther and farther. I know its the classic chicken and egg thing: once a building is actually there, more people will sign up, but I don't want to get excited that something is going to happen because I see ads only to find out that there wasn't enough interest. Sorry, I'm rambling.

No, you bring up a very good point. It is always good to keep the enthusiasm in check when seeing advertising for new projects. A lot of it is developers trying to gauge interest before they go beyond the drawing stage. Check out the business section of the press today to see examples of projects that haven't gotten past the drawing stage.

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This is probably a dumb question but it pertains to the design of City Hall. The whole area just seems disjoined with the life of downtown. Do you think the architects anticipated more use of public transportation when they designed the City Hall? It seems to me that the designers intended people to enter the building on the Plaza level. This is the lowest level the elevators go. In practicality though people drive their cars into the parking ramp and hop on the elevator there. This elevator only goes to the Plaza level. You then have to switch elevators to access the building. It seems like the access would be more geared towards the parking garage if this is how everyone would access the building.

Did he expect that people would take the bus and enter at the plaza level?

Told you...dumb question and definetly off topic.

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