Ashley Terrace Construction Thread

[RustTown]

That's kind of funny. The first time I ever looked at renderings of the building I automatically figured the facade was going to be constructed of precast concrete. Maybe I don't know enough about Ann Arbor, but it seems as if precast concrete facades are the rule, not the exception, at the moment. I've seen a few local uses of limestone sheets, but those things costs. Developers will get away with whatever they can if they think precast looks close enough to limestone, granite, ect...

[wolverine]

It could be that, or else all the firms I've ever worked for either had good architects or rich clients. Using that stuff was a big no-no. If it's not considered acceptable by today's architecture critics, it certainly will be far worse a decade or two down the road.

[RustTown]

I was about to say it could be that being in Michigan I just recognize and expect it. For instance, I know that every facade at Merchants Row in downtown Detroit was reconstructed using glass fiber reinforced concrete panels as opposed to real stone. It just seems like the rule, here, rather than the exception.

[wolverine]

Right, and I think there's a way to make the facades look very realistic (like Merchants row) It's just some developments fall flat on their face. Really, some of the strip malls going up around the area have better looking facades than this.

[nofunk]

Pre-cast panels, yay!

[wolverine]

This looks awful.

[Eridony]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of precast concrete. They seem to be getting more common. Hopefully once they add the glass the building will look better.

[andrew.w]

I think the proportioning and detailing actually look better than I expected from the rendering, but yes as far as all of the horizontal lines from the pre-cast go...um...yuck.

The same goes for the colors; the two tone tans with the "bright white" corner aren't exactly working for me either.

[wolverine]

I'm not too worried about the colors. If they end up looking bad, they can just repaint it. But wow....I really do hope that when the glass goes on this will look a bit better.

I guess after the design success of the Denali and Liberty Lofts I was expecting something huge.

[andrew.w]

I'm not too worried about the colors. If they end up looking bad, they can just repaint it.

[ZachariahDaMan]

Taken Aug 1, finally getting around to posting it

[mendelman]

It actually looks better in structural steel and concrete floors than with those clumsy panels and small little windows.

Maybe they should have just skinned it all in some nice greenish glass and used those pre-cast panels as breakwalls somewhere else.

Such high hopes dashed by incapable designing

[wolverine]

^ Your entire post sums up everything I feel about this building.

I agree, the exposed steel actually looks better too!

[nofunk]

Maybe they should have just skinned it all in some nice greenish glass and used those pre-cast panels as breakwalls somewhere else.

[wolverine]

Ha. I've just finally gotten around to liking the Plaza now.

[ZachariahDaMan]