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Old Posted Jan 30, 2008, 6:19 AM
jeffschwartz jeffschwartz is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2007
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The rendering of the BioInnovation Center looks really great; the previous version (pre-Katrina) was a faux-French Quarter aesthetic that did nothing to speak to the importance of the biomedical district in NO's future. Any more renderings of the new building?

Also, is anyone else a little underwhelmed by the Borders? They basically just saved the outermost 6" of only two of the facades facing St. Charles and Louisiana, which seems more of a facadomy than an adaptive reuse. That building was unbelievably gorgeous (check out that picture of the yellow sunroom--how great would it have been to read a book in there); it's such a shame that conversations about buildings like the Bultman devolve into "development or no development" instead of looking at how we can "get to good." Aside from eating some development costs up front, why couldn't Borders retain some more of the structure? I know that books are heavy and they needed to reinforce the building, but keeping some of the original structure would have been more innovative than what they are trying to pass off as adaptive. Also, Stirling is being a little disingenuous when he claims that Borders is not going to have an impact on the local booksellers in the city; while I welcome economic development, it would have been great to see a local bookshop go into that building--now that would have been something!
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