Quote:
Originally Posted by vjhe
Buildings will be built in Westchase. That's in stone. Houston has multiple skylines all over the city and they will continue to add office space. Since we know this is going to happen, why not choose a quality design? Millennium Tower at the Beltway and Richmond is a quality design and one of my favorites in the entire city. If there are going to be edge cities and buildings are going to be erected, why not put some thought into the design? Look at the recent tall ones going up in Buckhead. Should the architects have not cared because the buildings were going in Buckhead instead of Downtown?
To be quite honest, I'm not even really sure why you responded specifically to my post. I agree with you in that Houston needs a continuous urban environment but that wasn't the subject of my initial post. I was posting about the building designs of all of these new buidlings going up on the westside.
Houston was known across the world for it's architecture and skylines at one point (and really still is). Now it seems like for the most part in the past 10-15 years, that tradition of great, edgy building designs have gone by way of the toilet, imo. Simple functionality seems to be the phrase of the city now. Houston had a thriving "x" factor that showed it's face everywhere in the city but particularly in it's buildings. That seems to be gone. Look at Main Place. Look at 2727 Kirby. When those renderings were released there was almost a instantaneous consensus on those buildings. Houstonians at these skyscraper sites basically all liked the designs right out of the gate. Why is that? My point is, I would like to see more designs chosen for Houston where there is no question about the quality of the design just like there seemed to be no question about Main Place and 2727.
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I guess I am just showing my frustration with the mega projects so far away from the core of the city and my general annoyance with edge cities such as the energy corridor and westchase when thinking about the full potential of our central business district. By the way, our these designs really that bad? I am with you when you say Houston has had some pretty drab and non progressive designs that have gone up lately, but I personally believe they wouldn't be half as bad if there were an urban element in place that made the buildings part of the community. As a matter of fact the new Westchase buildings probably wouldn't be half as bad if the latter were incorporated, but I understand there would not be a point since it is Westchase.
