The "Why can't we have buildings like THIS in Portland" Thread

[NJD]

^ Think our NIMBY's are bad, try New York City.

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by NJD

^ Think our NIMBY's are bad, try New York City.

That's a cop out though. Just because the idiocracy in other places is worse doesn't make the idiocracy here okay.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by JordanL

The answer to this thread is very simple: NIMBYs not only exist in Portland, they run our regulatory boards. Every single building older than so many years is a historical landmark that not only must be preserved, but requires the entire nearby area to be preserved as well.

It's good to not rush into demolishing and rebuilding old buildings... but c'mon... we have some truly atrocious building downtown that are "too old to demolish".

Care to give an example of this? Nothing is coming to mind...plus my other question would be, what were they going to be replaced by?

Sure, the desire to preserve everything can become annoying from time to time, but overall I think it is worth it. I wish there was a stronger move for this sooner, maybe we wouldnt of lost so much of Oldtown, which at the time was seen as nothing more than an area of old buildings that were no longer important.

It's not like the architects a century ago were God himself descending to earth and grace us with divine design.

No, but often times old architecture is torn down to be replaced with a parking lot or a very sterile building that loses all sense of craftsmanship that an old building had the luxury of using.

[PacificNW]

I hate parking lots but admire some "sterile" architecture. I do agree that developers have destroyed many fine examples of past architecture a bit too easily.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by PacificNW

I hate parking lots but admire some "sterile" architecture. I do agree that developers have destroyed many fine examples of past architecture a bit too easily.

I should add that not all new architecture is "sertile," but I am sure you get my point.

[NJD]

"The Portland Crescent Hotel"

...proposed project in Leeds, UK. Looks familiar doesn't it...


pic from www.skyscrapernews.com

[cab]

Do to finances and in some cases architects who have done value design for so long they lost touch with what quality architecture is, most new buildings just can't compete with older designed buildings. The care and quality of design was just of higher quality. We are stuck in an age where architects build for today with modern designs that are dated a year after being built. They use materials that look good the day the project is completed or immortalized in books but age horrible. The older buildings issue is a non issue in PDX when so much of Downtown is still being underutilized with surface parking lots. Jordon come back with the argument in a few years after a few high profile parking lots get developed and architects grow out the clean lines, sterile fad.

[WonderlandPark]

Originally Posted by cab

We are stuck in an age where architects build for today with modern designs that are dated a year after being built. They use materials that look good the day the project is completed or immortalized in books but age horrible.

It usually is the developer of the project to blame, they want it done cheap cheap cheap, the architects just follow orders and "value engineer" and dumb down the building. Boxes are cheap, stucco is cheap. This has been true throughout the post-war era to today. Good projects still get built, just that they are few and far between.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by WonderlandPark

It usually is the developer of the project to blame, they want it done cheap cheap cheap, the architects just follow orders and "value engineer" and dumb down the building. Boxes are cheap, stucco is cheap. This has been true throughout the post-war era to today. Good projects still get built, just that they are few and far between.

Also to point out with this, building built pre-war all came from very cheap labor. It was still cost effective to have 100 bricklayers working on a small building. The manpower that was needed to construct an old building is just amazing, the cost of labor today along with the insurance, no one could afford to build a building like it use to be...which leaves us in the world of manufacturing and mass producing.

Thankfully there is starting to be a stronger movement for upfront costs that reduce costs and energy consumption down the line...these buildings that begin to reflect the environment begin to take on qualities of past architecture and move away from the "sterile" work that has often been produced the past 50 years.

[cab]

I guess what I'm saying is that architects have been making things cheap for so long that they have convinced themselves that the cheap & clean lined box is quality architecture. Give them a giant budget and I bet half would still build a box. Hopefully a new breed of young architects can up turn the system and develop new forms of architecture that can compete with older forms. Regurgitating forms from the last 30 years of modernism is getting old.

[Leo]

Modernist architecture is quite a bit older than 30 years.

I find it interesting that some posters seem to hope that modernism is a short-lived fad, while others are fed up with how long architects have been regurgitating modernist forms (and yet hope that they will resume regurgitating pre-modernist “high-quality” architecture).

Claims of “higher-quality” old buildings have a huge survivorship bias. The 100-year-old buildings that have survived to this day are naturally of high enough quality to have survived that long. But plenty of buildings built a 100 years ago were built so poorly that they literally did not stand the test of time (ie, they collapsed). In a similar manner, the next 100 years will weed out the contemporary buildings of poor quality.

Having lived in one of the “historic” warehouse conversions in the Pearl, I can assure you that value-engineering is not new, and that there were some pretty crappy things built 100 years ago (although the huge timbers they used for construction were pretty neat to look at)...

[Dougall5505]

this would be nice in sowa

[downtownpdx]

I like it -- maybe Vestas will throw together something along these lines. Seriously, this building does have a windy, tornado-y kind of effect. SoWa is all modern and glassy anyway, why not push the envelope a bit?

[Okstate]

Don't think that design could be pulled off at 325 ft. !!!

[RED_PDXer]

nice design, but wouldn't a sculpture be just as inspiring? Why must buildings become sculptures? Buildings lose their human scale when they become art pieces on a large scale.

[Sioux612]

Over on the photo forum I came across 'London' by Cityscapes and the first thought that came to mind when I saw this was the Post Office site in the Pearl.

Height limits taken into consideration this shape would be ideal to maybe increase the current resrictions:

[tyroneshoelaces]

Originally Posted by WonderlandPark

It usually is the developer of the project to blame, they want it done cheap cheap cheap, the architects just follow orders and "value engineer" and dumb down the building. Boxes are cheap, stucco is cheap. This has been true throughout the post-war era to today. Good projects still get built, just that they are few and far between.

Indirectly and in part maybe but the bottom line it is there is plenty of blame to go around. Lenders, investors, tenants and government planners are all as guilty.

If Apple thought it could make a better return selling old brick type phones of the 1990's because people wouldn't dream of paying $500 for an iPhone you can bet that is what they would be building. They (or other businesses) typically provide what a market wants at a price they are willing to pay.

It is especially difficult to get huge amounts of capital to go after something so big that hasn't been proven or risk a lot on design work that may not be approved by design review. Using the iPhone example, I would imagine Apple made a few hundred or thousand proto-types before committing to a full launch to make sure people like it, it can be built at a budget, it doesn't violate govt. regulations, etc.

How can a real estate developer "try out" a 60 story building at record rents to see if the market will accept it? Even if they were willing to spend the time and money to develop plans and a rendering...maybe...but not too many really can commit to occupying space in 3-4 years. Time adds lots of other risks including economy, interest rates, etc. Plus, few land owners want to have their property tied up for years during design or approval.

it all adds up to a VERY slow rate of change.

[zilfondel]

But what could ever go wrong in the real estate market?

[Sioux612]

Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center by Kengo Kuma:

[2oh1]

I don't mind not having that one in Portland.