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  #21  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2014, 11:23 PM
mhays mhays is offline
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Meanwhile we're a country village compared to a lot of others! I agree that the inward flow is the first key.

Destroy -- Seattle is very walkable if you live in the 15% where most development is happening. Usually that means you can walk to groceries and restaurants, there's decent bus service (sorry, not much rail yet), and the pedestrian environment is pretty good. For the 65% that's mostly houses (numbers vaguely recollected) Seattle is walkable if within the old city limits, which only go to 85th Street to the north for example. Beyond that are a lot of streets without sidewalks.

Cars block crosswalks constantly here, my biggest pet peeve. Anything leading to I-5 during afternoon rush hour will be a string of cars where crosswalks are blocked during most cycles. Aparently most people are freaking morons, and the City doesn't enforce.

In the 15%, it does feel like much of the city is new, though it's usually a mix of new and old. We don't have megadevelopments. Well, except for some public housing complexes that have been redeveloped.
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  #22  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2014, 11:58 PM
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Originally Posted by dave8721 View Post
For Miami: Highrises. Lots and lots of Highrises. Kind of wish there was more 5 to 10 story going up in the neighborhoods in between but the land prices are just too high. Its basically 60 stories or nothing at this point. South Beach is seeing a bunch of 5 to 8 story "filler" buildings but they can charge $2000+ per square foot so a 20 unit building can actually spec out. Little Havana could definitely use a ton of 5 to 10 story buildings. Most of Edgewater would be better off with 20 15-story buildings rather than a few 50 story buildings with land banked vacant lots around them.
Agree on all accounts. It's really bizarre to me to see the "nothing" still. I'd love to see a boom of 3-5 story walkups in little havana, West Brickell, Coral Way. But it's just not happening.

Miami Beach was like that for a long while too from what I remember. It just got so exclusive that people are willing to fork down money for anything. That's not exactly what I want for the mainland.
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  #23  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2014, 2:07 AM
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Originally Posted by brickell View Post
Agree on all accounts. It's really bizarre to me to see the "nothing" still. I'd love to see a boom of 3-5 story walkups in little havana, West Brickell, Coral Way. But it's just not happening.

Miami Beach was like that for a long while too from what I remember. It just got so exclusive that people are willing to fork down money for anything. That's not exactly what I want for the mainland.
so whats the street life at the base of all these 60 story towers like? is there any kind of retail or are they just building lobbies?
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  #24  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2014, 4:00 AM
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so whats the street life at the base of all these 60 story towers like? is there any kind of retail or are they just building lobbies?
Depends where. In Brickell and Downtown all the new buildings are fully retail in the first floor or two, which in itself is a bit of a problem as these dozens and dozens of new towers are adding too much retail too quickly and the retail in less desirable locales takes longer to fill in but most of it is filling in now that the towers are all full of actually people. Brickell CityCentre alone is adding about 600,000 square feet of retail to go with its 6 to 8 towers. Some of the towers are being built on top of a new Saks. Miami World Center will be building towers on top of a new Macy's and Bloomingdales. (funny we had that thread about department stores closing in most Downtowns while Miami's oft maligned, on here, downtown is actually adding at least 3). In more "fringe" areas like Edgewater (about 25 blocks north of Downtown) along the water you see the occasional 55 story building (see Biscayne Beach, Paraiso Bay) that is basically just a giant antiseptic tower behind a guard gate but even in Edgewater when you go inland closer to Biscayne Blvd the new towers are very well built from an urbanist perspective.
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  #25  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2014, 4:06 AM
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Long story short, the Downtown area is doing fine, its the areas around it that could really use 5 to 15 story towers that aside from West Brickell, just aren't getting them like they should (Little Havana, Coral Way, Civic Center/Health District area...etc)
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  #26  
Old Posted Nov 24, 2014, 4:44 PM
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Raleigh:
















Charlotte:



















Durham:











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  #27  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 3:11 AM
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^^^ Why won't Pittsburgh dig its large bureaucratic head out of its ass and build stuff like THIS??!!

Pittsburgh deserves better than a very unimpressive, uninspiring 5-story-tall pile of crap almost in the heart of Downtown.

PA-THE-TIC!!
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  #28  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 4:08 AM
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^^^ Why won't Pittsburgh dig its large bureaucratic head out of its ass and build stuff like THIS??!
I dunno... Out of all of that, maybe three or four examples really stand out to me -- especially that one from Durham that's either an historic renovation or a neotraditional new construct. The rest seems to be the same "contemporary bland" style that's sweeping the nation. None of it really compares to the really futuristic, stylish stuff from Oslo.
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  #29  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 4:51 AM
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Wierd geometries get very expensive, and the expense typically doesn't translate to higher rents.

Further, the public doesn't like "futuristic, stylish stuff" stuff anywhere near as much as Dwell readers do.
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  #30  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 6:12 AM
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Infill in Detroit looks more or less the same as the usual trendy stuff. Not too much standout stuff.





^This development also included the renovation of the theater next door as well a new office building to loosely mimic the historic facade.














^These two are condos, not rentals, hence why they're super small. Each building has only 4 units.








^This is probably the nicest infill yet to be constructed.
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  #31  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 7:02 AM
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Originally Posted by mhays View Post
Wierd geometries get very expensive, and the expense typically doesn't translate to higher rents.

Further, the public doesn't like "futuristic, stylish stuff" stuff anywhere near as much as Dwell readers do.
In Minneapolis, futuristic apartment architecture is being driven by the fact that vacancies are low but rents for regular apartments are still well below construction costs. Very few people here are willing to pay $1200 a month for a regular 1br, but a luxury 1br for $1500 to $2000 is more likely to rent. Developers here know they have to swing for the fences if they want their buildings to fill. Very little is being built for the middle class right now, while everybody is falling all over themselves to try to build the most high end building in the city. It will be interesting to see how this ends.

Some of the more recent competitors in the high end sweepstakes. Locally, the biggest complaint about these buildings is that they are boring and cookie cutter:

Vue

mplsmay201303 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplsmay201304 by afsmps, on Flickr

Dock Street Flats

mplsmay201430 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplsmay201429 by afsmps, on Flickr

Brunsfield Place

mplsmay201420 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplsmay201423 by afsmps, on Flickr

Third North

mplsmay201419 by afsmps, on Flickr

The Nic on Fifth

mplssept201432 by afsmps, on Flickr

222 Hennepin

mplsmay201405 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplsmay201408 by afsmps, on Flickr

Flux


mplssept201244 by afsmps, on Flickr

The Walkway

mplsjuly201431 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplsjuly201430b by afsmps, on Flickr

Elan Phase One

mplsjuly201433 by afsmps, on Flickr

Lime

mplssept201414 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplssept201415 by afsmps, on Flickr

1386 La Salle

Untitled by Mantanuska

Some of what is under construction:









The Downtown East complex of projects with office, residential, a park and the new Vikings stadium is also under construction:



These are apartments for students around the U:


mplsoct201244 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplssept201434 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplssept201437 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplssept201435 by afsmps, on Flickr

mplssept201445 by afsmps, on Flickr




Last edited by Chef; Nov 25, 2014 at 7:45 AM.
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  #32  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 11:14 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays View Post
Wierd geometries get very expensive, and the expense typically doesn't translate to higher rents.

Further, the public doesn't like "futuristic, stylish stuff" stuff anywhere near as much as Dwell readers do.
Funny you should mention weird geometries, since that's what's driving the current wave of infill in my city, which necessitated the article, which inspired the thread in the first place.

I also know that America tends to play it safe architecturally, which is why we end up with this slew of Sim City-esque interchangeable "contemporary bland" (which really should be a working architectural style) boxes with the same mass-produced quirks and gimmicks. You'd think though, that being the case, that it would at least drive more neotraditional developments like, again, that one in Durham that looks like a renovated industrial building. People love that sort of thing, to the point that even Charlotte preserved a few of its historic textile mills and worked them into new residential development -- and Charlotte has a "search-and-destroy" relationship with historic architecture, and has gleefully demolished probably ninety percent of its historic past.
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  #33  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 4:38 PM
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Minn shot with streetcar looks like Oslo or something
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  #34  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 4:51 PM
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Some good architecture when it comes to low-rises in Raleigh.

Quote:
This one in particular. Looks very akin to much of the infill going on 2013 onward. Its a good modern trend to have.

Similar type of developments are going up all over Queens and Brooklyn from what I've seen.
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  #35  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 5:08 PM
mhays mhays is offline
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Funny you should mention weird geometries, since that's what's driving the current wave of infill in my city, which necessitated the article, which inspired the thread in the first place.
By "wierd geometries" I don't mean odd-shaped lots or offset corner pieces with bell towers. The first is a basic price of admission in some areas, and the second can be pretty cheap.

Where things get expensive is when structural systems aren't straightforward (spirals, cantelievers, load transfers, etc.), floorplates are different from one level to the next, multiple uses crowd into small spaces, the garage digs deep straight down from an existing shared wall, exterior finishes are gold-plated so to speak, etc. Some of that is frequently necessary in an urban spot (like shared walls) and some is easily avoided.

The market finds affordable ways to give renters what they want, and to a lesser extent make the building look good. The key word is affordable. Developers that last are usually very good at the cost/benefit equation, aided by their designers and contractors.
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  #36  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 6:01 PM
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I hereby pronounce Minneapolis the king of cool infill.
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  #37  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 7:19 PM
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Here's a few new developments under way along DC's H Street corridor (link is the source of all photos). They're pretty indicative of the styles you see around the rest of the city.













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  #38  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 7:42 PM
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Originally Posted by Chef View Post

mplsoct201244 by afsmps, on Flickr
^ Minneapolis has some of the best infill I've ever seen.

But no amount of infill can undo the visual damage to a streetscape that a couple with his and hers hockey jerseys renders
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  #39  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2014, 1:07 AM
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stuff like this is increasingly popping up in Toronto:

Last edited by Innsertnamehere; Nov 26, 2014 at 1:17 AM.
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  #40  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2014, 1:42 AM
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Most of Toronto's new housing is in the form of infill development, the most common today being the ubiquitous blue glass condo tower:



Adventure in Condoland
by Jack Landau, on Flickr


golden moon
by abey_henry, on Flickr


Curved and Broken Glass
by Ben Roffelsen Photography, on Flickr



Some being better than others:



Theatre Park
by Jimmy Wu Photography, on Flickr



But there are also midrises going up across the city by the hundreds as well (which is what this thread seems to be focused on?), that are usually better designed too:



http://www.golbourad.com/projects/wo...0-richmond.php


http://www.pugawards.com/pug/nominee...ellington-west


http://www.torontolife.com/informer/...ortland_intro/


West Don Lands TCHC
by Jimmy Wu Photography, on Flickr


River City
by Jimmy Wu Photography, on Flickr


Toronto
by Marcanadian, on Flickr


Flat
by Jack Landau, on Flickr


http://streetcar.ca/projects/2-gladstone/


Historical Building + 650 King St. W. (Freed, 10 + 16s, Core)
by drum118, on Flickr


140
by yeliR <>, on Flickr


Her against the world
by tomms, on Flickr



As well as small SFH's on tight lots:


http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/21031...nt_ob_21031332


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...ticle21476363/


http://superkul.ca/projects/40r_laneway-house/
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Last edited by MonkeyRonin; Nov 26, 2014 at 1:53 AM.
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