The good news is, this might be the first time I've seen this entire forum sharing the same opinion.

Why does it always seem like you're stuck in the year 1996? Hotel construction (or conversion from office) has and is happening here and in the West Loop, because this is where a lot of jobs are. Mostly it's extended stay stuff, but it is there. The idea that downtown is all about "Mag Mile and McCormick Place" is a way outdated notion.

I see a little bit of room for masonry in those renderings...

^ He was answering my question, which is why the developers are not considering a multi-hundred key hotel... bigger than the tourist boutique stuff or the extended-stay stuff in Fulton Market, with a stronger focus on events... more like the Marriott Mag Mile or Hyatt Regency.

To be fair, this proposal calls for 330 rooms which is indeed larger than anything we've seen in the West Loop to date. But designing a mixed-use building is challenging enough when you have a blank slate. I'm concerned the separate cores, lobbies, loading dock, and services could overwhelm the public spaces at ground level, which need to remain as-is. Should, for example, some of the many station entries and stairwells be taken over for a plush hotel lobby or apartment mailroom?

Also, I think a hotel is just more compatible with a transit hub than apartments are. Will apartment dwellers complain about the noise from taxis or train announcements? Certainly they will demand parking, and the 245 parking spaces planned to go beneath the Great Hall in an existing basement will only complicate any future efforts to improve the transit hub.

Uhhhh, it's almost a carbon copy of half the stuff coming out of there though(that isn't brick faux-factory design garble). Don't defend the West Loop.

God... this design is making my eyes bleed. Do we have a doctor here?

In this case, I'll defend the West Loop. While some (or most, depending on your opinion) of the West Loop midrises range from being either unremarkable to butt ugly, the use of brick as a cladding material at least makes them feel more authentic and help them blend in with their surroundings, which are also mostly existing brick construction.

The Union Station expansion is just... jarring. While theres nothing wrong with having a nice contrast of limestone and steel+glass, this is just done in a terrible manner. Instead of celebrating the differences of the two styles, one style somehow tries to ungracefully copy the other, and the end result is that it ends up shitting on the original building that it tried to compliment.

There are plenty of examples of having an expansion to a vintage building that plays off the contrasts between the materials and styles of each component. The Union Station rendering makes it seem that the addition is apologetically trying to hide itself from the viewer, as if it knows its inferior to the base it rests on.

SCB should take a cue from Foster + Partners on how to pull something like this off:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...rstowernyc.JPG
Source: Wikipedia.org

And as I've mentioned before, completing the original Graham, Anderson, Probst & White expansion plan would also be acceptable, and in my opinion, preferred. Assuming of course that they use the right materials.

Good lord that's terrible. What in the world were they thinking?

^ and it doesn’t need to be that tall, just interesting and contextual.

I wonder why they don’t just do an addition with a very smooth, light glass curtainwall. Maybe even ultra-reflective Glass, which would automatically redirect your attention to the base and surroundings.

I can't really imagine what would go beneath the head house as far as transit improvements go. The high rise over the concourse is the real impediment.

Lord have mercy that's bad! Why on earth does it cantilever out? It's like it want to pretend Union station isn't directly underneath it. Just leave it alone.

Due to the preservation of the light well, the floor plates would be too small to efficiently house residential and hotel functions. The resulting cantilever is their ugly attempt to rectify the lack of space.

At very very least lose the waist belt. It interrupts rhythm of facade super abruptly. Not that its much better but you could do something like this instead:


https://images2.imgbox.com/c3/16/igrqVGq1_o.jpg

Try again...there is at least one person here who likes it (not me).

It's an abomination, pure and simple.

Greg Hinz updated his story in Crain's. Looks like the developer DGAF that the design isn't loved, no major changes planned. They intend to start next year.

I'm happy to see the head house building much more intensely used though. Just hope the addition turns out better than the renderings.

If one is to go the glass box route, at least set it back to acknowledge the tapering setbacks as originally intended. Perhaps even slope the glass enough to reflect only the sky and make the entire mass disappear. It’s the lightest possible addition vs not building at all.

The more I look at this, the more I don’t like it. Just seems really heavy handed. The contextual acknowledgements seem to be re-entrant corners of sorts and the bronze cladding matching the spandrels. It doesn’t do enough to be sensitive to the original building.

That is almost palatable. Would be interesting if one could take off the top floor as well as that breaks up the continuity of the rest of the facade.

Granted, taking away both the bottom and top we are just working here to get something not vomit inducing as opposed to something remotely interesting or attractive. The bar should be higher for one the city's historical icons.

Thanks for the mock-up. I agree, lose the waist belt. That’s a good way to put it lol. They don’t need to forcefully divorce the addition from the building with that gesture. The materials are enough to lend contrast.

Looks much better without the recessed belt, less top heavy.
I'd like something that steps back, but with the limited floor shape that would be impossible without compromising the light well.

Any views from the courtyard?

The proposed Union Station extension and Lynn Becker's twitter post exemplify the state of 'architecture' in Chicago right now. Worth a read!
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/835/2...c7f9ac39_b.jpgunion station 6.26 by Chicagooan, on Flickr