Originally Posted by Knight Hospitaller (Post 8786317)

^If that were Canadian public housing, the banner would say "Chad can wait." ;)

Originally Posted by hammersklavier (Post 8790556)

Why is the north side the better looking side? That's hidden behind a bunch of Walnut Street highrises while the south side faces St. Mark's Church and will be visible for all to see in perpetuity along Locust. Questionable architect decisions much?

Originally Posted by Yurkek (Post 8790463)

Not a fan of this, especially in contrast with the church
https://i.imgur.com/2IcYAzC.jpg?1

Originally Posted by iheartphilly (Post 8790719)

^^^
Those blue panels remind me of the blue tape on the accents of the CTC, and these are just as annoying and ugly as the blue tape. Horrible color scheme for this bldg.

Brick facade would of been best!

Originally Posted by iheartphilly (Post 8740526)

I certainly don't want to see bad architecture in Philly for sure. Hyatt Centric has a unique shape to it and isn't just a vertical rectangle. In giving it more thought and another look of the design, I think the design is fine. Like others, I now think the issue was with the downgrade of materials or not following what we saw from the original renders in terms of material currently be installed as compared to the renders.

Eric Leighton did 500 Walnut as part of the Cecil team and giving the lot and spatial surrounding, I think it turned out very good. One Riverside from Cecil is good too. Not great, but good.

I think philosophically we can all easily say lets get Philly the best design and best material that the budget can afford or the developer is willing to spend. But, at the end of the day, I think all projects look for a ROI and are constrained by budget that determined the designs and outcomes of how the projects will look when factoring labor costs and the amount of rent or selling cost each unit can fetch. But, I'm no insider so I can't claim to know the decision making and selection process of how all this works. For example, if the developer goes through a bidding process and ask architects for design proposals or is favored to do business with one selected architect for its project and makes the final decision. Some developers may just have bad taste in selecting design/materials, or their taste grossly differs from ours. Like the saying goes, just because you have money doesn't mean you have taste. Who knows?

Originally Posted by SEFTA (Post 8790617)

Yeah not great. I'll say this, it's better than a blank wall but overall I like the building

Originally Posted by jsbrook (Post 8792551)

A blank wall the entire length of the Locust-facing facade with a mural would have been 1,000 times better than this. Couldn't because they needed the windows for the hotel rooms.

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown (Post 8792420)

With the prices people paid at 500 Walnut, outcome should have been better than "very good".

Also, I'd argue it's incredibly mediocre. It looks like a suburban office park building.

Time for Cecil and friends to to hang up their hats. There used to be something tasteful and timeless about his style. Now it's just geometric panels...and in dated configurations from day one.

The only (Philly based) architects doing interesting and/or high quality work in Philly at this point that I can think of are ISA, Canno, and QB3. For a while, I would have had Kiernan Timberlake on that list, but their style is stuck in a time warp and seems to have stopped evolving.

I'd rather work go to outside firms until this folks up their game or prove me wrong.

Originally Posted by iheartphilly (Post 8792642)

I hear you loud and clear and share in the sentiments, especially when I've seen awesome designs in NYC, Shanghai, London, etc...it makes Philly pale in comparison. And, I'm not sure why local architects want to short change Philly in design as a major US city and a popular city with tourists from abroad. Maybe we skyscraper nerds are more critical and care more about appearances of a design, and it's not even our profession or namesake on the design. :shrug:

Originally Posted by iheartphilly (Post 8850032)

^^^
The 1st and 2nd photos from Jawn's set that shows the side of the Hyatt facing the church is truly awful. You can see all the surrounding old masonry buildings and then this thing is just smack in the middle of all the bldgs-looking fake and cheap because of the poor choice of cladding. SMH.

Originally Posted by reparcsyks (Post 8989727)

Congrats to the architects for designing a building that looks like it was built in the early 1960s and re-skinned in the late 1990s. Still better than a parking garage, but geez.

Originally Posted by summersm343 (Post 9032979)

This is pretty much COMPLETE.

I know it's not everyone's favorite, but it does actually look pretty sharp from Walnut Street, and it's much better than what was there.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/grea...elphiaplanners