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Originally Posted by iheartphilly
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?
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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.