A truly hideous "postage stamp" example can be seen in the balconies of the Alteza Condos atop San Antonio's Grand Hyatt by Arquitectonica:
[Photo from
Intelligent Engineering Services)
(Photo by
Terri Meyer Boake on CTBUH)
(Photo by
Terri Meyer Boake on CTBUH)
I am surprised the drop down the sheer face doesn't require a "people catching" netting, but then nobody is ever seen using these balconies anyway.
They exist to sell condos.
(Photo from
San Antonio Board of Realtors on KWSanAntonio)
I'm not a fan of this planar, austere, pattern-making style, as it tends to come across as more mediocre and cheap rather than modernist Rietveld artsy.
Once upon a time we built operable bay windows and wrap-around verandahs or lanai, nowadays we get stubby scraps of bite-sized Balcony Bits:
(Photo by
Kathryn Boyd-Batstone on the Rivard Report)
(Montage from
Multi-Housing News)
Desperation for development, the requirements of marketing, and the most marginal of low-cost construction leaves us with this stuff.
If they stripped the patterns of stubby bits off we might see how truly banal this throwaway architecture is...:
(Photo from
Hotels Combined)
...Quick, screw back on some decorative balcony railings to fool them!
.
.
.
Speaking of fooling them with decoration, here is the crassly PoMo historicist Courtyard San Antonio Riverwalk by Marriott:
(Photo by
Randall Crane on Emporis)
(Photo from
Marriott.com hosted on Pinterest)
It's got upgraded window trim, dainty lanterns, Italianate columns, and yet it all still adds up to an unsatisfactory urbanist experience.
A comparison can be made with the Omni La Mansión del Rio, nearby at only 200 ft. away and which also has tiny balconies,
dainty lanterns, columns, and historicist dressing:
(Photo from
calculatedtraveller.com hosted on Pinterest)
(Photo from
Mommy Travels)
Don't be fooled by the historicist style, this building is from 1968 and is built wrapping around an interior parking garage.
Both hotels are on directly the Riverwalk and both architectures use short decorative balconies,
but one contributes to creating a great urban place, while the other is a colorized architectural cartoon.
.
.
.
Pity the city's authentically historic Aurora Apartments have been reduced to a neglected retirement home on public subsidy orbiting on the
outskirts of downtown, as it has picturesque balconies and operable bay windows. Why can we not build more like this?
(Photo by
Larry D. Moore on Wikimedia)