[Wilcal]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

Guardian, when you're in Glendale, you're in a separate city technically, but Glendale is definitely part of the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area.

On the subject of Wilshire/La Brea vs. 1111 Wilshire, I don't think anyone would argue that 1111 Wilshire is as bad as Wilshire/La Brea (most house fires aren't as bad as Wilshire/La Brea). However, that does not mean 1111 Wilshire is a good design. It's just somewhat better than the absolute worst. But it still suffers from what I call "vomit" design: where the designer just vomits a bunch of design and color aesthetics onto the page and fails to edit those back into a cohesive work. In my opinion, it has far too many colors (though I agree the brighter colors are better than Wilshire/La Brea), and the glass that is there not only doesn't match the other windows (green tint vs. no tint, which turns "blue" when reflecting the sky), but it's mostly spandrel glass, which only masks the fact that the actual transparent, acting window portions of the glass are the same "prison window" size as Wilshire/La Brea. Despite having a relatively simple and clean massing, it manages to be so visually busy that it sticks out like a sore thumb in it's built environment.

On another note, I drove down Wilshire yesterday, and there are a couple of lots screaming for highrises that, if The Vermont does well, could eventually get them. Wilshire and Virgil and Wilshire and Hobart. Both are within 3 blocks of a Red Line station, so they could be considered TOD's, and hopefully qualify for density variances. The views for both lots, if developed into highrises, would be pretty amazing.

Colemonkee your analogy of bodily functions to the architectural design process was pretty funny--good post!