[BWChicago]

Go figure, when I clarify what I'm saying, and concede some points, it makes it sound inconsistent. "Duh."

The building is clearly seperated into two distinct, stacked units in the first proposal, which bear little visual relationship to each other. They don't share proportions - clunky - there's no continuous elements between the two. The second proposal addressed this better with its vertical line. It masses the building as two side-by-side vertical masses, which makes more sense; the disconnection makes it look lopsided. Perhaps if the setback was from the front facade instead of the left side it would look better. If the first proposal had some division going down the facade to the street, it would work better. Since it's a theater, the floor heights are going to be taller on the base and shorter above. So clearly, no, it's not literally randomly sized. The staircase is a nice architectural touch that doesn't really make sense for what the building is - I don't see residents choosing that highly-public staircase to get to their residences. That's an element that works well in a public building. It would make me assume that those are offices above, not apartments.

Sure, it has similar roof heights to surrounding buildings. I never complained about the envelope. Nowhereman was responding to a different kind of scale than what I was referencing. Yeah, it meets one aspect of its context, that doesn't make the rest of it fit. I wouldn't have a problem with the base if that's all it was - it wouldn't fit in all that well, but it would have enough merit that I wouldn't complain. But that top chunk just clashes with the base.

I'm OBVIOUSLY complaining about the random width of the windows and not the vertical. There's no rhythm, there's no pattern, there's no relationship to the width of the windows at the base. It's an arbitrary treatment that looks cheap. Visual interest and different colors is fine, but there's generally some pattern to it. Sure, it's a familiar element of contemporary design, but is it well-executed here?

No, it's not completely awful, it's not a gas station, it doesn't have a parking lot out front, it meets the corner - I would think these things go without saying. It does fit in Footprint, Roof shape and Envelope. It's the articulation and the solid to void relationship that are problematic. The second proposal addresses these issues. While the second proposal is still not a very good building, it's at least less objectionable - the main problem is in the finish materials. I am curious how the first proposal would have worked structurally, since it's not evident from the rendering - cantilevered off a core?