The park at Parkview West is now open, its pretty darn attractive, they have this nice area with pine trees and rotten granite and benches which smells and feels like Wisconsin (home). It will be extremely pleasant once the East tower is finished and the trees grow in some.
I also was down in the Lakeshore East park and it too was extremely pleasant, its feel has changed a ton since BCBS and Aqua sprung up, it truly feels like a canyon now and is mindblowingly impressive. Also, the trees have really gotten bigger in there and there are now some nice secluded areas...
I'd say it's "sterile" because of the strong-color, strong reflectivity, as honte mentioned found in suburban office parks. To give the 2 story building a kick, they choose this really wild glass. I never got a chance to see it in person, but it doesn't have a lot of character or depth to it. Trump's glass is highly reflective and has character, because it exhibits a wide range of moods and balance between reflectivity and transparency.
All glass has some reflection, as evidenced by all the other buildings in the area. Constituatively opaqe/SHINY! is not character; its consistent mood means that it can be "sterile." Least thats my interpretation.
Anyway, every comment I've read so far says that this is a great step in the right direction. No one seems to be arguing otherwise.
The
I also was down in the Lakeshore East park and it too was extremely pleasant, its feel has changed a ton since BCBS and Aqua sprung up, it truly feels like a canyon now and is mindblowingly impressive. Also, the trees have really gotten bigger in there and there are now some nice secluded areas...
The developers were quite smart to build the park and put in the plantings ahead of development. This has allowed trees to mature and the park itself is a huge selling point for buyers.
I'd say it's "sterile" because of the strong-color, strong reflectivity, as honte mentioned found in suburban office parks. To give the 2 story building a kick, they choose this really wild glass. I never got a chance to see it in person, but it doesn't have a lot of character or depth to it. Trump's glass is highly reflective and has character, because it exhibits a wide range of moods and balance between reflectivity and transparency.
All glass has some reflection, as evidenced by all the other buildings in the area. Constituatively opaqe/SHINY! is not character; its consistent mood means that it can be "sterile." Least thats my interpretation.
Anyway, every comment I've read so far says that this is a great step in the right direction. No one seems to be arguing otherwise.
Yes, that's it exactly.
Most architects on a highrise residential building want to find a fine balance between allowing ultimate transparency (which can make the facade look like a massive jumbled mishmash when you see what owners are doing to their units) and a totally reflective facade, which tends to say, "Nothing illicit going on in this laboratory, continue on your merry way to the Jewel for some milk and eggs."
That is going to be such a popular place in the summer. With the crowds going to/from Navy Pier, and all the Streeterville residents...
A nice meeting spot, or just a place to pull over and have a conversation.
^ Great perspective, with a few illusions. The AMA HQ building looks two dimensional, and that bus looks like one of those San Francisco electified buses (the crane looking like it comes out of the bus itself and connects to some imaginary electric line above)
I'm not sure I like the Parkview park. The finished product doesn't look too different from the renderings, which were very crude.
I can't figure out what's going on with the paths. Unlike the approach used on many university campuses, the paths don't connect anything. Also, since the lot was fenced off when it was vacant, the paths can't represent the shortcuts that neighborhood people took. It's clear that the landscape designer was going for the university-campus effect, but it doesn't work since it's not rooted in the logical routes that people take across the site.
Perhaps I need to experience it for myself. The last time I was there, the pine tree/flowerbed area was closed and I was only able to go through the grass part. (Technically, the park wasn't open yet, but the landscape crews didn't care about me walking through)
^ I don't think it has anything to do with college campus planning. And I don't buy into this "favorite paths" Koolhaas concept - it rarely works. At IIT it certainly did not.
This park is about leisure and relaxation, not about giving people a shortcut through the space. In fact, the designers might have taken measures to keep people from trampling through the park on their way to Navy Pier.
Prev
Linear Mode
