17 most beautiful skylines

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

And that's a cherry picked unflattering picture from quite a long while ago! (the downtown cores 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th tallest towers are yet to be built and the tallest is only half complete) and even then, its actually still quite nice.

Anyways, here are some more updated pictures (my own actually!) from last year:

Vancouver is in a beautiful setting, but it's blue-green glass hell. It's the worst example of that particular affliction. Your updated pictures just show more of the same.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I think a lot of it comes down to the height limits combined with the large quantity of buildings in a similar height range preventing most from standing out (or even being visible from many angles) even if some have unique designs. Plus the tendency for many to be very similar colours and materials.

Yeah, Vancouver has very noteworthy individual buildings by architects of various renown (international starchitects like Kengo Kuma and Bjarke Ingels, and top Canadian talent like James Cheng and Arthur Erickson), but they all have to conform to a certain height, massing and material expectation handed down by the city.

Building a highrise in Vancouver is like building a modern building or bridge in Venice. You can put your own touch into it, but you're expected to be deferential to an established vernacular.

Vancouver's skyline has to be appreciated in that sense.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Skytrain to Vancouver by Ian, on Flickr

That's a really cool pic!

I find Vancouver's skyline to be very bland architecturally, though. (I should say that this specific pic manages to hide that really well!) Most buildings are nondescript and copy/paste of each other. I realize that can be said of most cities, but the phenomenon seems worse in Van than nearly anywhere else.

[Crawford]

Vancouver skyline is also overwhelmingly residential and of recent vintage. Residential towers, on average, just aren't as notable, even when built by starchitects, and forests of newer residential architecture give you the generic wavy glass towers common across the globe. Corporate office architecture also tends to be much higher-end and has more permanence.

[DZH22]

Vancouver wins the combined award for ugliest city in the nicest setting.

There's something about Canadian residential highrises in particular that literally cheapens the definition of highrise. For instance, Toronto's office skyline is absolutely incredible, but continues to get swallowed up by the less inspiring residentials around it. The new office buildings are as good as the old ones too. I can honestly say I think I'd like that skyline a lot more if 90% of the residential towers weren't there.

Most US cities have a different problem, mainly the cheapo 5-over-1 types that lazily fill any open spaces. Those are truly truly awful, but on the other hand at least they aren't skyline-defining awful buildings like the ones littering Canada. So it's a double edged sword, but I'd rather there be less highrises overall and a higher proportion of good looking highrises composing the skyline. In cities like Vancouver and Toronto the architectural highlights are too often obscured by somewhat tall, but otherwise uninspiring mediocrity.

[Cress3803]

you can see some Vancouver influence in areas around Chicago's core with Onni doing so much building

[Quixote]

I find a lot of Toronto's newer generation of generic residential towers attractive. One Bloor and the building to the far right are clearly a step up from the stuff that's built along the waterfront.

Originally Posted by Maldive

skycandy

[homebucket]

I think SF has had some decent recent residential highrises as well. Nothing I would call iconic or memorable, but definitely not bland or generic either.

[Quixote]

Does anyone else see the livability issues that come with skyscrapers? They take up a great deal of space while offering very little at ground level. You often end up having 500-1,000 residents atop two, three, maybe four businesses.

Meanwhile in Paris, you have dinky retail spaces that are 10-15 feet wide that house independent businesses that create a sense of place, make walking more fun, and give people (residents, workers, visitors) more variety and options.

[Crawford]

That's not really a highrise issue, it's an urban form issue. Yeah, the typical American highrise is like 40% parking garage and the street-level orientation is largely irrelevant. But it wouldn't be better if it were a midrise instead. The highrise serves its autocentric masters.

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Does anyone else see the livability issues that come with skyscrapers? They take up a great deal of space while offering very little at ground level. You often end up having 500-1,000 residents atop two, three, maybe four businesses.

I understand how you might feel this way from an LA perspective of skyscrapers on top of huge podiums and garages. From a Boston perspective we bury our parking and it doesn't make economic sense to leave a bunch of height on the table in the densest areas.

Originally Posted by Quixote

Meanwhile in Paris, you have dinky retail spaces that are 10-15 feet wide that house independent businesses that create a sense of place, make walking more fun, and give people (residents, workers, visitors) more variety and options.

Yeah, but nobody's building like Paris anymore. Either a city has that form or it doesn't. The east coast is certainly a heck of a lot closer to the proper urban form than LA, so I'm lucky to be here.

The 6 story buildings now are all flimsy 5-over-1's, most of them built as cheaply as possible. They not only waste huge plots, but are also much more overbearing than a well (or even semi-well) proportioned highrise. Plenty of cities are sprouting neighborhoods of this typology, and Paris they are not.

[ColDayMan]

For the record, I think Montreal still has the best looking skyline in Canada, followed by Calgary. I'm too moody with American skylines so I don't have a favorite at the moment but my rotation is still pretty solid.

[eschaton]

I've run into the term "the vertical suburb" for skyscrapers - particularly mixed-use ones.

While more common in other countries, larger residential highrises can end up with many amenities within—well beyond the typical gyms and maybe a coffee shop and/or restaurant on the first floor. Sometimes, they house doctors' offices, daycares, post offices, etc. In East Asia, it's common for entire floors to be set aside for mall-like atria. And, of course, they can also include considerable numbers of jobs.

The result of all this is while the building residents may still be making lots of pedestrian trips, they're relatively short and confined to the building. As a result, street-level vitality dies, as all of the vitality is instead turned inward.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've run into the term "the vertical suburb" for skyscrapers - particularly mixed-use ones.

While more common in other countries, larger residential highrises can end up with many amenities within—well beyond the typical gyms and maybe a coffee shop and/or restaurant on the first floor. Sometimes, they house doctors' offices, daycares, post offices, etc. In East Asia, it's common for entire floors to be set aside for mall-like atria. And, of course, they can also include considerable numbers of jobs.

The result of all this is while the building residents may still be making lots of pedestrian trips, they're relatively short and confined to the building. As a result, street-level vitality dies, as all of the vitality is instead turned inward.

Some apartment buildings Downtown SP, new ones, with no setbacks, get even a small private supermarket.

They were supposedly to be urban friendly, with legislation abolishing setbacks, parking spaces and demanding commerce on the 1st floor, but they might as well lock many of their inhabitants in, specially now in the WFH age.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've run into the term "the vertical suburb" for skyscrapers - particularly mixed-use ones.

While more common in other countries, larger residential highrises can end up with many amenities within—well beyond the typical gyms and maybe a coffee shop and/or restaurant on the first floor. Sometimes, they house doctors' offices, daycares, post offices, etc. In East Asia, it's common for entire floors to be set aside for mall-like atria. And, of course, they can also include considerable numbers of jobs.

The result of all this is while the building residents may still be making lots of pedestrian trips, they're relatively short and confined to the building. As a result, street-level vitality dies, as all of the vitality is instead turned inward.

I don't see why that would warrant the name of vertical suburb when that's basically the opposite of how suburbs function. Suburban neighbourhoods - at least the common sprawl kind - are not self contained. In fact, they're notorious for having such poor access to shops, amenities, and services they people often need to make unnecessarily long and circuitous car trips just to access many basic needs. And even the rare things that are close enough to walk to may as well not be since the roads are often so hostile to pedestrians.

So basically we have on one hand very low density, single-use places with such poor access to amenities that people are forced to travel unnecessarily long distances in cars, creating the problem of excess traffic and sedentary lifestyles. And on the other hand we have high density places with such excellent access to amenities and services that people can not only walk most places but often don't even have to go outdoors resulting in too little (pedestrian) traffic. Yet somehow someone saw these as similar things?

The only similarity I can see is that they're both separate from the wider city with suburbs being removed from the central city by distance and zoning restrictions and the highrise residents being (potentially) separated by not needing things outside their development. But being perfectly capable of accessing the rest of the city with great convenience if they need or desire to. But in every other detail they're basically polar opposites.

[MonkeyRonin]

High-rises become "vertical suburbs" when they're built as monotonous, self-contained environments divorced from any contextual urban surroundings or human scale. A lot of the stuff built in Asia or suburban Canada are just that - suburbs in high-rise form. They're every bit as hostile to pedestrians and suburban in the lifestyle they foster.


https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bidad...BA%AF%E8%BF%9B


Of course, none of this is inherent to the high-rise typology itself. Just as single-family homes can be built in urban formats, suburban formats, rural formats, and everything in between; so too can multi-family dwellings. Housing typology =/= urban form.


https://www.reddit.com/media?url=htt...1cbebfd0451ac9

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Does anyone else see the livability issues that come with skyscrapers? They take up a great deal of space while offering very little at ground level. You often end up having 500-1,000 residents atop two, three, maybe four businesses.

Originally Posted by Crawford

That's not really a highrise issue, it's an urban form issue. Yeah, the typical American highrise is like 40% parking garage and the street-level orientation is largely irrelevant. But it wouldn't be better if it were a midrise instead. The highrise serves its autocentric masters.

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've run into the term "the vertical suburb" for skyscrapers - particularly mixed-use ones.

I call them suburbs in the sky. Miami's multitudinous condo towers atop massive parking "podia" is a perfect example. For all of downtown Miami's insane amount of residential tower growth over the past 20 years, the amount of street-level pedestrian activity has not increased commensurately.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

High-rises become "vertical suburbs" when they're built as monotonous, self-contained environments divorced from any contextual urban surroundings or human scale. A lot of the stuff built in Asia or suburban Canada are just that - suburbs in high-rise form. They're every bit as hostile to pedestrians and suburban in the lifestyle they foster.


Of course, none of this is inherent to the high-rise typology itself. Just as single-family homes can be built in urban formats, suburban formats, rural formats, and everything in between; so too can multi-family dwellings. Housing typology =/= urban form.

Oh well if we're talking about actual suburbs then sure. I thought they were referring to self contained urban highrises since the topic arose with people criticizing downtown skylines with high numbers of residential towers. For sure the highrises in suburban areas are suburban. Not that they're necessarily suburban in their own right but that they're in a suburban context.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by DZH22

I understand how you might feel this way from an LA perspective of skyscrapers on top of huge podiums and garages. From a Boston perspective we bury our parking and it doesn't make economic sense to leave a bunch of height on the table in the densest areas.

Yeah, there are pretty much no parking podiums in NYC and hardly any buildings get built with even underground parking. Even when a building is built over an underground structure, it's most likely not directly attached to the building.

I believe NYC has a law that requires retail space to be preserved in new developments when they replace older buildings with retail. But, I've noticed that small businesses (bars, restaurants, cafes, wine shops, etc) seem to prefer retail spaces in older buildings and I'm not sure why. Some retail spaces in new buildings sit empty for years, while older spaces in the same area are at 100% occupancy.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I believe NYC has a law that requires retail space to be preserved in new developments when they replace older buildings with retail. But, I've noticed that small businesses (bars, restaurants, cafes, wine shops, etc) seem to prefer retail spaces in older buildings and I'm not sure why. Some retail spaces in new buildings sit empty for years, while older spaces in the same area are at 100% occupancy.

Because new construction demands much, much higher rents for commercial space per square foot. And for some reason I'm not quite sure of, it's actually more advantageous for developers to leave commercial space vacant for years than to rent for a slightly lower amount to an independent small business.

It probably has to do with tax writeoffs. We have some real estate experts here who could say more though.