ATLANTA | Development Thread V

[scania]

Originally Posted by gttx

Oh please. I dislike this building because it's a mash-up of about 4 different architectural ideas, none of which emerge from any obvious function or unique situation of the building. A curvy atrium in the middle? Sure! Some random punch outs, sort of diagonal but sort of rectangular? All right! Blobs cantilevering out for no discernible reason? OK! Two giant (different) logos? This is fun!

Frankly I'm not sure why anyone on a forum dedicated to skyscrapers and urban development would ever come to the defense of John Portman. The damage he inflicted on the city fabric of Atlanta is unforgivable, even if he did have the occasional flash of brilliance with a tower.

The damage he's inflicted on the city fabric is unforgivable??? WOW, there's so much more than what he's done that affects the urbanity of the city. Atlanta could have 10 towers by him, or none by him, and the urbanity of Atlanta would still be the same. Atlanta does not have enough people to support all of the street level retail, that most of you tend to want. Also, some people can love skyscrapers as well as development at large and not care about it being walkable and close to public transportation. Some of you have the idea that in order to love skyscrapers and development, you must or should be all about your perception of being urban.

[Alfred E Neuman]

Chances are, by the time Portman's mash-terpiece is finished, Portman, at his age, may be finished as well- resting eternally in his greatest final architectural achievement- a grayish beige monolithic concrete block, with no light, no contemplative gardens with no water features and no comfortable seating for peaceful contemplation of his countless contributions. What a spiritual legacy.

[SFB]

Nerdsssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ATL_J]

Originally Posted by Alfred E Neuman

Chances are, by the time Portman's mash-terpiece is finished, Portman, at his age, may be finished as well- resting eternally in his greatest final architectural achievement- a grayish beige monolithic concrete block, with no light, no contemplative gardens with no water features and no comfortable seating for peaceful contemplation of his countless contributions. What a spiritual legacy.

I can't imagine at his age he actually had a hand in this.

I have no ill will towards Portman. I'm not a fan of his buildings, but considering the climate he was designing in and what was happening within the city, I think he did a lot to "save" downtown and keep it a viable center of business.

However, this is building is just bad design. I'd be interested to hear arctk2014 and any other architects' opinion who frequent this board. I understand buildings like this can often time be owner/developer driven and/or designed by committee, making it difficult for quality design.

To me personally, it looks like they started with a floor plate and then copied that for however many floors they needed to achieve the desired square footage. Then they added a couple of "flair features" they had seen on other jobs - hey, lets inset the glass here, lets push out the glass here and frame it, lets do some other thing here that I saw on another project, and so on. The design itself says nothing, it is not coherent, and they missed a perfect opportunity to address the Crum & Forster Building into their design. Not saying they actually had to incorporate into the building, but to draw elements of design from the building. Even if they didn't want to do that, I think it's clear here that Portman Holdings, as opposed to their architecture group, or whoever the architect was, was the one who drove this design.

[Tuckerman]

Mixed views on this. The size and dominance of the Portman Building in this rendering make the Crum and Foster Building appear as outstanding. Difficult to judge from this presentation the total effect.
I have architect friends who simply despise Portman's work and I know that more than a little prejudice flavors all the above comments on this building. However, this building is a long ways from being finished and how it will fit into the emerging Spring St. is very difficult to envision. Would love to hear what the GT architecture urbanists think about this one in the whoe context of the emerging Tech IT area.

[thepope117]

The building on Armstead Place will probably house the 40ksf high performance computing center based on how much breathable shrouding is on top of it(There is a lot of hvac on that roof) and if that's the case i think the rest of the design is serviceable. It addresses spring & possibly west peachtree if the plaza carries through to the other side of the building, with active use and there is only so much you can do to make a data center pedestrian friendly so id say its a spectacular job considering its a Portman design.

[Verge]

Originally Posted by gttx

Oh please. I dislike this building because it's a mash-up of about 4 different architectural ideas, none of which emerge from any obvious function or unique situation of the building. A curvy atrium in the middle? Sure! Some random punch outs, sort of diagonal but sort of rectangular? All right! Blobs cantilevering out for no discernible reason? OK! Two giant (different) logos? This is fun!

Frankly I'm not sure why anyone on a forum dedicated to skyscrapers and urban development would ever come to the defense of John Portman. The damage he inflicted on the city fabric of Atlanta is unforgivable, even if he did have the occasional flash of brilliance with a tower.

I agree about the incoherent nature of the building-- Portman's legacy is something else-- Visiting architects inevitably want to see the interior of the Marriott when they are in town-- including folks like Rem Koolhaas. Was he anti-street in the 1970s to be sure, but unfortunately few were dedicated to an urbane pedestrian environment then. Unarguably, a good city is defined by what happens at the street and the quality of the pedestrian environment-- something Portman and just about everyone else now understand. Midtown zoning will force the street uses that are unclear from these very preliminary renderings. With some (a lot of?) simplification these building could be alright.

Its kind of funny that Portman's name elicits such a stir on a thread that usually is quite tolerant of mediocre design-- I wish this kind of scrutiny was applied to everything-- Including much more terrible things like 880 West Peachtree, Azure, Yoo or 77 12th-- all pretty mediocre to downright awful buildings--

[Verge]

Originally Posted by scania

The damage he's inflicted on the city fabric is unforgivable??? WOW, there's so much more than what he's done that affects the urbanity of the city. Atlanta could have 10 towers by him, or none by him, and the urbanity of Atlanta would still be the same. Atlanta does not have enough people to support all of the street level retail, that most of you tend to want. Also, some people can love skyscrapers as well as development at large and not care about it being walkable and close to public transportation. Some of you have the idea that in order to love skyscrapers and development, you must or should be all about your perception of being urban.

Simply not the case-- Atlanta is now (re) building to be more urban and pedestrian as is every major city in the country-- Street level uses are self fulfilling as the towers above provide the people who populate the street-- but only if the street is a place worth walking. Lets hope the mistakes of the past stay past once and for all-- great cities do not equal great skylines-- but are great places to be, to work, to live and of course, to walk.

[AtlantaMustang]

Originally Posted by scania

The damage he's inflicted on the city fabric is unforgivable??? WOW, there's so much more than what he's done that affects the urbanity of the city. Atlanta could have 10 towers by him, or none by him, and the urbanity of Atlanta would still be the same. Atlanta does not have enough people to support all of the street level retail, that most of you tend to want. Also, some people can love skyscrapers as well as development at large and not care about it being walkable and close to public transportation. Some of you have the idea that in order to love skyscrapers and development, you must or should be all about your perception of being urban.

Try like 10-15 downtown, connected by sky bridges to a ton of retail in an underground mall that is very well supported by the uses above. And guess what, the street level on most sides of these buildings are awful. I understand they are a product of when they were built, but we shouldn't still be doing this.

In fairness to the tech square project, the ground level doesn't look completely horrible, but I imagine that inner plaza being pretty dead most of the time. We'll see, when they go before the DRC eventually, more details and what the DRC wants them to change. Don't even get me started on the cluster that is the architecture of the tower.

[boomtown]

Seems that renderings often capture sunsets and clear blue skies, when in reality they end up reading as much darker . I hope the glass in the Portman project is a bit reflective as shown in the renderings.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

Originally Posted by thepope117

The building on Armstead Place will probably house the 40ksf high performance computing center based on how much breathable shrouding is on top of it(There is a lot of hvac on that roof) and if that's the case i think the rest of the design is serviceable. It addresses spring & possibly west peachtree if the plaza carries through to the other side of the building, with active use and there is only so much you can do to make a data center pedestrian friendly so id say its a spectacular job considering its a Portman design.

That is what I think, which is why I am sticking to my celebration of a large office building going up without any additional parking.

In other news, Broadstone Terraces was issued land dev permit.

[foxmccleod]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeanuts

That is what I think, which is why I am sticking to my celebration of a large office building going up without any additional parking.

In other news, Broadstone Terraces was issued land dev permit.

Has it been stated somewhere that there is no parking? The RFP requires a parking strategy.


Part B - Development Objectives: please provide a narrative, not to exceed 10 pages in length,
describing how your conceptual development plan and your development team intends to
accomplish each of the following:
• Celebrate the Crum and Forster building.
• Provide innovative technologies and approaches for sustainability that deliver
extreme performance at commercially-reasonable costs.
• Provide a parking strategy.
• Mitigate high speed traffic on Spring Street and West Peachtree Street.
• Provide incremental expansion of the data center for growth in GIT-related IT
use and allows it to be used as a “Living Lab”.
• Secure local and federal economic incentives to support the project.

Also, the RFP requests proposals for how the project will activate the street, so it is being considered.

Part A - Program Objectives: please provide a narrative, not to exceed 10 pages in length,
describing how your conceptual development plan and your development team intends to
accomplish each of the following:
• Enhance the Technology Square neighborhood.
• Create a collaborative, innovation ecosystem/community.
• Program, brand and position the Project to serve technology-based concerns,
associated marketing and leasing plan for prospective tenants, and target tenant
profile for speculative vacancy.
• Activate the street, including the overall retail strategy and suggested retail mix
which complements the existing retail at Technology Square.
• Collaborate with Georgia Tech to achieve its interdisciplinary research agenda
with Industry Research Partners.
• Provide a lease strategy and approach for industry partners co-working in the
Interdisciplinary research neighborhoods.

More documents are here:
http://www.realestate.gatech.edu/hpc/

[gttx]

Originally Posted by Verge

I agree about the incoherent nature of the building-- Portman's legacy is something else-- Visiting architects inevitably want to see the interior of the Marriott when they are in town-- including folks like Rem Koolhaas.

That's fair. The Marriott, Hyatt Regency, Suntrust, and Peachtree Plaza are all interesting architecturally, notwithstanding their lack of address on the streets around them.

But regardless, the Tech Square building is not good. Hopefully it will be good for Tech....as an alum I'm happy, but as an architect and urban designer I'm disappointed.

[NewUrbanist90]

New Buckhead proposal to replace the burned / torn-down buildings by Fellini's:

http://buckheadview.com/2015/05/27/offic...ct-planned-for-garden-hills-center-site/

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

Originally Posted by foxmccleod

Has it been stated somewhere that there is no parking? The RFP requires a parking strategy.


Part B - Development Objectives: please provide a narrative, not to exceed 10 pages in length,
describing how your conceptual development plan and your development team intends to
accomplish each of the following:
• Celebrate the Crum and Forster building.
• Provide innovative technologies and approaches for sustainability that deliver
extreme performance at commercially-reasonable costs.
• Provide a parking strategy.
• Mitigate high speed traffic on Spring Street and West Peachtree Street.
• Provide incremental expansion of the data center for growth in GIT-related IT
use and allows it to be used as a “Living Lab”.
• Secure local and federal economic incentives to support the project.

Also, the RFP requests proposals for how the project will activate the street, so it is being considered.

Part A - Program Objectives: please provide a narrative, not to exceed 10 pages in length,
describing how your conceptual development plan and your development team intends to
accomplish each of the following:
• Enhance the Technology Square neighborhood.
• Create a collaborative, innovation ecosystem/community.
• Program, brand and position the Project to serve technology-based concerns,
associated marketing and leasing plan for prospective tenants, and target tenant
profile for speculative vacancy.
• Activate the street, including the overall retail strategy and suggested retail mix
which complements the existing retail at Technology Square.
• Collaborate with Georgia Tech to achieve its interdisciplinary research agenda
with Industry Research Partners.
• Provide a lease strategy and approach for industry partners co-working in the
Interdisciplinary research neighborhoods.

More documents are here:
http://www.realestate.gatech.edu/hpc/

If the structure adjacent Crum and Foster is in fact the data center, I don't see where else in the design they could be hiding a parking deck. Isn't there a large parking deck already available across the street where that new starbucks drive through popped up.

Also here is the new GA400 park render


http://buckheadview.com/2015/05/27/cid-presented-1st-vision-for-park-out-of-thin-air-over-ga-400/

It is too bad that ugly as sin parking deck for Skyhouse Buckhead would literally be facing the park.

[joecool]

Buckhead needs this! When is this happening?

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Honestly, it's not a bad looking building...if it just addressed the street better, I'd be fine with it.

I feel the same way...it may not be great to the trained eye, but for the casual observer it looks pretty good. I hope the final product will do a better job at addressing the street, especially in such a walkable and inviting area.

[TarHeelJ]

Originally Posted by AtlantaMustang

Try like 10-15 downtown, connected by sky bridges to a ton of retail in an underground mall that is very well supported by the uses above. And guess what, the street level on most sides of these buildings are awful. I understand they are a product of when they were built, but we shouldn't still be doing this.

In fairness to the tech square project, the ground level doesn't look completely horrible, but I imagine that inner plaza being pretty dead most of the time. We'll see, when they go before the DRC eventually, more details and what the DRC wants them to change. Don't even get me started on the cluster that is the architecture of the tower.

A good number of those buildings are also a product of their purposes...many of them are closed to the public.

[smArTaLlone]

Originally Posted by NewUrbanist90

I 100% agree. I am also disappointed that much of the pedestrian activity is isolated from the street. In typical Portman fashion, pedestrians will be discouraged from using the sidewalk and instead will be removed from the street with the exception of 1 small patio. Tech Square's beauty is that it actively engages the sidewalks. I would hate to see this ruined.

My first thought upon seeing this rendering is that they (and I doubt Portman himself had much to do with this design) are still ignoring every principle of good urbanism. And with 42,000 SF of retail we can be certain that the majority of it fronts that interior plaza. I am sure there are unique challenges that come with incorporating a data center and the front 1/3 of an historic building into the design, but this is overall disappointing.

[Verge]

Originally Posted by smArTaLlone

My first thought upon seeing this rendering is that they (and I doubt Portman himself had much to do with this design) are still ignoring every principle of good urbanism. And with 42,000 SF of retail we can be certain that the majority of it fronts that interior plaza. I am sure there are unique challenges that come with incorporating a data center and the front 1/3 of an historic building into the design, but this is overall disappointing.

42,000sf of retail is TWICE the area of the average small shopping center--
This is a LOT of retail--