Quote:
Originally Posted by jsbrook
I'm so bored of of the blue glass of Philly buildings. They are doing great things in other parts of the country. Cost is certainly a real factor, but I'd love to try to parse out how much of the architecture we are seeing here is laziness and lack of ingenuity and how much of it is dictated by cost constraints.
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On a smaller scale, when I popped a third story atop a 100-foot-long building, the estimate for stucco was almost as much as the cost of the house I bought in 2006. (that was a gut job, mind you) I think we ended up coming in under the estimate, but that was no doubt offset by the shotcrete we had to use over the 1760s-era brick party wall.
I had wanted to do a brick facade for the third floor, but the economics didn't make sense, in terms of insulation, materials, and labor. I had been hoping to have something just a little more decorative done with the brickwork, but since it was essentially tiles, that didn't happen.
Ultimately, I'm happy that my addition wasn't clad in fiber-cement and vinyl siding, but maaaan is it hard to justify the cost of doing decent exterior work, let alone
nice exterior work. It's certainly given me some perspective on the choices being made. Construction is
expensive.