Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
The United Gulf development is interesting. I have read some theories about how they wanted to flip the land and the proposals were fake but those don't make a lot of sense to me given how long they've had this site. The old Skye might have seemed a bit fake, and the original "twisted sisters" iteration was much more ambitious for its day. The new one is within the normal range of developments for downtown, and they have managed to build Boss Plaza.
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The current Skye rendition is, to me, pretty generic and blah. Except for the largely-glass podium floors, it reminds me of nothing so much as a 21st-Century variation on Cogswell Tower (how's that for faint praise?) while vaguely aping the Maple too.
It also tops out at 21 storeys, ensuring the perpetuation of the dull downtown Halifax uniformity (what is it with 20-21-22 storeys?), with Maple across the street at 22. Even varying the height of the Skye towers a bit - say, 24 and 19 storeys, for example - would have added some visual interest. Maybe whatever rises from the Ralston rubble will eventually provide some relief.
The Skye website rather grandiosely proclaims that because it'll be next door to the comparatively bland MetroPark, Skye is "...both freed from existing architectural precedent and shouldered with the task of positively defining the character of a prominent city block". Well, if that truly was United Gulf's goal, I'd have to rate the current design "fail". Rather than defining the character of the block, it seems destined instead simply to blend in in the least obtrusive manner. Faint praise again, I know.