04-17-2016, 09:35 PM
The BarrelYards buildings are impressively tall, but otherwise unremarkable, in my view. One leaden tower might be seen as classy, but a whole constellation of them is tending towards boring.
This need not have been the result of the City selling the whole zone to one developer. With the water table challenges, which required a co-ordinated strategy, this approach may well have incentivized movement forward. However, the one developer has adopted a monoculture design theme which is massively bland. I think of the entire development as The Grey Area. Its major sales pitch is not the architecture, but the park panoramas. Though we provided the park, they provided the tall, so I guess that boast at least is fair.
The same monoculture spectacle manifests in one-developer/builder subdivisions (where it would be good to focus on your house number to make sure you don’t walk into someone else’s place). On the other hand, “organic” growth by different entities or over time tends to be more stimulating in the end, and may even mollify taste resistance. For example, I have never really taken to the brutalist look of the Allen Square office building. But when The Red was built beside it, I thought the two buildings looked interesting together.
I am open to the possibility that the very “sameness” of The BarrelYards, when combined with its undeniable scale, may turn out to be a feature of positive distinction. But it’s not my bet.
This need not have been the result of the City selling the whole zone to one developer. With the water table challenges, which required a co-ordinated strategy, this approach may well have incentivized movement forward. However, the one developer has adopted a monoculture design theme which is massively bland. I think of the entire development as The Grey Area. Its major sales pitch is not the architecture, but the park panoramas. Though we provided the park, they provided the tall, so I guess that boast at least is fair.
The same monoculture spectacle manifests in one-developer/builder subdivisions (where it would be good to focus on your house number to make sure you don’t walk into someone else’s place). On the other hand, “organic” growth by different entities or over time tends to be more stimulating in the end, and may even mollify taste resistance. For example, I have never really taken to the brutalist look of the Allen Square office building. But when The Red was built beside it, I thought the two buildings looked interesting together.
I am open to the possibility that the very “sameness” of The BarrelYards, when combined with its undeniable scale, may turn out to be a feature of positive distinction. But it’s not my bet.