I did not realize that I rubed people the wrong way on my harsh ctrituqe of the 61 story office tower for loiusville. I know how first impressions mean alot, so I will give you a chance to judge my own work. I will put myself out there to be judged so that we can be even. Give me your worst or best, doenst matter to me. I appoligize to any on that I offended, but i just didnt like the building, guess i did go a little far, but hey, it happens,lol. well here it is. folow this link

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e39/kevmr25/0270_1.jpg

 

Structurally, I don't see how it could work.

I don't think it looks bad at all.  I like it.

The base reminds me of the St. Louis arch which I'm not too terribly fond of (at the base). Its just kind of cold. Overall though, the shape is cool, just don't built it in my city, I'm more of a traditional guy.

I would love to see it built...right here in Cleveland...we need more tall buildings...oh yeah, bring some jobs to fill em!  :)

Structurally, I don't see how it could work.

 

Structurally, I can make it work.  When are you sending out the RFP?  :-)

what is the RFP? I desinged this tower for Cleveland, but the evolo competition required that you submit your proposal for a large city. I would love to see this baby rise in Cleveland. I only need about 300 million dollars, lol, or a developer who is willing to build it, lol again. The fact of the matter is we dont have the need for something this big yet, although our office market is recovering slowly. I would love to build on of my towerws to fill in the northwest quadrant of public square, if only I could find some one who waants to build a tower there who i could work with. Oh well, a man can dream cant he. :-D

I like the top, but it is dead at the bottom.  What downtown needs isn't more glass office towers set back behind corporate plazas, as this would be.  It needs active uses at the street level to fit into the downtown context.  Besides that, I rather like it.  Perhaps it could go on top of a 4-6 story pedestal that would have more public oriented uses, including street front retail.

Cool design. I think it would look even better scaled down about half.  Bring it right up to the street and put restaurants in the unique triangular glass storefronts it would create.

At first we wanted to put a glass atrium at the bottom with a winter garden and shops restaurants. these are all good Idea, but I would not want to scale it down. if this were to be built in Cleveland , it would be the new tallest in the city and state, and the tallest building outside New York and chicago. so somebody find me a developer,lol. :-D

I have other skyscraper designs, that are more traditional but equally impressive. when i get a scanner I will show them to you, all were designed to be built in cleveland and they are all very pretty, if i must say so myself. i think you will like them. I just need to take some economic development classes at Cleveland State University, so that i can figure out how to finance these babies and get them off the ground and beyond the drawing board. I want to fill the space of the northwest quadrant of public square and I want to do it in my life time. So lets make it happen people. :-P

I too think it would be better if scaled down a bit.  About 20% would work.

I like the design, but it's a little too tall for my taste.  It's ok if you want to have the tallest in the city/state, but be the tallest by 100 feet...not 500.  ;)

 

It's a simple, classy shape, but with it being so tall, it loses that classiness.

 

One more thing...looking at the base, I think it would topple over in a stiff breeze.

The main economic problem with such a large building is that if substantially occupied, would sap a lot of people into one space.  Sure, Cleveland has some prominent tall buildings, but for the 8th largest CBD worker population, it's pretty damn dead.  No doubt, the large concentration of workers in Key Tower and the Terminal Tower help to decrease circulation on city streets and keep those 140,000 workers confined to a relatively small area. 

 

I would rather see a whole lot of smaller, more human-scaled buildings that generate more pedestrian traffic.  If, however, I'm selected to engineer a monstrous skyscraper, who am I to complain if I'm getting paid?  :-)

This bldg. does seem to be the trend of architecture lately....build one iconic structure that may not fit in or work contextually.  The overall design seems progressive and cool....this would be great for the architects portfolio, but not the city's liveliness.

 

This is a better bldg. than the 61 story Louisville bldg. however neither one would work contextually with most cities.  I agree with most of the other comments:  better street level uses, more human scale, etc.

well how about if this was mixed use, with a hotel occupying most of the space with about half of it being office. Cleveland needs the hotel space and it would not suck up all of the workers in downtown. it would also give people the ability to stay in a world class hotel in a landmark tower. I like tall buildings, and maybe it is a Little to tall, so sue me, I like it. I would love to see it at about 1000-1100 feet and in downtown Cleveland, but its only a dream, and it is sitting nice in my portfolio, so I do have a nice skyscraper to show of to my Friends and future employers, but i also have some other less radical skyscrapers that may fit better in the Cleveland skyline, this one is just the one that I finished first. I will have some better ones and maybe in a few years you will see one of my skyscrapers rising right in downtown Cleveland. only time will tell. Thanks to every one for their comments, they are greatly appreciated.

Yes its uses could help to improve the bldg. as a whole, however, I think that the main problem with this structure is it lack of connectivity with streetlevel and those pedestrians/vehicles using this space.  In order for urban bldgs. to work I feel that they must embrace the urban frame in which they are located.  This was the same issue I had with the tower in Louisville...in addition to its outdated look.

I left out the part that would connect to the street level due to a short time frame. the tower was the main part of my presentation. the design team that helped me work on this did come up with a more elobate base that conected to people at the street level. we cmae up with a pyramid that would branch off at the bottom creating a glass canopy at the bottom. there was to be a shooping plaza under this canopy with connection to a the rail sytstem. due to a shoert time frame, we did not include that in our presentation, although i dod have a drawing of the concept, I will try to post some more stuff on this tower later. and by the way i did not chose the colors, one of the other team members did. i would have prefered green glass with side contrasting stainless steel mulions running up some parts of the tower to give it a contrasting look, but again, time was a issue.

^ That pyramid would probably help support it too.  As is stands in the picture, I don't think it would stay upright for very long.  A 30 mph gust from either side should push it over without a problem.

^ That pyramid would probably help support it too.  As is stands in the picture, I don't think it would stay upright for very long.  A 30 mph gust from either side should push it over without a problem.

 

What, did you analyze the lateral bracing system or something?

^ There is no lateral bracing system.  It's on two stilts.

looks kinda like the future tallest going up in shanghai.

Where is the mechanical core?

the elavators run up the sides of the building from the two points, leaving the center of the building open. the mechanical functions are split on the two sides.

Could you explain the top also, the opening and bowl like thing?

 

Also, don't worry about the Louisville thread, we all offend every now and again, most of us a lot more than the comments you made (which I tend to agree with). :-)

The opening is supposed to provide a open air atruim at the top for the hotel. The rest of the structure is the mechanical floors at the top around the opening and maybe a prnt house. The hole is a glass florr that is above a round cylinder that goes all the way to the bottom of the tower. by leavinga round cylinder open all the way through the tower it was supposed to take some of the stress off of the tower so that it would stand, that was one of the other team members idaes, so we included it. But the desing went through amny phases. I did not like the whole hole thing, but I included it in the final design any way, but the hole could be altered to just go dwon a few levels at the top for the observation floors and hotel lobby. the whole thing was a great experience for me. I personnaly love how the thing came out and have a huge poster of it ahnging in my room, so i can look at it all the time. Yeah for me,lol. thanks for the comments every one I appreciate it alot.

  I kind of like the hole thing...it sounds like a similar idea that the CN Tower in Toronto has....which to me is very cool!

This towers purpose is to function more as a national landmark than as a funtion of amximizing office space. It would be better to me as a hotel and maybe a little office space, but it is meant to evoke civic pride. the base of the tower can be played with to interact with the public.

  Well DAMN...come on kid...get some backing and get this thing rolling...pitch and shovel some good BS PR and build that damn thing on the quadrant right off public square! (Cleveland)  Too many gaps on the West part of downtown...having the three tallest buildings in the state in that part of downtown makes the other buildings on the East part of downtown look small, even though there is better infill.  Even though Cincy isn't as tall, the infill makes the downtown look great.  As for Columbus....well, not sure what I think.  So yes, get this damn thing built right here and make the skyline even better!  :)

I should call the plain dealer and tell them that I am an Urban studies student who is proposing a new office tower for downtown Cleveland and see what happens, get some kind of attention then who knows maybe a developer will want to build it, but I am telling you, this is just a sample of my ability, I have a better looking tower that I want to put on public square. if I wasnt so busy with school I would scan this stuff at CSU, but I will later, but I would also like to see this baby in our city. Any help would be greatly appreiated. who know where I can take this thing. thnak you all for the comments and the support. I will keep you updated and hopefully post some more pictures in the future, and maybe you can vote for which one of my skyscrapers you want to see in Cleveland, then I can propse it, lol, what ever. A man is nothing with out his dreams,there isnt much else about us that defines us but our dreams and wekll, this is mine.

It's admirable that you put this out there for critique!  It certainly looks like something we'd see on the cover of next months Architectural Record etc...

 

My initial thought was "how does this work structurally?" and I still have my doubts... but I suppose a progressive engineer could probably propose something.  My main concern with the base was less structural and more contextual - as a few others have mentioned already.

 

My question is this:  as I looked at the full rendering of the building, I found myself thinking what if we just got rid of the bottom 1/5 of the tower - essentially the part where it begins to narrow back on itself.  I'm sure it would sting at first to lose your ideal shape, but think of the concerns others have mentioned that this would immediately answer: less height, more structure at the base, more storefront area at the base etc...  And although you would lose your cool entry sequence (as the rendering shows), I suspect you could re-create something similar within the shape of the new base.

 

If you're an architect, you're probably aware already that this is generally how things go - we propose things and then desperately try to hold onto our vision throughout the engineering, financing, city reviewing and construction processes - would losing the narrow base be too much for you?

 

So that's my thought - plus this:  what software did you use?  sketch up?

Its funny that you mention that, because I hated the idea in the first place. I first drew the tower without the funny looking base, but it was another person on the design teams idea to include this base. It would not kill me to lose the base, but then it would look more like the new World Trade Center and the Shanhgia World Finance Center

i have added my new towers into a new thread so go and see all of them, although they are not presentation quality yet, but hey take a look anyway