^they also have it on the back entrance off of prospect.

Closest we'll see to Cuyahoga County having offices in that tower haha

I find it funny that the county put their logo inside the tower lobby behind the security desk..

Nothing like the county pouring salt into an open wound...

Well look at what I found during the Ingenuity Festival!

 

Proposal from Cesar Pelli and Associates

 

Proposal from Davis Brody Bond (the only re-use proposal)

 

Proposal from Perkins and Will

 

Proposal from Fleischman and Associates

 

Drum roll please ... the winning design from KPF and Robert Madison

 

 

 

 

 

I'd LOVE to know what on god's green earth is on the side of the Rotunda Building here:

 

And the floorplan - http://www.clevelandskyscrapers.com/ccadmin7.jpg

 

I thought seeing the models instead of the crappy crayola sketch might make me not despise this proposal as much. In fact, it's made me detest it even more.

what little sense of design i have in my big toe has just died.

That thing is a monstrosity. This has been my main problem with knocking down the tower. The new design looks even worse.

My partner's pugs have left similarly-shaped things in the yard... I never thought of their "works" as building inspiration but what do I know? :wtf:

Wow.. now that is ugly.. if they're gonna tear it down I would have went with the Perkins and Will design.

Slanted roofs like that will be great during the winter, or rainy days, especially in those windswept plazas ... :roll:

Did they mention anything in regards to their plan for the parking garage that is connected currently?

It looks like in the last model photo, the pedestrian bridge is still there (or its a new bridge) connecting to the existing garage. Lord knows they have to preserve a parking garage!

i was wondering the same about whats on the side of the rotunda building... solar panels?  no... its in the shade...

 

theres nothing environmental or sustainable looking with this building.  where are the trees going to go?  I hope they have to reconfigure this design and that the other euclid ave building is renovated in this project, because right now that structure looks like a much worse replacement

wow, that is really really bad.

^A bit confused.  Is that actually the final design or what was proposed initially (when all the designs were more conceptual)?  If it is the final why was it released in this forum (the festival) and why now, when it is still so far off? Again I am a bit confused (and disgusted if this is what we are going to get).

 

Don't recall ever seeing the Pelli design before (maybe I just overlooked it).  I like it (although many on this forum will of course argue it is too short), especially how it interacts with the street both on 9th and Euclid.  Also like the large windows and think it is sensitive to the Rotunda.  For you  height freaks I also like the Perkins design although I would like to see more renderings.

The only rendering of the Pelli design that the PD (who else) released was an interior shot of an atrium. That's why you didn't see it. It might not be my favorite, but it definitely has merit, and is certainly better than the KPF/Madison crystalline poo-pile.

I’m feeling a bit nauseous.

If they are going to knock the Breuer down, the Pelli design is definitely the way to go in its honeycombed reference in homage to the Breuer building.  I can't see a cubed solarium treecourt/balcony working in a county building since its clearly wasted space.  But other than that its quite a nice vision and statement.

LMFAO......ridiculous. what a bunch of fuckin morons. why is there a high speed train straight outta tokyo in the fleischman crap?

 

i say we knock down downtown cleveland and just build an office park

 

who wants to organize a demonstration with me ?

LMFAO......ridiculous. what a bunch of fuckin morons. why is there a high speed train straight outta tokyo in the fleischman crap?

 

i say we knock down downtown cleveland and just build an office park

 

who wants to organize a demonstration with me ?

 

well they were the only rendering that made an attempt (albeit half-assed) to incorporate the ECP into the sketch-up.....

^^ I don't seem to find any humor in these renderings. Quite tragic IMO.

The only one I truly hate is from KPF/Robert Madison. And while the others don't motivate much more than a "mmm, OK" (I'd prefer a design that elicits a "wow!"), at least I don't hate them. KPF/Robert Madison seems to regurgitate every awful building concept from the 1970s.

 

And these are the best that some highly paid, well-respected architects can come up with? What's with the addiction to glass? While conformity with surroundings can be boring, these designs seem to say "What surroundings?" At least the Cesar Pelli and Associates desing makes an honest attempt to provide some eye-catching transitions. Can a building be masonry on the Euclid side and transition to glass on the 9th street side?

 

My disappointment in this whole process might have been eased if we could have gotten something to make me forget it and the lofty Bruer tower. If the KPF/Robert Madison design gets built, it will only make me remember the whole thing was a clusterfuck.

 

That's it! That's the new building's name: The Cuyahoga County Clusterfuck!

"LOVE to know what on god's green earth is on the side of the Rotunda Building here"

 

I don't know what it IS, but I know what it's FOR.  It's a fig leaf to compensate for the fact that they're exposing the entire ass-side of the rotunda in the insane, but au courant pursuit of useless plaza space.  Honestly, I don't know why anyone supposedly trying to pay homage to a building would expose parts of that building that weren't meant to be exposed.

 

^Wasn't it a stand alone building before the tower went in?

This is what new construction gets you when you are spending under $175 million to construct an office building.  You are not going to get a building that says "Wow" for that price tag.  People constantly put down architects when they design a building below certain standards.  The county goes to the architcts and asks them to design a building with these monetary constraints.  Plain and simple, these are good architects, and if their client came to them and said they had $325 million to spend, the design would be much different.  These architects are trying to get this work, and they are trying to do it by designing a building to the best they can for a certain budgetary amount.

^ True but they picked the worst design out of the four. Wouldn't the other renderings fall within the same budget?

I don't know which one they picked and which ones they didn't, so I guess I can't answer that. 

^ Drum roll please ... the winning design from KPF and Robert Madison

 

 

I really do not see the all glass tall structure possibly being built for under $200 million.  The reuse one would not come in under due to the foundation modifcations in an area where a vault presently sits.  The Fleishman one definately would,  but if I were the county, I would view that as not nearly as imposing as the Madison one...even though the latter isn't world class by any means.  Fleishman's design really looks like a $60 million project to me.  i don't get it.  I was least happy and most dissapointed with that one and don't know what their logic was...but that's my opinion.  For a county structure, Madison's is safe and similar to most of the new US city courthouses and county buildings being constructed today. The materials (structural and architectural) remind me alot of the new county courthouse being built in Columbus. 

gotribe, the funny thing about this entire situation, is many county citizens think a new tower is being built to replace the one being torn down.  Aint that a kick in the pants!

^ They are designing several other courthouses including one awful looking one in Buffalo. The other ones aren't so bad (Hart. & Minn.).

 

http://www.kpf.com/main.asp

punch, it wasn't a stand alone building as you can see from this image:

 

And in this image, you can see the "ghost" of the former building that connected to the Rotunda.

 

MTS, the first things my partner said when he saw the models were "but that's not a tower!" and "Um, bad Rockside Road office park?!?".

 

^You are right.  But take yourself out of the world of urbanohio.com for a second and pretend you were not an urban development buff.  Now walk down E 9th and look at the completed Madsion structure for the 5 seconds that a non-intrested urban development person might.  Your comment would be, "that looks so much nicer than that black building used to be."  I know, sounds hard to beleive, but that is the way that most people view office structures.  They tend to awe at stadiums, bridges, monuments and museums.  Those mentioned are hard to design based on the massive critique you get from most of the population.  Not meaning one needs to skimp out on office structure design, but they seem to get skimped.  Simply put, look at the difference in money spent on the Browns stadium that is no where near an important intersection versus this county building.  Yes, yoyu need to have a big stadium to support the crowds, but come on, the materials used on the outside of the structure are insanely priced.  Several aesthetic components in our stadiums are insanely priced. 

My comment goes to MTS's

MTS, the first things my partner said when he saw the models were "but that's not a tower!" and "Um, bad Rockside Road office park?!?".

 

And the sad thing is that there are even some better looking buildings on Rockside Road than what was selected (albeit very few).  :-)

Thanks Mayday, I stand corrected :)

i heard a lot of people kind of surprised at Ingenuity as to what the county picked.  it was definately to the tune of "none of these look good except these two" and those were referring to the rehabbed version and Perkins & Will renderings.  It seemed like a lot of people there were expecting a new skyscraper. 

You can thank the PD for that - as usual for issues like this, they did a p!ss-poor job of releasing renderings and information. For the KPF proposal, they only showed the crayola sketch; for the Pelli proposal, it was only an interior shot of the atrium...  :wtf:

 

Good job PD!!!  :bang:

The same people that want a new skysraper are the same people saying the county is wasting our money.  I don't get it.  I think it would have been in the County's best intrest to put out a detailed document on the un-practicalities for re-use of the existing structure.  The only thing they really said was the floor plan wasn't adequet.

Just to clarify, I don't care if the new building is a skyscraper - I know some do, but I don't. What I do care about is that the new building be somewhat of architectural significance (not exactly tangible, I know), and the KPF/Madison proposal is as I said, a crystalline poo-pile. I would be completely satisfied with a handsome 10-story building provided it adequately addressed the Rotunda and the Euclid and East 9th streetscapes. The KPF/Madison proposal does neither.

 

You're absolutely right that the County Commissioners should have released their detailed findings to the public but apparently what their constituents see as "secretive and shady", they see as "business as usual" or in the case of Hagan - "well I can't be bothered to listen to the people I serve, can I!?!".

 

 

What I do care about is that the new building be somewhat of architectural significance (not exactly tangible, I know),

 

I think this is how the majority of us UrbanOhioians feel.  We're tearing down something to put up mierda with a courtyard that will be hell in winter or bad weather.

I too would like to see something of more architectural significance behind the rotunda, but based on the size of the building the county needs, I don't know what else you could do with it from a budgetary standpoint.  I would love to see a stone and granite structure, but, well that's obvious.  I can't think of a single building downtown, including the existing bulding, that would mingle well with the rotunda.

^But the current stone and marble isn't good enough for you.

 

Well well, who didn't see the second year studio solution to this project?  Now who is really on board to tear down the Breuer tower because they think it's ugly, and receive this monstrosity in return.  Sad stateof affairs.

And for being so concerned with being on the corner of East Ninth and Euclid, they sure as hell don't address that facade (or any for that matter) successfully.  It's like trading a bustling Euclid Avenue, for strip malls and lifestyle centers.  Oh, yeah, this city already did that.

I hate to go back-to-back-to-back here, but I keep looking at those images and can't believe what a piece of shit this thing is going to be.

I hate to go back-to-back-to-back here, but I keep looking at those images and can't believe what a piece of shit this thing is going to be.

 

I would love to hear the reasoning behind why this particular building was selected. It sure wasn't selected on it's aesthetic appeal. A first grader could see it is the greater of three evils.

I hate to say it, but I think a big part of the reason it was chosen is that R.P. Madison is a minority owned architecture firm.  Design teams should be chosen on ability to enhance the city/public space, not based on race to fulfill affirmative action percentages.

To this point every decision in this entire project has been the exact opposite of what it should have been .

 

*Site selection (why not Public Square or 668 Euclid Ave?)

*Demo or rehab (save at least $40,000,000, avoid environmental problems, and keep project salaries in the city, with renovation)

*Architect selection process (Davis Brody Bond is the superior architecture firm of the group)

 

Well done County Commissioners.  Inadequacy at its finest.

^668 was one of the buildings looked at in the begining of the site selection process

^I think he means, why wasn't 668 Euclid selected as the final.

 

"*Site selection (why not Public Square or 668 Euclid Ave?)"

 

The Public Square lot was considered for the Stokes Court tower and was turned down - because acquiring it made the entire project cost-prohibitive, so I'd imagine that would hold true for the County Admin Center. It may just be a parking lot, but it's still one of the most valuable (and priced accordingly) pieces of real estate in the region. 

If the Public Square lot cost less than $22,000,000, (the cost for demo of Breuer Tower) what's the difference?  Other than filling in a blank in the city and leaving a landmark stand for future reuse of course.

If the Public Square lot cost less than $22,000,000, (the cost for demo of Breuer Tower) what's the difference?  Other than filling in a blank in the city and leaving a landmark stand for future reuse of course.

 

what does the county say the cost is?