Future Skylines/Developments of the US

KentXie said:
I mean the almost the exact same thing can be said about Boston. Had 0 tower over 496ft and no building over 400 ft for nearly 20 years and then boom, built the tallest tower outside of NYC. It's easy to cast stones when you don't look at yourself.

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First of all, Devon is 1.688 times taller than the next tallest, whereas the Pru was 1.512 times taller for Boston.

However, more importantly is to look at the city surrounding the towers. OKC has open space as far as the eye can see. It's a huge building surrounded by parking lots and wasteland. They had no need to go that tall. 2 more economical towers (or hell, a whole complex) would have made more sense. Outside of a few square blocks that city is probably less urban than Worcester. They don't need to build up. They need to fill in. Boston was already dense as hell and it necessitated verticality.

The Boston you showed was totally built up. On the other hand, OKC doesn't need more towers. It needs an actual city!!! The fact that you compare the 2 is frankly ludicrous. Ultra dense, filled-in Boston finally going vertical, vs stagnant OKC going huge out of vanity.

Oklahoma City by stevesheriw, on Flickr

Oklahoma City by stevesheriw, on Flickr
 
What would be the point of building two other than one? Just to not disrespect their peers? The skyline is kind of lopsided but the tower is amazing and makes a bold statement. I think thats what you want from a world headquarters. It would have cost a lot more to build two, and it was actually necessary to have them all in one building. Its my own opinion but they got a great tower and its their city they can do whatever they want. The fact that were talking about okc right now means it was a success. They could have built 2-3 average towers and it still would have been boring little okc. Instead they made a statement with one of the better modern towers in recent memory and it put them on the map, whereas before they werent even close.
 
stick n move said:
What would be the point of building two other than one?
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The point is when a city has a trillion parking lots and "wasteland" parcels, it should encourage filling those in rather than having one giant dick-waving tower surrounded by nothing.
 
Now they have a crown to encourage those other lots to fill in to create a great city/skyline, where before it would have just been a shitty skyline that keeps staying shitty. I see your point but I just agree to disagree. Boston could have built 2 25 story Pru's and the skyline would look like shit today. NYC could have built 3 empire state buildings and all that infill would have looked like a huge blob of concrete. This city is neither one of those and never will be, but a couple good projects in the right places over the years will look good. This was a dick waving contest in a way, but the need was there to consolidate into one tower. I dont see it on the same coin as Dubai building a 2800 ft residential for absolutely no reason other than because they can. This at least puts a world headquarters into one tower and looked good at the same time. It had a purpose. Having one tower absolutely dominate looks good in certain cases, imo this is one of them.

Taipei 101 is similar, although with way more infill, but the overpowering effect it has on the skyline is pretty unique. I think Devon Tower also looks good, but I do understand your point. You have to admit that the tower alone is very good. Its also filled completely unlike Dubai and these other cities that also have a ton of land and still go to ridiculous heights just because. Im not saying OKC now has a great skyline or is a major city, I just think the tower looks good and I appreciate good architecture.

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DZH22 said:
The point is when a city has a trillion parking lots and "wasteland" parcels, it should encourage filling those in rather than having one giant dick-waving tower surrounded by nothing.
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It's not dick-waving. It's makes more business sense for a company to consolidate everything into one building. And it is not ludicrous; the Pru owned a large slice of property where they could have easily built two shorter towers than a 750ft one. This isn't simcity. A company isn't going to adhere to rules that they have to build several short towers because one person in the city that doesn't even work for the company is complaining because it would look out of place.
 
Re: Devon

stick n move said:
You have to admit that the tower alone is very good.
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I think it is ugly during the day and super-ugly at night. These things are subjective.

The city would have been better served by a pair of smaller towers and one less parking lot, but don't blame the company for wanting to be under one roof.
 
stick n move said:
On another note I cant remember their names, but Phillys skyline would have been incredible if those twin towers were like the Philly version of NY twins and the roof heights were like 1400 and they dominated downtown. I wouldn't be the same image either that nobody wants to see anymore like if Boston put twins by winthrop because our waterfront skylines are similar. It would be unique here and would have looked amazing.
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Liberty Place. Best thing built in the 80s?

Comcast is putting up a new tower now. Spire will be the tallest thing on the skyline.

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There's also an FMC tower nearly topped out, but it's off the side a bit.
 
NYC.

520 park ave. Boston needs something like this IMO. Liberty mutual style, but tall and downtown.

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^That looks amazing. Architecture of today is much better than architecture during the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Well the NYC and SF proposals are amazing. The Philly proposal is ok.
 
tysmith95 said:
^That looks amazing. Architecture of today is much better than architecture during the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Well the NYC and SF proposals are amazing. The Philly proposal is ok.
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I do like the Philly tower but its weird to me that we have two cities now in the US getting their new tallest by way of spires. LA and Philadelphia are both buildings towers that have shorter roof heights than their tallest but are taller because of a spire. It looks weird and half assed in my opinion. Both towers look good, but the effect on their skylines is awkward.

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They should both have the letters "almost" lit up on the roofs at night.
 
^^The new supertall in Philadelphia looks hideous. In other words, i'd take it in a New York minute in (Cambridge). And an inferior city will have 7 or 8 buildings taller than anything in Boston, within a few years.
 
odurandina said:
^^The new supertall in Philadelphia looks hideous. In other words, i'd take it in a New York minute in (Cambridge). And an inferior city will have 7 or 8 buildings taller than anything in Boston, within a few years.
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It looks exactly like the office portion going up at the TD Garden.
 
Amazing how quickly they are densifying. Starting to look more dense than Boston's skyline, even a smalle resemblance to Chicago.
 
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Aston Martin (the car company) is proposing a 66 story residential high rise in Miami. I'm serious.
 
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