Future Skylines/Developments of the US

[vanshnookenraggen]

They didn't have to. Traffic would have been fine without a tunnel and just a boulevard.

 

[meddlepal]

Every time I visit Seattle I fall more in love with it. If it wasn't such a pain in the ass to move across the country I'd do it in a heartbeat.

 

[bigpicture7]

Every time I visit Seattle I fall more in love with it. If it wasn't such a pain in the ass to move across the country I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Funny, I've been having the exact opposite reaction. When I'd visited 15 and 10 years ago, I loved it. When I've been back there within the past couple of years, I'm growing to dislike it more and more. Seaport-like corporate-boring architecture multiplied across multiple dozens of buildings, incredible traffic, poor public transit (though this is obviously under construction and improving), overpriced hipster food, astronomical gentrification and housing prices. Their best architecture, IMO, is the older stuff (with a few exceptions). The entire area around the Amazon HQ looks like it came out of a 3D printer that machine-learned what the 50th-percentile 25-year-old-brogrammer seeks in a neighborhood.

But, hey, Amazon gives out free bananas to the 'community'. They're really giving back to the city.

 

[stick n move]

Every time I visit Seattle I fall more in love with it. If it wasn't such a pain in the ass to move across the country I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I agree 100%. I was lucky enough to live there for about 6 months for my school back in the Marines and I absolutely loved it. It kind of felt like if Boston had been built in Maine in a way. The dreary weather Im sure can get old but they also dont get pounded with snow the way we do. It blew my mind though how we have Humpback whales and they have friggin killer whales, thats about as badass as it gets. Also the old growth trees as wide as a house and the volcano off in the distance over the tree tops is jaw droppingly beautiful.

Going back to the tunnel thinking about it it must save an enormous amount of money to stack the lanes in a single tunnel the way they are vs bore two. Im not sure if the tbm’s or material strength werent as big or advanced before but this is much better. They only have to bore 1 tunnel here which must save like half the money. Id imagine this will definitely be used probably exclusively from here on out when possible. The machine will definitely have to be bigger but theres really not many negatives I can think of vs a whole lot of positives. Theres even potential to fit transit in there if the lanes were moved up more within the bore because the curve at the bottom doesnt matter for trains when you dont need a wide flat area for a road, just two thin raised concrete parts to put the rails on. Also they can use the upper/lower model for subway tunnels too. I think this is great.

 

[stick n move]

Another "new deco" tower, this time in Philly at 1601 vine st. As much as I love Liberty Mutual and am extremely happy with it, a tower would be 100x better. We were basically missed by the limestone skyscrapers of the golden era, I hope we get one of these so bad. The argument "it missed us so its over" is dumb, washing dc wouldnt exist, fanuel hall etc... because those eras of architecture were "missed" too. Nothing wrong with cladding a tower in limestone these days, plus they still do have a different style to them now. Limestone towers just give skylines a certain authenticity and class to them that nothing else does. Plus as old a city as Boston is it "should" have 1 or 2 anyways. The custom house tower, hancock, and liberty mutual are great, but a legit slender 500 footer would be phenominal. Something like 30 park in nyc in downtown Boston would be next level to go with our new glass towers.

 

[stick n move]

 

[odurandina]

meanwhile, back in Boston, they have a collective meltdown at the mere suggestion of 870'
at the tallest FAA site and no shadow.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

I'll tell you no one is happy about those super talls next to the Manhattan Bridge.

 

[stick n move]

Yea just one Manhattan sq. Alone is crazy

Oasis Bangkok Skyscrapercity

Luca9A8M, Skyscrapercity

Zwamborn, Skyscrapercity

Streetscapeer, Skyscrapercity

 

[stick n move]

Imo this is the nicest tower to go up in years.

 

[stick n move]

Even Minneapolis getting a new masonry tower...

I see a distinct difference with these new towers vs art deco of years past. Art deco had black metal plating over the floor plates with vertical lines of limestone. There was always a very strong emphasis on verticality. Here the whole facade is clad, no black floor plates, no emphasis on the vertical lines and they all seem to use bump out windows.

Note the vertical lines, black floor plates. These new towers have their own style and if we try to say we can only build with glass no more “stone” we do our cities a disservice. This tower is much closer to 30 park than Empire state. 30 park is 4 years old.

 

[stick n move]

Jersey City New Tallest, 99 Hudson, 889ft T/O:

Via: Oasis-Bangkok, Skyscrapercity

 

[fattony]

^ Wow. Jersey City just keeps on growing.

Surprisingly to me, Hudson County is comparable to Boston proper in both land area (46 sq miles to Boston's 48) and population (692k to Boston's 685k).

 

[stick n move]

Transbay parcel F San Francisco

Perviously peer city running away

They dont wanna build too much to preserve the neighborhoods, but they have a literal housing crisis. We have obnoxious rents they have a crisis. Their skyline should round the corner southeast through mission bay and go to the central waterfront imo. Theres already hills, a highway, and like an old eastie waterfront situation there so it would actually improve that section. Build it up and connect the waterfront and it could be great. They could and should go condo/apartment crazy down here because they need units bad. They dont need supertalls they can keep the main downtown as the focal point, but 50 mid rise condo towers here would be great for the city. Mission bay is already their seaport so thats a start, they need more though. Will they...idk.

 

[stick n move]

“F5”, 5th and Columbia, Seattle. What a beautiful tower. Its like a perfect blending of the Scalpel in London and 181 freemont in San Francisco. Two great towers on their own, apparently one great tower together. It looks like a render at dusk, Im jealous... we need one! Or one similar.

The726, Yimbyforums, Seattle

 

[KentXie]

“F5”, 5th and Columbia, Seattle. What a beautiful tower. Its like a perfect blending of the Scalpel in London and 181 freemont in San Francisco. Two great towers on their own, apparently one great tower together. It looks like a render at dusk, Im jealous... we need one! Or one similar.

The726, Yimbyforums, Seattle

Hopefully the New State Street HQ will be our "F5"

 

[kmp1284]

Transbay parcel F San Francisco

Perviously peer city running away

Boston hasn't been a peer of San Francisco for fifty years. Seattle maybe but San Francisco blows Boston out of the water in every possible way.

 

[fattony]

Boston hasn't been a peer of San Francisco for fifty years. Seattle maybe but San Francisco blows Boston out of the water in every possible way.

Thanks for the helpful contribution.

 

[KentXie]

Boston hasn't been a peer of San Francisco for fifty years. Seattle maybe but San Francisco blows Boston out of the water in every possible way.

Maybe not 50 years but to be brutally honest, the new stuff being put up in SF in terms of creativeness is at a significant higher level than Boston, part of this does have to due to the height restriction limiting developers in Boston the flexibility to decide how much profit they are willing to give up to create something iconic but the other part is that the local architects here that built the city of Boston appear to be incredibly conservative in the design, either because they lack innovation or they are content with being "good enough," the latter of which may have to do to the fact the city has a track record of picking favorites, and as a result, the favorites feel like they don't need to make any effort to stand above their competitors.

Skyscraper designs in Boston, like One Dalton, aside from the height, is a very conservative design shaped by the plot it is built on and doesn't really deviate from its monolithic form aside from the fins (which by the way does make a huge impact). I think the new State Street HQ and the St Regis Residence in the Seaport are the first buildings in Boston that breaks away from that conservative design and hopefully more designs of that quality will go up in the city.

 

[FitchburgLine]

Boston hasn't been a peer of San Francisco for fifty years. Seattle maybe but San Francisco blows Boston out of the water in every possible way.

This is stupid even for trolling. SF was unusually lightly hit by white flight, if Boston was competitive 50 years ago it far exceeds SF now due to experiencing a much larger bounceback.
In reality, Boston was doing much worse than any of its quasi-peer cities 50 years ago, but still has catching up to do especially on transit and housing production.