Roxbury Group Re-Starts Book Caddy Garage Plans, Only Uglier

[rb336]

But I bet you every apartment will have expensive granite countertops and cherry cabinets!

The design isn't for the people who live in the building--it's for everyone who can see it. This screams "We are a city of low standards, and we really don't give a shit what kind of places we build."

This building looks like an afterthought of a storage facility, not a place where humans live. Would you buy a house that looked like this?

Sorry, but the design of the building - like all buildings - is for the tenants. It's a form follows function issue. A lot of the things that would improve the building to your taste would detract from the experience of living there. A wide-open view is a major enhancement for an apartment dweller, so knock off your "their going to have really nice places to live but I have to look at something I don't like" crap

[DetroitBoy]

Sorry, but the design of the building - like all buildings - is for the tenants. It's a form follows function issue. A lot of the things that would improve the building to your taste would detract from the experience of living there. A wide-open view is a major enhancement for an apartment dweller, so knock off your "their going to have really nice places to live but I have to look at something I don't like" crap

I agree. They are endless annoying. They would never have the means to live in these places yet they constantly whine about projects which are revitalizing the city as if they are criminal. The preservationist would be better served working to preserve buildings before they become derelict.

[ghettopalmetto]

Sorry, but the design of the building - like all buildings - is for the tenants. It's a form follows function issue. A lot of the things that would improve the building to your taste would detract from the experience of living there.

You say that as if people haven't been constructing buildings for 5000 years. We're not sending people to Mars here...apartment buildings have been constructed in the past, yes? Is it too much to ask that a trained architect design a building that is visually pleasing, instead of just slapping some rectangles together in Revit?

I'm very interested to hear how a more human-scaled massing or addition of actual artistic qualities to the exterior cladding would detract from the experience of living in the interior of the building. I'll get my popcorn.

In the meantime, I congratulate Detroit for finding a way to make Soviet architecture look appealing. Without exaggeration, I can say I've seen communist-era tenements in Warszawa that look nicer than this.

[bailey]

Well this crappy "shipping container" design costs money too. I don't know of any architect who works for free. Interestingly enough, the real design costs are in the detailing--of windows, facades, walls, doors, interiors, which have to be done anyway. Application of any semblance of artistic sensibility to the massing and exterior facade detailing comes at a minimal cost compared to what the project will cost to construct. But I bet you every apartment will have expensive granite countertops and cherry cabinets!

The design isn't for the people who live in the building--it's for everyone who can see it. This screams "We are a city of low standards, and we really don't give a shit what kind of places we build."

This building looks like an afterthought of a storage facility, not a place where humans live. Would you buy a house that looked like this?

I wouldn't, but I bet they have no problems finding tenants.

[EastsideAl]

The thing about the 'revised' plan for this building is that it still looks ridiculous. They just traded in one silly-looking design for a different one. Of course, the largest part of the problem is that, whatever they do, they will still have an apartment building perched on top of a hideous out-of-place and out-of-scale parking garage that should never have been built in that location. The present design of the apartment building though makes the whole thing even more glaring by perching what looks like a bloated modernist Miesian '50s-'60s glass box on top of that crushingly ugly faux- [[very faux) 1920s style dull grey block garage.

I'm not sure who would want to live in a "luxury" apartment sitting on top of an enormous parking lot, but they'll sure have a nice view from there of that sun-dappled vacant lot/"urabn garden" where the actual 1920s Lafayette Building used to be, and of the even more hideous garage behind it.

[royce]

Inner walls and doors are being installed on the ground-level. Does any know what's going in there?

[buckster1986]

Might be a Sales Center and mock-up of a model unit.... but that's just my guess...

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Looks like this is actually starting, since residents of the Book Cadillac seem to have gotten notices to that effect.

http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2...-degc.php#more

Its odd that the renderings on the Kraemer site are the [[much nicer) original ones as opposed to the revised brutalist version. Its also odd that Curbed says the notice mentions 8 floors since that was not the case before; I wonder if its revised or that's just an error? I am not really hoping for more than the ugly previously revised version.

[Dbest]

Looks like this is actually starting, since residents of the Book Cadillac seem to have gotten notices to that effect.

http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2...-degc.php#more

Its odd that the renderings on the Kraemer site are the [[much nicer) original ones as opposed to the revised brutalist version. Its also odd that Curbed says the notice mentions 8 floors since that was not the case before; I wonder if its revised or that's just an error? I am not really hoping for more than the ugly previously revised version.

Yeah, the curbed article offered no clarity on which rendering is the final choice.

[mikeg19]

Good to see the project getting off the ground finally. Hopefully it's version A and not version B of the renderings.

[Mind field]

You'd have to hate Detroit to build the modern looking "brutalist" version of this development. Hopefully that is not the case and the much nicer looking version is built.

[Trumpeteer]

You'd have to hate Detroit to build the modern looking "brutalist" version of this development. Hopefully that is not the case and the much nicer looking version is built.

My god after all the years of neglect and despair now comments on "style"?? Be eternally grateful that investors are BUILDING in Detroit.
You'd have to hate Detroit NOT to build.

[Dbest]

My god after all the years of neglect and despair now comments on "style"?? Be eternally grateful that investors are BUILDING in Detroit.
You'd have to hate Detroit NOT to build.

Cool story bub...

[Mind field]

My god after all the years of neglect and despair now comments on "style"?? Be eternally grateful that investors are BUILDING in Detroit.
You'd have to hate Detroit NOT to build.

I don't look at it that way. Downtown IMO has clearly turned a corner where we CAN and SHOULD be selective as to what is built. There is surging demand for downtown real estate, i don't think it's unreasonable to ask that developers build attractive with respect to surrounding buildings.