Ideas to Make over Cobo Center

[Lorax]

Giffels Rosetti Assoc were the original architects, why not get them today to redesign the place, updating the lousy 80's/90's modernizations, and return it to more of it's original retro appearance, especially the marble pylons over the driveway and the suspended glass room [[restaurant) overlooking Jefferson Ave.

This can be done with an expansion as well, and done fairly reasonably if tight reins are kept on the budget. Simple and elegant as it was built is the way to go- and knock down JLA and expand it out the back, and continue the riverwalk all the way down.

[iheartthed]

And the pedestrian-friendly side of Cobo allows people to access it from where?

http://images.thecarconnection.com/l...00169362_l.jpg

There's the three-lane Jefferson service drive, the six-lane freeway tunnel, adjacent to which is three more lanes of asphalt, followed by a one lane driveway with parking, followed by--more asphalt. The face of Cobo serves to wall off the whole asphalt mess, disconnecting one from the remainder of the city.

Across the street you have the Pontchartrain, designed in the fortress-on-a-pedestal motif, and the fire station. To where is one supposed to walk from here--the Arena?

This is good urbanism? Without the "removed blocks" and use of glass over the doors, you wouldn't even have a clue how to get into the building! http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...247.98,,0,-5.2

Come on man, you're reaching. You're trying to make this a referendum on a poor urban layout that was the brain child of the city planners. Do you want me to say that Detroit the fucking worst planned city on the face of the Earth? Okay, Detroit is the fucking worst planned city on the face of the Earth.

But that is completely irrelevant to whether Cobo is pedestrian accessible. I know firsthand how accessible Cobo is by foot because I've walked up to and into the building dozens of times. It is accessible by foot. It is not completely surrounded by freeways. You can walk into the building without ever having to walk over an eight lane highway. And as far as convention centers go, it is one of the few that exists which is pedestrian accessible... Which was my original point.

Can Cobo be made more accessible to pedestrians? Of course! Is that the most pressing of concerns to fix about Cobo? Nope. But I do hope that someone thinks about it when designing the next incarnation of Cobo.

[ghettopalmetto]

Part of that "poor urban layout" is the manner in which Cobo is configured with respect to its surroundings. The other part is the shitty design of the facade elements.

I think it goes without saying that Detroit needs more people on the sidewalks if it is to ever be a successful city again. This includes making sure that important civic buildings like Cobo behave as part of an integrated urban environment, as opposed to the isolated island of single-use activity that it is now.

Frankly, I don't give a shit if Bumfuck City, USA has a convention center that is less pedestrian-accessible. Cobo is a fortress that relates to the surrounding blocks like crap. Detroit doesn't get anywhere by looking in the rearview mirror. The status quo simply cannot be allowed to perpetuate.

[d.mcc]

Frankly, I don't give a shit if Bumfuck City, USA has a convention center that is less pedestrian-accessible. Cobo is a fortress that relates to the surrounding blocks like crap. Detroit doesn't get anywhere by looking in the rearview mirror. The status quo simply cannot be allowed to perpetuate.

Which once again brings me to my statement on how Detroit has missed some opportunities over the past decade or so to do something architecturally relevant. Hey, how's that cruise ship terminal???

*EDIT* I looked it up again... They redesigned it, and it looks even worse than before. Looks like they just moved some of the ole Smith and Dewey Terminals from Metro...