Too pedestrian IMO. Whatever cladding or facade used should be eye-catching, relatively unique compared to every other building designed around it. And in some ways convey authority, trust, and quality. It should have a single solid design language overall. And people should naturally reference the building in conversation because of its unique facade.
“Hey, buddy, there’s the the food hall?”
“Sure friend, notice our eye-catching City Hall? Go two blocks west of that.”
It has to be a rectangle box because that’s the most economical thing to build sure but you can mitigate some of that squareness using a facade that breaks up that squareness.
I personally would love to see a mini-Newfoundland Quay tower like building. It’s still a square box but the diamond facade is stunning.
The Lightner Center had a completely different program, to be clear. This was a Public Safety Center, not a new City Hall. We should have a higher design standard for the latter.
Well, we could at least put one of those “All Seeing Eye” triangles on top of it. Lit up with an LED display. It could look around like the Eye of Sauron.
In cold countries, wood might be economical. In a hot climate prone to fires, I’m against it. Frankly not a fan of even 6 floor buildings with wood frame.
This is not standard wood frame; building code would not allow this to be built if it were. There’s a distinction between “stick built” construction (2x4s) and heavy timber construction (usually engineered wood like cross-laminated timber or glulams, minimum 8x8 profiles).
While stick-built construction is cheap and prone to fire, heavy timber construction is the opposite – expensive to build and extremely fire resistant because of the char that forms around members of this size. Certain forms of heavy timber, like CLT, are even more fire resistant than concrete and steel.
What if we had one of the City Hall towers steel/glass (technology) and the second tower from this timber frame technology (green/environmentally friendly). Kinda like yin and yang (and mimics the new city logo, green/digital).
Will this project start without selling those lots on Fayetteville street or will this project stall until then? Seems like they have a timeline they want to follow.
The ball is already starting to roll. I think anyone would come off as “out of touch” if they wanted to completely bury this project as well as waste the money and time already spent. Of course, stranger things have happened I guess.
On the agenda for this Tuesday’s council meeting:
Civic Campus Phase 1 Project: Recommendation for Design Services
On September 18, 2018, the City Council directed staff to proceed with designer selection for Phase 1 of the Civic Campus project. The City engaged in a selection process that complied with all applicable laws and rules, including the requirement that firms are to be selected based upon demonstrated competence and qualification for the type of services required. A request for qualifications was publicly issued and advertised on November 26, 2018, and statements of qualification were received from 16 firms on January 14, 2019.
After a comprehensive selection process, staff recommends selection of the RATIO/Henning Larson team to provide design and consulting services for the Civic Campus Phase 1 project.
Let the tongue lashing begin.
