Very cool, thanks for the links to the webcams hood. Looks like the parking garage isn't getting any underground floors? Watching the timelapse of what I think is the parking garage showed no digging and just vertical beams being constructed from the ground-level.
There aren't many multi-story purpose-built garages in the region with fully underground floors. In fact, are any of them? It seems the only time they go underground is when they another usage is built on top of them.
The first is a little large, but not prohibitively so, and all the rest are just right. Little disappointed by what I'm assuming are some of the materials, but it's not as if the university is going to splurge on aesthetics, so I'll just let that go.
At least the buildings facing Harrison look good. The mixed use building on the corner is nice while the office building is actually pretty impressive, it's similar in feel to the Wells Hall addition, which looks great. Looking at the office building I sort of wonder if they initially designed it without supports for the fourth floor overhang, it would be expensive to build it without those posts but it would really add to the effect.
For what it's worth all the lap siding on these buildings should be fiber reinforced cement (aka Hardie Board). I've come to accept lap siding on all-residential buildings and FRC is a massive step up from vinyl or aluminum, it can often look as good as wood siding.
Do all these developers have the same architect? Except for the building on Harrison many of the drawings look like the new building on Trowbridge. Which is to say not so good. I know it is a cost vs. ascetics issue and ascetics almost always loses.
At the Riverside Church on S. Washington in REOtown you can find a good use of metallic panels as siding, they are glazed with deep rich colors that can be found in the area's other buildings, along with some nice panels of old wood. I think it is a more successful and pleasing use of metallic siding. Corrugated metal always looks like a cheap pole barn to me. MSU has built some beautiful student housing buildings in the past, I wish they would continue that tradition here.
Down the street at The Breslin Center they cut down a lot of nice trees to begin the expansion. MSU usually tries to save the trees. I guess they were too big to move.
@hood, there isn't a built-in way to resize the pictures. I would recommend saving them locally, resizing them, and uploading them to your own hosting. That way they will stay online even after Neumann Smith takes them down
Comments
@Jared any way to resize images?
For what it's worth all the lap siding on these buildings should be fiber reinforced cement (aka Hardie Board). I've come to accept lap siding on all-residential buildings and FRC is a massive step up from vinyl or aluminum, it can often look as good as wood siding.
At the Riverside Church on S. Washington in REOtown you can find a good use of metallic panels as siding, they are glazed with deep rich colors that can be found in the area's other buildings, along with some nice panels of old wood. I think it is a more successful and pleasing use of metallic siding. Corrugated metal always looks like a cheap pole barn to me. MSU has built some beautiful student housing buildings in the past, I wish they would continue that tradition here.
Down the street at The Breslin Center they cut down a lot of nice trees to begin the expansion. MSU usually tries to save the trees. I guess they were too big to move.