Glenbow Museum | 43m | 9s | DIALOG

Mountain Man said:
Maybe related to the use of those buildings? Curtain walls would shine into an outer hallway, but the programmable areas would have controlled light levels. Just a thought...
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That's true but many other facilities combine hallways/atrium on the exterior with natural light and the exhibit areas facing inwards. The Royal Alberta Museum and War Museum definitely have more natural light. Not all museums are like that but it's just interesting that many of our facilities are built with opaque exteriors.

Golfing guy said:
With all the hail damage recently maybe that goes into factoring during design nowadays? Look at the airport and all the windows in Concourse B that were damaged. You’d think some of those designs in Calgary would be prone to damage/flooding.
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That's possible, but buildings like the Municipal building, Brookfield, The Bow, seem to do fine in the hail.
 
Cladding definitely offers a far superior R value to glass. Also the cooling loads are reduced by not having solar heat gain.

I'm cool with cladding and funky roof lines, our downtown is full of glass boxes.
 
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Its wild to me that there still isn't a proposal to modernize the base of the tower. I know we looove some good Brutalism on here, but the stuff at the bottom of the tower is trash.
 
Look at the fly through video on P. 2 of this thread and see just how much has been value engineered. There were supposed to be little circular windows scattered amongst the waves that were removed. The windows and mesh screening that are currently along the top floor were never supposed to be there. Looks like a lot less glass than what was originally planned. We will have to see what happens with the NE corner and if they follow through with all the glass sections.
 
I think the renders we see are the design concept before the actual drawings were done. Architects love to make things look great, but techs and engineers typically add some reality to that so the design can get watered down even before tendering and value engineering are done. The spirit of the design is what's built for the most part, I'm quite happy with it. Want to see more how the loading bays are finished before I fully give my 2 thumbs up.
 
Mountain Man said:
I think the renders we see are the design concept before the actual drawings were done. Architects love to make things look great, but techs and engineers typically add some reality to that so the design can get watered down even before tendering and value engineering are done. The spirit of the design is what's built for the most part, I'm quite happy with it. Want to see more how the loading bays are finished before I fully give my 2 thumbs up.
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It has nothing to do with engineers "adding some reality". Designs for complex buildings like museums go through dozens of iterations before they are built, and as the design is refined things change, often in response value engineering pressures.

When renders for a project that's still in its early phases of design are published what you see is the architects attempt to hide the fact that like 80% of the building still hasn't been designed. That's just how it works. It's their job to present the idea of a building in such a way that makes it look realistic and feasible, even though months of work remains to actually make it buildable. If they didn't do that then nothing would ever get built because we wouldnt know what it's going to look like until shovels are in the ground. That doesn't mean they don't know how to make it work and that they need an engineer to come in and save them
 
Well, as someone who works for an Architecture firm I stand by my statement. Architects will design the concept with their client, choose their preferred materials and
CallmeCatbread said:
It has nothing to do with engineers "adding some reality". Designs for complex buildings like museums go through dozens of iterations before they are built, and as the design is refined things change, often in response value engineering pressures.

When renders for a project that's still in its early phases of design are published what you see is the architects attempt to hide the fact that like 80% of the building still hasn't been designed. That's just how it works. It's their job to present the idea of a building in such a way that makes it look realistic and feasible, even though months of work remains to actually make it buildable. If they didn't do that then nothing would ever get built because we wouldnt know what it's going to look like until shovels are in the ground. That doesn't mean they don't know how to make it work and that they need an engineer to come in and save them
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OK, so understand that I work for an architecture firm and see this quite often. The Architects design the concept, engineers are required to design the structure, HVAC systems and all that other stuff, your comment about engineers "saving them" is unnecessary lol. The cladding manufacturers will also have their own engineers that need to look at how to attach the panels to the walls, resist wind loads and uplift and all that stuff. So I'm just adding some insight into how this process happens, because the renders we have are clearly fairly conceptual in nature.

The new building does look a bit bunkerish still, but is 100x better than what was there before. This cladding system can't be cheap, and I'm much happier than if the b. uilding was turned into a glass box. I think there was some opportunity to add a bit of articulation to the facade, but the budget must not have allowed for that. Cutting huge holes in the structure must be quite expensive, so I'm excited to see how the interior opens up more
 
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