The Hat Elbow River | 177.99m | 56s | Cidex Group | NORR

RIP Calgary Skyline.
 
Before we riot in the streets, let's look at the actual numbers. In the diagram shown, there is 7600mm of spandrel, and 1,450mm of vision glass. Spandrel only makes up about a third of the covering, which is similar to Underwood, and less than Union Square, Nuera, and some others. The vision glass is tinted, so really the amount of tint will be the biggest factor. If not tinted much, the building facade will be fine.
 
Zoom said:
Before we riot in the streets, let's look at the actual numbers. In the diagram shown, there is 7600mm of spandrel, and 1,450mm of vision glass. Spandrel only makes up about a third of the covering, which is similar to Underwood, and less than Union Square, Nuera, and some others. The vision glass is tinted, so really the amount of tint will be the biggest factor. If not tinted much, the building facade will be fine.
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The diagram makes the glass look dark blue and non-transparent, but it could be mostly clear in the end. Hopefully they didn't spec the glass from the Korean distributor they had for West Village Towers.
 
Hi,
Might B Interesting to see how this Project is looking a year from now. It will B interesting to See what is Taking P,ace
with the Project when there is a Better Ideas of the Shape and out look of the Overall of the Bldg.
Tnx,
Operater.
 
Zoom said:
Before we riot in the streets, let's look at the actual numbers. In the diagram shown, there is 7600mm of spandrel, and 1,450mm of vision glass. Spandrel only makes up about a third of the covering, which is similar to Underwood, and less than Union Square, Nuera, and some others. The vision glass is tinted, so really the amount of tint will be the biggest factor. If not tinted much, the building facade will be fine.
Click to expand...

Can someone explain the voracious aversion to spandrel? It's basically treated like a swear word on this forum. Is it really that offensive? Please enlighten me
 
bgarneau said:
Can someone explain the voracious aversion to spandrel? It's basically treated like a swear word on this forum. Is it really that offensive? Please enlighten me
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I don't have an issue with it, except in the case of the Hat in EV. I think there's too much of it, and it looks like an apartment building from the 60's or 70's. Outside of that, I have nothing against it. My preference is more vision glass, but spandrel glass is the next best thing. Definitely prefer it to EIFS.
 
Agreed ^
Definitely overreacting guys. Not a piece of glass nor spandrel nor anything has even been put up yet and you're all ready to burn Cidex at the stake.
Wait and see how it goes.
 
I like spandrel for the most part but prefer the ratio of glass to spandrel to be more than 50% glass. I think everybody’s worry about these towers, stems from the Hat in East Village.

Before that tower was built, I don’t remember anybody having an issue with spandrel glass.
 
Yes, we have an aversion to it because of their horrible history with it, and the fact that these will be some of the most prominent towers in the city. It makes complete sense why we are worried about how completely awful this tower could end up.
 
UrbanWarrior said:
Yes, we have an aversion to it because of their horrible history with it, and the fact that these will be some of the most prominent towers in the city. It makes complete sense why we are worried about how completely awful this tower could end up.
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Besides Hat East Village, what do you think of their previous towers? Aura twins and Westgate TOD ones? Are there others?
 
The Hat EV and the Auras are shit. Westgate isn't bad at all, even good considering it's outside the inner city, despite it not being integrated with the surrounding community at all. We will wait to see how West Village turns out, then I might change my tune a bit on Cidex, but as it stands, they are the worst of the developers in Calgary.
 
UrbanWarrior said:
The Hat EV and the Auras are shit. Westgate isn't bad at all, even good considering it's outside the inner city, despite it not being integrated with the surrounding community at all. We will wait to see how West Village turns out, then I might change my tune a bit on Cidex, but as it stands, they are the worst of the developers in Calgary.
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Agreed. The big issue i have is simplify the design, make it less busy/offensive on the upper levels and focus on the podium. My beef here is the podium looks oppressive and shitty and is already looking hella VE'ed in the renderings. By finished product it'll be worse. A good example of attention to detail on the materials and producing something that isn't overly expensive is Dominion. Copy that.

All things considered, i think the towers feel large and oppressive, considering the riverside context. I get that water table v. parking is an issue and it's a challenging site and this is the most efficient way to use it, and it is hard to minimize the impact that the first however-many-levels are parking. But the architect and developer should at least try to make a podium that feel human-scaled and warm. They can do this by activating the riverfront with good design and planting, and having a form for the podium that masks the parking by making it feel like a human-scaled building with better/warmer materials (brick, anything that is not so modern).

maybe a podium more like this?
183324
183325
183326
 
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