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

I'm trying hard to imagine this project looking good when completed but I just can't. Maybe if they blended the roof with....no no it would still look butt ugly. For a complex that will be forever blocking the view coming into downtown on Macleod, the design better be exceptional.
 
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If they made the areas that are black that i can live with brick that would be fine, but the areas with a huge mass of spandrel and 1 window are unacceptable and so oppressive. It seriously looks like a viewing window in an Imperial Base in Star Wars. If they changed those sections to resemble the other black sections and alternated the brick colour in a similar way to Curtis Block that would be more acceptable.
Alternatively they could do something more architecturally interesting with those oppressive looking sections, maybe like the Charles Street Car Park in Sheffield.
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After seeing the West Village Towers, this project is going to be utter garbage solely due to the materials. Yea the podium is massive but I can personally live with that seeing that the Elbow River is the size of a creek. Never really counted it as a river lol. I also like the height because it'll extend the skyline southwards when looking from the East side of Calgary (the 2nd best view of our skyline IMO after Crescent Hill). The South view of our Skyline is going to get destroyed anyway when Anthem builds their towers with Crosstown which are going to extend quite a bit south.

But all and all, with Cidex doing this development, we are in store for some more crap. If Bosa, One Properties, Hines, or some other quality developer was completing this project I could be at ease but we're talking about Cidex! God save our skyline.
 
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The grey panels aren't spandrel, they are cladding. If it's an actual stone product it wouldn't be bad, but it will likely be a cheap metal panel that will be VE'd to death and look like WV. The actual windows they show will probably end up at least 50% spandrel.
 
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With the recent renders, I actually don't mind them, even with how obtuse the the podium is; which is the Cidex/NORR way it appears. The tower itself looks nice, and considering the location, I think it's fair game to have the heights they are proposed at if they want go that high. I would like to see these built as proposed.
 
I kind of agree. I'm not a fan of the podium, but I'm not overly concerned about it given the location. If this was proposed along one of the popular pedestrian corridors in the Beltline (4th street, 12th ave, etc..) I would be against it, but given its location on MacLeod and 1 Street SE, I don't see it having much of an effect. For me the biggest part was the treatment facing the river, and it's improved to a point of being decent enough.
 
It's a bit of a monstrosity considering it's right on the river, and doesn't look like they used the site very well. That said, it's sandwiched between two major roadways, so I appreciate that anything with that kind of density is being done here. I'd give it a pass if we knew it were going to be built as rendered.

The parking in the podium can go to hell.
 
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