the one development looks exactly as you said- a trash compactor- and the other one looks like just another idiotic attempt to "go Malibu" with those god awful moronic rooftop things to make it look "contemporary" and trendy.

Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan are full of these crummy looking rooftops on the new condo developments. These thingsa re all going to fall apart after 10 years. Why can't the designers put up a decent looking roof ?

Why all of the phoney art deco rooflines???
We are NOT Miami Beach nor are we Malibu.

WE ARE DC !!!!!!!!!!!!!

by w on Jan 4, 2010 9:48 am • link • report

What exactly does a DC roofline look like?

by Neil Flanagan on Jan 4, 2010 10:07 am • link • report

If I had to choose between East Banc and Toll Brothers just on reputation alone it wouldn't be close at all: East Banc is far more in tune with what a city should be. Anthony Lanier, principal of East Banc, is a total urbanist (for instance, he wants to get rid of parking on M St. and double the sidewalks in Georgetown). Toll Brothers belongs near the central ring of real estate hell for their roll in the 2000's suburban sprawl bubble.

While the East Banc proposal does leave something to be desired visually, the Toll Brothers looks as much like a pile of trash as the East Banc one. It looks like every other cheapy-made-Panera-bread-housing crap that has been built since 2000.

[I'm awfully confused, though about the disparity in retail square footage. How can there been such a huge difference?]

I think the city will probably choose East Banc, if not just because they are willing to develop the fire station property as well. And I'm confident it's the right choice.

by TM on Jan 4, 2010 10:13 am • link • report

+1 w's comments. Yes, It looks like a cube of trash, but Toll Brothers looks just like everything else constructed in DC in the past five years. We need a term for this type of architecture. Something more creative than "neo-abletocleartoomanybureaucraticobstaclesism"

by JTS on Jan 4, 2010 10:13 am • link • report

FWIW, I don't mind the contemporary style. It looks a hell of a lot better than glass cubes, because it uses the well-tested techniques of articulated facades and having a top and bottom to create something that seems to fit into an urban pedestrian environment. Why shouldn't most things constructed in DC in a five-year period look mainly the same? Everything constructed from 1890-1920 looks the same, too, and we like that.

by David Alpert on Jan 4, 2010 10:23 am • link • report

It wasn't mentioned above, but the linked Gazette article on the BRAC bike lanes also notes a meeting on the Rockville Pike NIH/NNMC tunnel on Jan 19th.

by dd on Jan 4, 2010 10:37 am • link • report

I would agree partially with w. The first looks horrendous, but the second one really isn't that bad. At least there's a roofline and the facade's articulation is a vast improvement from the standard K street modernist box. While DC has a great tradition in brick architecture which weaves its many periods together, there's certainly room for some experimentation. As long as it dosen't numb the mind or chill the soul, I'm down with a bit of variety.

BTW, getting rid of on-street parking does not an urbanist make. Street parking is essential in creating a defensible space out of the sidewalk. Try walking three feet from 45mph cars! And the fact that Toll brothers has made money with-in our current zoning/infrastructure shouldn't be held against them specifically, expecially if they are targeting the urban market. I think it's something to cheer that some of the mainstream builders are evolving towards better buildings in better locations.

by Thayer-D on Jan 4, 2010 10:48 am • link • report

It's all fun and games until two or three of these teenagers get pushed in front of a train after trying to rob someone.

Just wait until we get the DC Bernie Goetz...that will make our city all the more livable. Will Metro Police show a presence then?

When was the last time you saw a Metro police officer on a platform?

by Redline SOS on Jan 4, 2010 11:02 am • link • report

I see one that numbs the mind and one that chills the soul...

Would it matter if it looked like a cube of trash if it were a beautiful cube of trash?

by Neil Flanagan on Jan 4, 2010 11:04 am • link • report

Do we need another grocery store in the West End?

by charlie on Jan 4, 2010 11:05 am • link • report

Is the rendering on the left trying to look like a Borg cube?

by Steve S on Jan 4, 2010 11:58 am • link • report

Yes, Steve.

Resistance is futile.

by Alex B. on Jan 4, 2010 12:50 pm • link • report

Isn't there a Trader Joe's 2 blocks away from this site? Is there really enough demand to support 2 grocery stores within 2 blocks of each other?

by Fritz on Jan 4, 2010 1:11 pm • link • report

I like Trader Joes, but I don't know if they're a substitute for a "normal" grocery store.

by Michael Perkins on Jan 4, 2010 1:14 pm • link • report

funny, I sometime feel the same way about safeway and giant...

by charlie on Jan 4, 2010 1:43 pm • link • report

The folks in Foggy Bottom have made it clear to me that they support the Eastbanc proposal and for reasons beyond the aesthetic.
1) They get a fire station. Toll Brothers says nothing about a fire station in their bid, but they did tell me at the public meeting that they would be willing to rework their bid to help subsidize on.
2) They do NOT want a grocery store. Not only is there a Trader Joes a block away, but there will be a mega-Safeway (or it is Giant) in the Square 54 development (the old GW Hospital site), and three groceries within 600 yards of each other is too many.
3) They support the huge (1500 square feet) and expensive condos that Eastbanc envisions, because of their ongoing battle to keep apartment buildings from turning into de facto GW dorms. Toll Brothers' mix of income and sizes is not their cup of tea.

This square lies within the boundaries of the Foggy Bottom ANC, but the library and fire station serve both Foggy Bottom and Dupont ANC's. Therefore, Dupont Circle ANC will weigh in on this matter, but not on land use or asethetics. So long as our concerns regarding a new library and new fire station are met, we will likely defer to our neighbors in Foggy Bottom on the other issues.

by Mike Silverstein on Jan 4, 2010 2:24 pm • link • report

David

I agree with you that the example on the right side [ the brick proposal] is a lot better- but I have to admit that it - to me- is a letdown.
Far too much "contemporary style" architecture being done these days is copycat and really dull. The problem is that the "architects" are still stuck in the 1950's and have not come to grips with the fact that most people do not want Mies v d Rohe or Corbusier trash as most people have learned that we cannot live with austere nothingness and keep from having suicidal thoughts.

Yes- the brick design has a little more feeling- but I will still come back to the idea that these silly overhangs and "deck" treatments are basically a trendy and temporary fashion that has nothing to do with making a beautiful and desirable place to live and to utilize. I'm thinking also of the extreme of this kind of trend- the horrible "bedspring" improvement that the Architect of the US Capitol put atop the Capitol Power Plant addition to hide the even more offensive Brutalist 1970's addition. It looks supremely ugly and they really did nothing to conceal it as they had intended. This damn bedspring thing some moron came up with will no doubt rust out in the next 10 years and become an even worse eyesore.

I will not be happy until architects start to realize that they must include REAL artworks as an integral part of the structure of their buildings- all great and successful historic buildings do not try to supress the roles of the allied fine arts- they try to shepherd them and to include them.
Yes- this Malibu/ Miami Beach brick thing is cetainly better than the ugly trash compactor- but it is not enough and it is not at all original.
We can do better, as they say.

by w on Jan 4, 2010 4:18 pm • link • report

They stuff Corb and Mies down your throat at most architecture schools, so don't hold your breath. The hero architect against an ignorant public, or some such rubbish.

There are several schools out there now that give you a more realistic view of what working for the public and their communities might mean, so it's going to be a slow evolution rather than a revolution.

by Thayer-D on Jan 4, 2010 4:50 pm • link • report

I have virtually no authority to speak to architecture, so I will speak as a mere pedestrian: The EastBanc proposal is hideous compared to Toll Brothers'... From a distance. I don't mind the repetition of styles present in other parts of the city. But what I really want is street level activity, especially in that part of town. EastBanc will be offering a lot more retail, and that will bring more people walking around. To me, that looks better.

by Dave Murphy on Jan 4, 2010 6:15 pm • link • report

The Eastbanc reps have stated at each presentation--and there have been many--that the rendering they are presenting (and which you display above) is NOT a design. It is simply a massing model.

Toll Brothers' solution is responding to an ongoing neighborhood-sponsored retail study wherein the number one request of 80% of residents--despite the TJ's on 25th Street and a potential grocery at 22nd and I (don't hold your breath)--completing the study requested a full-service grocery.

The development constraints on the property and adjoining buildings are going to force some sort of ginched-up box from either developer.

You know this whole "competition" is a joke and a travesty when you see only two companies step up and "bid" on a project that is clearly wired. And each one submits a proposal that results in a comparison like apples to bananas--it just doesn't wash.

But it's something to be expected from our government "leaders," who wouldn't recognize economic development if it bit them in the butt.

by Anonymous, Too on Jan 17, 2010 12:23 pm • link • report