Skyscraper Chicago

Trying way too hard.

 

Interesting, but does look odd in the surroundings.

 

Here's my guess on the future of office buildings.

1. The future belongs to integrated live/work/play developments. Remember, people started commuting to get away from the factories. The white collar workers fled to high end residential (Grosse Pointe) and the blue-collars fled to Levittown. The blue-collars had to work in the factories, but the white-collar types built downtown towers for themselves.

The future will be no-collar workers. They are a varied group, but one key factor is they are NOT willing to commute. They want to live/work/play all within bicycle distance of each other. Frankly, I don't blame them.

2. I'm predicting massive innovations in building materials, particularly glass. There's no reason, these glass towers can't be producing solar energy. Plus, imagine glass or other materials that are shapeshifters. Depending upon light and angle, a building will appear to change shape.

3. Planning will have to be citywide, instead of block by block. The new urbanists are right. A city starts with a high-density center, such as where two rivers come together, and then get less and less dense as you go out.

 

Nobody has a response? Is it because I'm 100% correct? Must be.

 

Thanks. My point is the central business district is a dinosaur. Big cities may become the central entertainment district, but the idea of people commuting 40 miles to work is dying just like the daily newspaper.

 

I think you'd be better off to look at Paris for a model of the future of cities. Go back and study why modern central business districts developed in the first place. Due to limited communication outlets, big businesses had to put everyone in the same place, think the GM building in Detroit. Those days are long gone. I know the lady in charge of A/P for Exxon. She is headquartered in a relatively small suburban office park. The actual work is done in Argentina and Thailand. They pay over $1 billion a day in bills. The future is decentralization, not more centralization.

 

Well, not always. Far flung, non English native speaking staff are not the best to resolve problems. Ask a sampling of vendors and suppliers how they like talking to a foreign country about an error in an invoice.

In my industry two of the largest players did this, and they are bleeding clients and staff (as a result of really screwed up back office support). Right now 80% of my growth can be traced back to the decision to move ops out of th building.

Personally, I've spent two hours on the phone with googles out of country accounting support, it's so bad I almost feel sorry for them. Have no idea what a debit is, and despite saying "yes I understand" they do not.

Just because they are paying $1bil a day doesn't mean they are doing it well.

I'm also seeing a shift away from remote workers-which I did not expect. I've recently talked to web.com staff, who frequently used to work from home but now have to show up to work. I've asked temp staff companies about work from home and they have told me "we don't allow that anymore"

I do think that no one wants to drive into any city for work. Just ask Elon musk about commuting.

Smaller buildings closer to affordable housing and, focused tasks and connected together via the net.

That's my prediction

 

We're saying the same thing. My point about Exxon is they are no longer in a central business district, not how well their A/P is working. Back in the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and into the '90s, Exxon A/P had no choice. They all had to be in the same building. This is no longer true. So when I see these pictures of new skyscrapers, I have to ask, "Who is going to work there?"

 

Sorry I misunderstood you.
Sometimes reading a thread on a phone isn't the best way :-(

When I look at a skyscraper I ask "how the heck will they get there?" When I see a four story building in downtown LA replaced with a 50 story building I can't imagine the impact on an already horrific traffic problem.

 

They won't. That's the whole point. The live in the suburbia and commute to the central business district is so '50s.

 

Holy cow that's going to be a monster. Nice shot btw

 

Always nice.

On my recent flight back to Chicago we were treated to the fly-over Chicago coming from the West, downtown, turn around and heading for a landing from the East. Always love that approach as it gives so many opportunities for shots of the city from the air.

 

Awesome shots, thanks for posting.