'World's largest building' opens in China - Pics may hurt BB

[normtwofinger]

How long until it's abandoned?

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

LOL you are off your game today and that's saying something for someone that often doesn't have a lot to add outside of criticizing others..

[worth]

Originally Posted by Thor

What does "pics may hurt BB" mean

I'm assuming Black Berry, but considering the pics are like 200px wide, i think even a POS blackberry can handle it.

[surferguy]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Eastern countries are so much more creative with their building architecture than out West where it's relatively bland.

Wait two days and rethink this comment. New Telus building coming

EDIT: beaten by Bigtime and about 2 hours

[JohnnyB]

I totally agree about the architecture in China as compared to Calgary, though it's not really a fair comparison. There is way more beautiful, interesting and adventurous architecture in China than anything in Calgary. It's not even close, though you wouldn't expect it to be considering the size of the places being compared. The Bow and the peace bridge are at least a step in the right direction though, and Calgary's buildings aren't blackened or greyed with ash either. That's a definite plus for Calgary buildings, even if they are generally extremely mundane.

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

I totally agree about the architecture in China as compared to Calgary, though it's not really a fair comparison. There is way more beautiful, interesting and adventurous architecture in China than anything in Calgary. It's not even close, though you wouldn't expect it to be considering the size of the places being compared. The Bow and the peace bridge are at least a step in the right direction though, and Calgary's buildings aren't blackened or greyed with ash either. That's a definite plus for Calgary buildings, even if they are generally extremely mundane.

Don't forget that more adventurous architecture usually comes with a larger price tag to design, procure and construct, something which China can do much cheaper then Canada.

The above statement has some... huge assumptions in it however.

[Nage Waza]

Probably no ginger beef, I'm out.

[NBC]

There might be ginger civet cat though.

Mmmmm, cat....

[browna]

Originally Posted by Kavy

These two remind me of WEM, replace the church (?) with the long water slide on the water park.

The roof in the secons pick looks like WEM as well...and although WEM is two levels as opposed to three, has the same looking interior...marble and gaudy gold trim and railing like WEM (still) does.

[Hack&Lube]

Design in China fluctuates wildly. They are still in the period of modernizing so I find that the design aesthetic tilts in every which way. There are a lot of really tacky/gaudy things in China based on where Western design has gone over the last 30 years because they haven't really matured to a level of sophistication beyond that sort of style yet. There's still that kind of 80's bling, bling opulence which makes sense considering their rapid economic explosion in the last 10-15 years.

That's kind of cool in some ways.

I think the wave is supposed to represent an Asian aesthetic like a pagoda roof or a Chinese golden ingot (Sychee) which is a very common traditional symbol of wealth.

[Acey]

As mentioned, it looks like SAIT's new Trades and Technology Complex but on a massive scale. If you haven't been down to SAIT to check out that building, it's pretty cool; I sadly have no classes there. The $400M price tag however... ehh.

[PsYcNeT]

I haven't toured Europe or the Middle East much (where I suspect the pinnacles of most of the world's modern architecture exists), but I will say China has a surprising amount of cool buildings. Beijing alone has about 10 examples I can think of that are one-of-a-kind pieces.

[Wormius]

I give it a year before duvet covers and underpants are hanging out the windows drying.

[drywall_taper]

Originally Posted by normtwofinger

How long until it's abandoned?

probably not as soon as you are hoping

[Peanut]

I, for one, was expecting to see photos of the world's largest box building. So color me surprised that some architecture was actually involved in this behemoth.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Eastern countries are so much more creative with their building architecture than out West where it's relatively bland.

It is a lot easier to be creative architecturally on a Government dollar. The architecture of Calgary and Edmonton is somewhat bland, true; but, for the most part this is because of the difficulties posed by our climate and their impact on construction costs and subsequently on the final price of the building. Private commercial building owners build to realize income, which today sits at around 6 to 6.5% cap rate at completion. Only the largest private landlords (e.g. REITs, pension funds etc.) are capable of pulling the large-scale buildings based on these returns even during healthy economic times. Freeze-thaw cycle and the technical challenges of extreme heating and cooling of our buildings make the costs of building envelopes and mechanical systems significantly higher for similarly looking buildings in Calgary vs. Vancouver, for example; thus making returns less attractive unless the revenues can make up the difference, which is not always the case, of course.

People tend to forget that the best examples of world architecture were built in the past by the slave or quazi-slave labour or, in modern times, at tremendous costs by the governments or monarchs. Plus, usually in a lot more forgiving climates than ours and with a significantly bigger taxpayer base than ours.

Only the Government agencies can pretend to be "architecturally tasteful" in Canada and only at cost to all of us. Question is though: can 15M taxpayers support all of the good taste our politicians may have?

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Design in China fluctuates wildly. They are still in the period of modernizing so I find that the design aesthetic tilts in every which way. There are a lot of really tacky/gaudy things in China based on where Western design has gone over the last 30 years because they haven't really matured to a level of sophistication beyond that sort of style yet. There's still that kind of 80's bling, bling opulence which makes sense considering their rapid economic explosion in the last 10-15 years.

That's kind of cool in some ways.

I think the wave is supposed to represent an Asian aesthetic like a pagoda roof or a Chinese golden ingot (Sychee) which is a very common traditional symbol of wealth.

Back in 1600, you could buy 10 wives with that thing.

[driveway]

The corners on the roof of that thing are insanely "classic" Chinese architecture.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Kavy

Don't forget that more adventurous architecture usually comes with a larger price tag to design, procure and construct, something which China can do much cheaper then Canada.

The above statement has some... huge assumptions in it however.

That's why I said it's not a fair comparison. Of course Calgary's not building many of the types of buildings that get built in China for numerous practical reasons.

[normtwofinger]

Originally Posted by drywall_taper

probably not as soon as you are hoping

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19049254