Bloomingdame kindly tweeted about the VMP revised designs yesterday:
Latest plan from VMP - #Bloomingdaledc @mcmillanpark http://envisionmcmillan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/McMillan_092613.pdf … Lot to look at.
3:11 PM - 2 Oct 13
Here is the link to the PDF of VMP`s latest renderings: http://envisionmcmillan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/McMillan_092613.pdf
Here is the text of the 09/26/2013 letter sent by VMP to the DC Historic Preservation Review Board:
Vision McMillan Partners
Date: September 26, 2013
To: Historic Preservation Review Board
Subject: McMillan Sand Filtration Site | Master Plan + Building Concept Revisions
From: Vision McMillan Partners
The following information is being provided by Vision McMillan Partners ("VMP") to illustrate the revised Master Plan and design concepts for the new buildings proposed for the McMillan Sand Filtration Site. We respectfully request a presentation before the Historic Preservation Review Board ("HPRB") on Thursday, October 24, 2013.
VMP has further revised the Master Plan taking into account comments by the Board on July 11, 2013. The substantive changes involve:
- Tripartite Organization - Revising the building and street layouts in the center section to reinforce the reading of the tripartite organization of the site;
- Edge conditions - Increasing setbacks on the eastern and western sides of the site to fully accommodate the re-creation of the Olmstead Walk with the berm condition around the majority of site;
- Architectural Cohesion - Refining the Design Guidelines to shape a more cohesive set of new buildings to distinguish the landmark and the place created by the Master Plan; and
- North Service Court - Refining the Design Guidelines to create a design for the North Service Court that evokes its historic characteristics and reinforces the preserved historic resources.
Please find the enclosed images depicting the revised building design concepts that illustrate the substantive changes described above via dramatically improved design concepts.
- the Public Park and Community Center (only minor revisions);
- JAIR LYNCH Development Partners' Grocery and Multifamily building;
- EYA's Rowhomes; and
- Trammel Crow Company's Healthcare facilities
We will distribute these building illustrations to the ANCs 5E and 5A today as well.
VMP respectfully requests that the Review Board:
- Find the proposal to result in demolition, as defined by the preservation regulations, and therefore inconsistent with the purposes of the preservation act;
- Find the conceptual plan for the height, massing and placement of the new construction in relationship to the retained historic resources to be successful;
- If the project is approved by the Mayor's Agent, let the design continue to be developed and refined in consultation with HPO and return to the Board for further review when appropriate.
We appreciate your thoughtful consideration.
Respectfully,
Anne L. Corbett
Project Manager
Vision McMillan Partners
Again, here is the huge PDF that you want to scroll through:
What do you think?
6 comments:
Love it, when do they start
You know, i would think that these guys would be embarrassed to come back with something like this. Brought to you by the same people who bring you the national automobile slum. It just gets worse and worse with these guys....no vision and no shame. Now let's just hope that the city council can rescue us from this nightmare of a train wreck. Bring on the international design competition or give our city back to the french who know how to do proper urban design.
Well, the first word that comes to mind is "Vindictive." Here is the result of a design process where the development team has dropped all pretensions of creating a quality human space and now just wants revenge on the community that has given them so much trouble over the years. Each time I console myself with "at least they can't possibly come up with a worse look/feel that than giant slag heap of a building" and Voila! they break all of my expectations!! They are a truly talented design team!
How do i HATE thy concept, well let me count the ways:
1) "Sanitorium Chic" is what i would call the look feel of this rowhouse and office development except for that i've seen mental wards with more charm (st. elizabeths for example). When the HPRB said to harmonize the concept, i think they meant to the "greatest common denominator" and not to "least common demoninator."
2) I don't know about you but what i heard from HPRB was that there should be LESS road and not more of it. Less grid and not more of it. Less asphalt and not more of it. Good thing is that with this much added hardtop in our community it should raise the ambient temperature by 10 degrees get rid of all that pesky snow that plagues us once per decade.
3)On the office buildings: I love how that "band design" references DC's over populated prisons and really brings the feeling of incarceration into the public realm. I think you can see this EXACT same concept on K street at Farragut West .... And it really has aged gracefully there hasn't it???
4) That grocery store/multi family unit looks like a visual punishment.. Looks like brutalism collided with a Chipotle.
5) I noticed also that you left that great green dumpster on top of the community center. Nice touch.
Folks, try this fun experiment: put the words "Public Housing" into the Google search engine and then hit "images" and scroll down and you can find a building that matches nearly EVERY one of VMGs proposed designs in that photo montage. I'M NOT KIDDInG...this is the calibre of what VMG is shooting for.
Time to take this out of the hands of this clearly incompetent design team and go with some experts.
Thank you Todd!
This design looks like a prison or some post war settlement. Of all the creative, innovative ideas and design that can be thrown at this site, this is what they come up with. Come on, I know there has to be a better looking design to this project. I don't get why these projects always end up looking like a hodge-podge. Once these buildings go up we're stuck with them and I don't want to be stuck with this design as is. This is so frustrating. I really want this project to be the most amazing place in the city but this latest design simply falls flat,
It looks like they're trying to squeeze a ton of buildings into a space too small for those building. There seems to be NO unifying tie in with the existing look and feel of the surrounding community. Is there absolutely no consideration for this? I'm not suggesting a complete mimic of existing surrounding architectures, but this design is so extremely departed from the area, it hurts. No amount of trees can remedy that. This is just not acceptable.
Bandwidth limit has been reached.. can we host a copy of the pdf somewhere else?
The buildings and plan as drawn and described in the proposal are totally HIDEOUS! How do white clad buildings have anything to do with the existing neighborhood/history/culture? The community center looks like some old airport design leftover and the arched entrance looks like a labor camp entrance. There seems to be no integrated design or theme. The green area between the 'building development' area and the rest of the neighborhood ("us") looks like it is just stuck in so we will shut up about our need for a green space. Whisky Tango Foxtrot?
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