Tag: Institutional Buildings

Development Strategies, Houston Architects, Institutional Buildings, Memorial Heights, Proposed Developments

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The YMCA of Greater Houston is considering several options for the 1.3-acre piece of land off Waugh Dr. that until last week held the vacant Masterson Branch of the YWCA, according to a communications document forwarded to Swamplot. Among the possibilities for the property at 3615 Willia St., which sits on a bluff above Spotts Park and overlooks White Oak Bayou: building a new YMCA facility, collaborating with the city and area nonprofits to develop “recreational opportunities” on the site, partnering with a developer on an unspecified project, or selling it outright. If the organization is considering selling the property, why did it decide to tear down the 1982 building, designed by Houston’s Taft Architects?

77007, Demolitions, Development Strategies, Houston Architects, Institutional Buildings, Memorial Heights, Postmodernism, Proposed Developments

Art

04/20/11 2:37pm

A Look at the Blaffer Art Museum’s Glass Future

Museums, Proposed Developments, Renovations, University of Houston

Included in the upgrades to the University of Houston’s Blaffer Art Museum, scheduled to be complete by the start of next year: an actual bathroom for visitors. Plus: a better elevator. If you’d rather take the stairs, you’ll have this new proboscis to pass through, on the building’s north face, wrapped in vertical bands of clear and textured channel glass. That sorta-Cullen Sculpture Garden-looking slanted wall-column thing supporting it, which architect Dan Wood of New York’s WORKac calls the “wallumn,” should help block the view of the loading dock. And it’ll frame a brand new entrance on that side, facing the unnamed street and parking lot in front of it that parallels Elgin. The $2 million renovation (Blaffer spokesperson Jeffrey Bowen says $1.75 million worth of pledges have already been raised) won’t increase the amount of gallery space, but it should make the institution more visible on campus and allow for more activity in the back courtyard it shares with the rest of the university’s fine-arts building:

77204, Art, Galleries, Institutional Buildings, Museums, Proposed Developments, Renovations, University of Houston

Demolitions

04/20/11 12:12pm

Saying Goodbye to Houston’s Classic PoMo Y

Houston Architects, Institutional Buildings, Memorial Heights

3 Comments

Good news for those of you who enjoy the athletic side of demolition: At the moment, crews from Cherry Demolition are hard at work taking apart not just the Downtown Y, but this iconic vacant Y on Willia St. off Waugh Dr. as well, just north of Spotts Park. It’s the former Masterson Branch YWCA, designed by Houston’s own Taft Architects in a blaze of postmodern glory back in 1979, opened in 1982, but left to collect mold spores since its closing in 2005. The property was purchased a few years ago by the Greater Houston YMCA, with plans to open a new Wortham YMCA on that location.

Swamplot reader Jason Ezer was on the spot yesterday and captured these views of the formal decommissioning ceremonies:

77007, Demolitions, Houston Architects, Institutional Buildings, Memorial Heights, Postmodernism

Buying and Selling

04/12/11 6:05pm

Starting Now: Downtown YMCA Is Coming Down

Demolitions, Downtown, Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Institutional Buildings

9 Comments

If you’re the ghost of Kenneth Franzheim, scoot! Again. Cameraphone correspondent Pankaj reports that Cherry Demolition is already at work dismantling a second building designed by the Houston architect: the original Downtown YMCA at 1600 Louisiana St. Workers from the demo company have begun removing windows from the 10-story brick building; the property is now partially fenced. In 2008, as it announced plans to construct the new Tellepsen Y a few blocks to the east, the organization said it would tear down the 1941 structure in advance of selling the 85,000-sq.-ft. lot beneath it to Chevron, owners of the Enron hand-me-down tower next door.

77002, Demolitions, Downtown, Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Institutional Buildings

Construction Materials

03/22/11 1:59pm

Carefully Wrapped Stimulus Package: Rice’s New Brockman Hall for Physics

Institutional Buildings, Openings and Closings, Rice University

18 Comments

A few days ahead of its scheduled public debut later this week, Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia got the new Brockman Hall for Physics to sit still for a brief photo session at its new Rice University home. (That wasn’t too difficult: The structure features underground labs specially outfitted to dampen vibrations.) For the occasion, the university’s newest model chose several different outfits: a gridded terracotta rainscreen over a slip of colored aluminum composite cladding on its southern face, a patterned glass curtain wall silk-screened with a Penrose pattern on the north, and underneath, some plain concrete leggings:

77005, Construction Materials, Institutional Buildings, Openings and Closings, Rice-University

Art

12/10/10 12:05pm

Peter C. Marzio’s Unfinished Business at the MFAH

Institutional Buildings, Museum District, Museums, Proposed Developments, Quicklink

5 Comments

PETER C. MARZIO’S UNFINISHED BUSINESS AT THE MFAH Count the creation of Isamu Noguchi’s Cullen Sculpture Garden, the addition of the Rienzi estate, and construction of the Rafael Moneo-designed Beck Building as just a few of the accomplishments of the Museum of Fine Arts’ longtime director, who died last night at the age of 67. But more was being planned: “At the time of his death, Marzio was working toward the goal of a third building for modern and contemporary art, which he envisioned as presenting a global view of art movements in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He called his plans for the third building the most intellectually challenging work of his career.” [29-95]

77005, Art, Institutional Buildings, Museum District, Museums, Proposed Developments

Institutional Buildings

10/28/10 2:12pm

Two New Towers for the Harris County Hospital District

Kashmere Gardens, Medical Buildings, New Construction, Parking, Texas Medical Center

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Budget considerations ended up cutting the number of floors in the new ambulatory care center the Harris County Hospital District is about to build at its LBJ General Hospital campus north of 610, but the district is still calling the planned 3-story building a tower. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Ambulatory Care Tower (the low building shown in the center of the rendering above), a single-story connecting building that will link it to the existing hospital, and a similarly towering 3-story parking garage took place yesterday at 5656 Kelley St. on land owned by the district, portions of it the site of condemned housing lots.

Also claiming tower status, but with the extra credentials of 2 additional floors (with what looks like a little elevator cap at one end for good measure): the separate Ambulatory Care Tower the district is building on a former surface parking lot next to the hospital administration building at 2525 Holly Hall west of Almeda, closer to the Texas Medical Center. That building (pictured below) will house specialty clinics now located at Ben Taub as well as a radiation therapy center. A new 9-level parking garage serving both buildings opened last month:

77026, 77054, Hospitals, Institutional Buildings, Kashmere Gardens, Medical Buildings, New Construction, Parking-Garages, Towers

Harbordale

09/24/10 11:12am

The Largest Food Bank in the World Won’t Be Built from Scratch

Houston Architects, Industrial Properties, Institutional Buildings, Renovations

From RdlR Architects: Drawings showing how the former Sysco Foods HQ on Portwall St. off I-10 just inside the East Loop will look when its transformation into what its sponsors claim will be the world’s largest food bank is complete. The Houston Food Bank bought the facility — which includes a 298,000-sq.-ft. warehouse and a 130,000-sq.-ft. freezer building — back in April, for $17 million. The nonprofit hopes to be able to distribute 120 million pounds of food annually by 2018.

77029, Distribution Centers, Harbordale, Houston Architects, Industrial Properties, Institutional Buildings, Nonprofit-Development, Renovations

Demolitions

09/03/10 3:20pm

M.D. Anderson’s Mental Health Break

Institutional Buildings, Medical Buildings, New Construction, Texas Medical Center

10 Comments

In from Swamplot roving photographer Candace Garcia: photos of the last moments of the UT Health Science Center’s Mental Science Institute at 1300 Moursund St. in the Med Center. The school’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences deserted the 1965 structure back in February, when it moved to a brand new 6-story Behavioral and Biomedical Sciences building near the corner of Cambridge and OST, south of the main Med Center campus in a new development dubbed UT Research Park. The vacant Moursund building was sold to the building executioners at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, who are now busy demolishing it “for future expansion.”

77030, 77054, Demolitions, Institutional Buildings, Medical Buildings, New Construction, Texas Medical Center

Downtown

09/01/10 3:07pm

Metro’s Next Real Estate Deal

Institutional Buildings, Office Space, Quicklink

3 Comments

METRO’S NEXT REAL ESTATE DEAL A tidbit from interim president and CEO George Greanias’s presentation to Metro’s new board yesterday: 2 entire floors of the transportation agency’s headquarters building just north of the Pierce Elevated at 1900 Main St. Downtown have been sitting vacant. For how long? That isn’t clear; the building was completed in 2005. Greanias’s suggestion: the floors “could be leased or occupied by Metro services now housed in other locations.” [Houston Chronicle; Hair Balls] Photo: Wikimedia Commons

77002, Downtown, Institutional Buildings, Metro, Office Buildlings, Office Space

Comments

08/18/10 3:10pm

Comment of the Day: Graduating Valhalla

Institutional Buildings, Leasing, Nightlife, Quicklink, Rice University

COMMENT OF THE DAY: GRADUATING VALHALLA “The Rice Thresher reported in 2009 that the administration was considering raising Valhallaâ€™s rent by almost 250%. [Update: The actual proposed increase turned out to be 30 percent, taking into account existing fees; see comment below —Ed.] Since the staff is all-volunteer, the rent increase would be passed along in the price of beer, which is one of the main reasons to go to Valhalla of course. (The other being that Rice is the largest outdoor drinking area in Houston.) So even if the administration isnâ€™t planning on taking Valhalla down all at once, it could be done in by a slow strangulation of rising costs.” [Katk, commenting on Rice Taking KTRU Off the Airwaves, Handing Over Humble Transmitter to KUHF]

77005, Bars, Comments, Institutional Buildings, Leasing

Institutional Buildings

08/17/10 11:20am

Parking Garage High: Where They’ll Stack 6 Levels of Cars at St. Thomas High School

Magnolia Grove, New Construction, Parking

23 Comments

St. Thomas High School officials broke ground last week on what will likely be the most monumental garage in the long history of Houston secondary school parking. A 6-story, 433-space parking structure designed by Kirksey will rise at the southeast corner of the school’s Memorial-and-Shepherd campus. It’ll replace this dirt lot southwest of Granger Stadium and just north of Shepherd, allowing other parking areas on campus to be redeveloped. A couple rendered views of the finished product, some portion of which will likely be visible from Shepherd:

77007, Institutional Buildings, Magnolia Grove, New Construction, Parking, Parking-Garages, Schools

Institutional Buildings

07/29/10 11:58am

Can’t Evict Them Before They Leave

Neighborhood Disputes, Quicklink, Sharpstown

3 Comments

CAN’T EVICT THEM BEFORE THEY LEAVE District F city council member Al Hoang failed in his bid yesterday to have a justice of the peace evict an organization calling itself Vietnamese Community Services from the Vietnamese Community of Houston and Vicinities building across the street from Plazamericas in Sharpstown. In a hearing the Chronicle‘s Moises Mendoza describes as “bizarre,” Hoang told Judge Russ Ridgway the Vietnamese Community Services name sounds too much like that of the building’s owners, and that the result was “too confusing.” Hoang is a former president of the Vietnamese Community of Houston and Vicinities, which also goes by the acronym VNCH. In May, he helped the organization win city council approval of a $400,000 community development block grant — to renovate the VNCH building. “Although Vietnamese Community Services has been in the building for 18 months, Hoang said he only recently discovered it’s not calling itself Vietnamese Elders Association, as he believed it had been since the group first moved into the building at 7100 Clarewood Drive. Vietnamese Community Services offers hot meals and English classes, among other things, to elderly community members. Hoang has been demanding that Vietnamese Community Services change its name or move elsewhere for the last few months, but the executive director of the organization refuses to do that.” Earlier this week, that organization’s executive director, Kim Nguyen, told Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg that her group had already planned to move to a new location next month, so that the building could be renovated. [Houston Chronicle; Falkenberg column]

77036, City Council, Evictions, Institutional Buildings, Neighborhood Disputes, Sharpstown

Buying and Selling

06/29/10 8:47am

HCC’s New Planned Parenthood

Institutional Buildings, Midtown, Quicklink