Monday, July 31, 2006
By Mario Velazquez
(NewcitySkyline) – There was a time when hiring an architect to build a residential high-rise in the United States was a mindless task. Developers were more concerned about delivering practical designs and saving as much of their money as they could, rather than creating and designing visual masterpieces.
For many years there has been a greater emphasis on the design of the interiors than there was in designing the façade of the building or other exterior features of the structure.
These days, however, buyers seem to be more concerned about not only the interiors of their potential new homes and the amenities they will enjoy, but also the design of their buildings as a whole, and developers seem to be listening to these concerns more and more.
In the past few years there has been a shift in how builders are approaching the design of their new projects. Especially in times where the condo market is so competitive and potential buyers have so many options to choose from.
An answer to this challenge has been hiring some of the best architects in the world to design many of these new developments, particularly those targeting a higher-class clientele.
These prestigious masters of architecture are known as “starchitects” and in most cases they have made a name for themselves with commercial, civic and institutional projects around the world.
Libeskind, Robert A.M. Stern and Michael Graves are just some of the names who recently have worked on projects in Sacramento, New York City and Miami respectively.
Here in Chicago, we’ve had some of these examples for quite some time. One of these famous residential projects was Marina City, designed by Bertrand Goldberg in the early 1960’s. However, in recent years it seems to be more prevalent for developers to hire these international high-profile members of the architecture community.
One of the latest cases in this trend in Chicago is the hiring of famous Spanish starchitect Santiago Calatrava by the Fordham Company to design their 2,000 foot-tall 400 North Lake Shore Drive proposed tower, formerly known as the Fordham Spire. The project recently changed hands and is now under the control of the Shelbourne Development organization in Ireland.
This latest trend in architecture is making its mark in the national real estate industry and today many of these high-end condominium buildings are becoming not just a very nice place to live, but also an architectural piece of art and in many cases a landmark for the city in which they are built.
These changes in architectural design have also allowed developers to charge much higher prices for their units in a market where the architect’s signature is almost becoming as important as the companies building the projects.
It seems like the days of the bland, boring and generic condominium buildings might be numbered and a new era of more creative, unique and inspiring architectural designs might be taking over. Only time will tell.
Copyright © 2006 NewcitySkyline, Inc.
