CardiffWalesMap

It'll be interesting to see what the final plans actually look like. These are very early masterplans and we only have to look how much they've changed on both Capital Quarter and Central Square.

That said, I like they intent with regards to height. That Brains' chimney is not exactly short and that tower dwarfs it! With any luck, it'll be taller than the one we're looking at for Watkin Jones on Hope/Custom House St.

Peiriannydd wrote: That Brains' chimney is not exactly short and that tower dwarfs it! With any luck, it'll be taller than the one we're looking at for Watkin Jones on Hope/Custom House St.

Can someone please tell me why this is a good thing? Anyone been to Barcelona, Paris?.....many successful European cities could be used as an example. High density doesn't need to equal tall buildings.

Barcelona and Paris both have very successful and famous tall landmarks.

I think it will be good because it offers the only frontage to the river with an active frontage other than residential. it also redevelops a very poor looking area and prevents the Brewery smell from polluting the city center. It could retain some aspects of the sites historical use in the chimney and maybe associated buildings, and moves the city center south towards the Havana Quay site which may encourage that to start, which in turn links the bay and center with a more prosperous area. The density of people could encourage a gentrification of this run down end the city center and maybe encourage gentrification across the river. a tower would act like a landmark to the development and give a sense of identity that one smaller building wouldn't, as the same money on a tall building would not go into a short building.

redragon wrote:Can someone please tell me why this is a good thing? Anyone been to Barcelona, Paris?.....many successful European cities could be used as an example. High density doesn't need to equal tall buildings.

Barcelona and Paris have fantastic streets and squares of lined with historic buildings, built at a time when craftsmen (not cheapskate contractors) were employed by clients who really cared about how buildings looked. When these buldings were damaged by conflicts they were repaired and rebuilt in a similar style.

Sadly, Cardiff has chosen to knock down almost all of what the Luftwaffe missed. Now we have a city centre with little historic character, many brownfield sites and far too many cheap, hideouse post-War buildings. Some may disagree, but those who say that Cardiff never had the same architectural standard of say Dublin or Edinburgh really need to look through some history books or trawl through the record offices and see the architectural plans and photographs of Cardiff's lost buildings.

Cardiff needs to preserve what little remains but it should also embrace modern developments and do things that other UK cities either don't want to do or can't. Personally, I'd love to see Cardiff with a tall skyline, filled with quality tall building developments.

Without repeating the same point too much, tall buildings can work if they are of decent design and materials (not Altolusso, Landmark Place, the Aspect, the student flats on Pellett Street, Student Castle etc etc etc). These are generally of badly weathered render or metal cladding and really need to have active frontages at ground floor level like a commercial unit along the base. Too high and you get the affects of a micro climate as parts of the city of London are experiencing. Equally important is the space around them which should provide good public space or connections without meaning they are setback from the road or stuck in the middle of a car park.
You can have an amazing skyline with a shite environment for pedestrians and residents.

The library and St Davids 2 are a little better but Cardiff hasn't had a good rep for achieving quality to date which I think is more important than accepting any old tall building because it's a tall bulding.

redragon wrote:Without repeating the same point too much, tall buildings can work if they are of decent design and materials (not Altolusso, Landmark Place, the Aspect, the student flats on Pellett Street, Student Castle etc etc etc). These are generally of badly weathered render or metal cladding and really need to have active frontages at ground floor level like a commercial unit along the base. Too high and you get the affects of a micro climate as parts of the city of London are experiencing. Equally important is the space around them which should provide good public space or connections without meaning they are setback from the road or stuck in the middle of a car park.
You can have an amazing skyline with a shite environment for pedestrians and residents.

The library and St Davids 2 are a little better but Cardiff hasn't had a good rep for achieving quality to date which I think is more important than accepting any old tall building because it's a tall bulding.

See, out of those, its only Pellet Street student residential (now I think called "Liberty Bridge") that are really poor quality. Alto Lusso seems to have a real bad rep on here, and while I agree the quality is not amazing, I don't think its bad either. And just by its unusual shape, it is perhaps the only tall building that is recognisably Cardiff.

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Cheers for the update - I'm sure i'm not the only one wondering if anything was going on. Any idea when latest plans will be made public? Or any kind of time frame for what is obviously a very substantial development.

No sorry, but I think it'll be some time. At least this does appear to be a serious proposal.

Am I missing something? What happened to the update?