Central Square

Are we going to hear something soon about HMRC at Central Sq - (former western mail plot) I wonder? the site is being cleared - exploratory drilling - and I think they maybe are draining the 'pool'? Anyway surely if the HMRC relocation is going to happen by 2019 then we will at least see some plans very soon? Anyone 'in the know' on this one...

Does this mean that St David's House is due to come down soon then? I thought that it's demoltion and construction of the Western Mail plot was to be done after the Bus Interchange?

HMRC are saying that no contract will be finally authorised and signed before the end of March 2017. No indication as to which site is the chosen one - although personally cannot see how they can have a signed contract if the site does not have planning permission - but they say negotiations have been progressing well.

So hang on for another 6 weeks!

Cant wait until March. The sooner St Davids house and all the other 1960's monstrosities come down the better. I am looking forward to Cardiff's COMPLETELY NEW city centre and (hopefully) a nice and tall HMRC building!

Bus Station interchange thing will go forward to the planning committee (and decided upon) this Wednesday, according to the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-39077411).

Although it has to be decided upon, we all know that this one will get the go ahead due to the enormous political and economic pressure to build it. No major city exists without a bus station. Still a hideous design mind, it looks like a bloody Russian Council block from the 1940's. I have no idea why they changed the old design, it was glorious.

Cardiff is going to be hectic with what I would imagine being another two tower cranes going up! With HMRC practically confirmed for CS too, we might actually see this development completed with ALL it's phases, which is extremely rare and just as pleasing.

It's absolutely awful. Everyone defending this design really needs to read the DAS properly. It's the biggest load of architectural waffle I've ever read. Excuses upon excuses. The residential block has had a change of material too. It was originally to be built from the same stuff as One Central Square but will now be made from the same corrugated metal you'd see on an Anderson shelter. They've also narrowed one side of the office block and it genuinely looks awkward. Seriously everyone, go and read it and tell me this will look good.

Couple this with the comments from Network Rail about the complete lack of cooperation from Rightacres and we can see that the developer is absolutely holding the council to ransom here. They can build whatever they damn well want because we curently don't have a bus station! Incredibly short-sighted by the council.

BBC : An artists impression of how the new Central Square site will look.


The BBC are displaying 'fake' old news again!

Is the tall building next to the stadium the HMRC site??

The Champions League final in the city, media reporting will be that Cardiff might look good when its finished.

Compare that to this utter monstrosity:

(That's "aluminium spandrel" by the way - the corrugated metal I was referring to. Typically difficult to see in this image but can be seen in the DAS)

Interchange 2.jpg (234.14 KiB) Viewed 8710 times

Reading the DAS I believe that it will look awful, they make a lot of promises about a quality design and then go and put a cheap cladding like that on it.
I noticed the plots north of wood street have changed though, I wonder if this is a hint of what we can exspect for the HMRC building?

It looks like utter shit and I can't believe that Foster + Partners have their name anywhere near something as awful as that. OK, I'm not a lover of modern architecture, but I can tolerate high-quality modern architecture that's not to my taste. I can't, however, tolerate crap that will only look worse over time.

Personally, I hope the council knock this back and tell them (Rightacres) to come back with the quality they promised. Who cares if we have to wait another 12 months or whatever, it's better than being stuck with something utterly awful for 50 years!