[IsaacKhouzam]

I'm in no way saying the current iteration is better, and I agree that folks can't 'wow' with things they have no intention of actually doing or are not constructable. Menkes magic trick across the street being perhaps the prime example of this bullshit bait-and-switch.

What do you mean 'attitude'? It's not about expense, wood as a material fundamentally doesn't work in the way the imagineers at Adjaye were implying it would in their pretty pictures. It was and is completely unbuildable as earlier depicted.

I don't think anybody was married to the idea of a massive structural wood cantilever, if that's what you're referring to. Speaking for myself, I was excited by the outward expression of the design: the warm, wood or wood-like cladding; the inclusion of greenery in the building facade; the way public space at ground level wove underneath the building (which could be accomplished in far less structurally daring ways, without large cantilevers); and the boldness of a three-block long building with a unified, deliberate architectural expression. Any one of these things might have had to give as a result of a reasonable value engineering process, but that isn't what happened. Instead of value engineering, we've been given a new design which bears no resemblance to the previous one and preserves absolutely none of its positive features. When I refer to "attitude," I mean the implication that we're all idiots for being upset by this.

 

[ProjectEnd]

See previous response to @Northern Light.