The ‘oil-canning’ just happens. With such a large expanse it will probably be impossible to address?

As a longtime resident of the neighborhood, I keep riding or walking by the building, waiting on it to grow on me, but it never does. To be frank, I think it is ugly as sin, and the way it addresses (or I should say, doesn’t address) Peace Street is atrocious. The skin on the back side looks like an industrial aluminum building, and the ornamental “fencing” on the front makes it look like a correctional facility. Elegant and historic Peace College and the surrounding hitoric buildings are as much of the context as anything else at that location, and the new building ignores all that and pays homage to the Archdale Bldg and the other monoliths erected by state government. You’re killing me.

I think it’s one of the most, if not the most, attractive modern buildings Raleigh has to offer.

Apparently I’m in the minority… but then I liked the Garland Jones Office Building. So, what do I know? :)

My wife and I also go past this building almost everyday on the way to a simply stated example of contemporary design, the Center for Childhood Development at Shaw University.

It has been interesting to watch, and, talk about, this building.

Late Modernist Brutalism is exactly the style that describes alot of the downtown modernism. It reminds me of the 70s, the bad things about it. And that is exactly how my wife and I have been talking about it – neo-brutalist. In that regard, it is beyond brilliant, because, it is very very hard to pull off something that fully lives in the vernacular of the time, to reconstruct the cult of the ugly. For that, Frank Harmon is a genius – but – this is the discussion we have everyday about the “oil canning”…

It is like the architecture grad student at his best – but, wasn’t pulled back from going to far. “Brilliant Johnny, but, lets back off a few notches” In a rendering, on paper, and the theoretical argument for the backside design is brilliant. But it never should have been subjected to reality in it’s current form.

Until I saw this post, I assumed they were still working on the backside.

We thought they were going to do the Morphosis (architecture firm) treatment to the backside. Much like the comment of it looking like a drive in movie theatre screen as inspiration… EXACTLY! We pictured the kind of post-modern BladeRunner eye candy to start transforming that side. Rotating installation artists. In my head, I picture bold down lighting w/ huge art deco lamps, giant typography, and post-modernist billboard mashups on the backside. But no… no no no no… lets keep it “real” negative, imposing, mature, cold and brutal. For me, it pulls the negatives of the legacy of the architecture profession to be manifested as a statement against the not so distant past of design and reminding us how awful it was. Hell, might as well through some Harvest Gold paint and some giant brass doorknobs on there.

Front side – totally different story! Great job! ;)

It makes me feel like crap when we drive by there everyday because like many people, we skirt along Peace Street. It is all about the building, the center of attention.

To each his own. To me UGGHLEE!

I too want to like this building. And just looking at it from the south-side, I nearly get there. Then I see the grey cement wall “greeting” Peace Street and I cringe. I am no expert, but I thought it was pretty well established in architecture that having a cement wall at street level was a street killer. As that area continues to develop, this building will have its back to it. Witness how it fails to face the most lively area around it – Seaboard Station.

Absolutely hideous. I’ve seen nicer warehouse buildings. It would make a great canvas for graffiti.

I come on here sometimes and am annoyed to see people whining about crappy old buildings being torn down. However, I am in complete agreement with the author. I’ve heard a lot of complaining about this building, but I absolutely love it. There’s a house off Glenwood close to DT that is a similar style, and I would buy that in a second (if I made twice my salary). I love that modernist look with the cool angles, the glossy wood, the whole bit. It’s the most interesting building downtown in my opinion, and it’s especially fitting it’s for the AIA. I also helps connect the Seaboard Station area (now much busier with Tyler’s open) with downtown. Before it was divided with that sterile, empty government area on the nights and weekends. Now I feel like downtown is starting to expand north, which is a great thing.

I think any structure would be lucky to be featured in a John Morris photograph. However it’s somewhat difficult to appreciate what may be the AIA building’s two major faults in the pictures above. They’re more obvious in the preconstruction image from the Huffington Post piece.

Other people have noted the building’s peculiar placement on the site, but I think its roofline is also problematic:

– Just as we are uncomfortable when someone stands too close to us in public, we feel uneasy when — for no discernable reason — a structure’s setback is too close (or too far) from its property line.

– Lots of research has shown that even young children understand that a pitched roof is basic, sheltering, and meant to point up (for example, G. Rand; “Children‘s Images of Houses: A Prolegomena to the Study of Why People Still Want Pitched Roofs”).

While it’s a nice gesture that a canopy protects the Peace Street sidewalk, I believe the two most significant human factor elements of this building are both disturbing (even if we don’t know exactly why) and permanently askew.

Besides, hasn’t a design with a strong-but-atypically pitched roof, minimal setback, and protective canopy been “done” already? :-)
http://www.firehouse.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=6888&stc=1&d=1115927292

Ick. (That’s my professional opinion.) I didn’t realize this was a professional building for architects. I thought it was some sort of double-decker bus depot for the downtown area. The building materials are lovely in an urban hipster way, but the shape is poorly inspired.

There’s a business called Oil Exchange on the outskirts of Boone, on NC 105 going toward Foscoe, that is fitted into a narrow space between the highway and a hillside. It is thin and high, much higher than it needs to be for oil changes, with what seems to be an office on the second floor and a third floor jutting out over the office windows. I think it looks odd. This Raleigh building reminds me a lot of that Boone building.

You can check out the Oil Exchange in Boone on Google Maps (1474 NC 105) to see a photo of that building — let me know what you think of the comparison.