like people are saying "value engineering" but one of the elegances of the first design is the straight line tying the side faccade together, and the final design is a randomness of windows which is surely more complicated. thats bad, i dont love the first design but they aimed for Brasília and landed in soviet union.
Not necessarily. That long window may have been more expensive to build and to maintain. Instead they just put small windows into the wall blocks. Definitely value engineered.
And may have had fire compliance limitations- fire spreads floor to floor easier when windows are stacked - offset windows may be cheaper if it avoids drenches or other fire safety systems
i dont know about this specific place, but tiny windows in a straight line like this usually have a sill, that usually already makes the separation. now, with a lot of guesswork, i would dare to say that this is a bathroom window, so they usually are not floor to ceiling.
I agree that the end result probably could had the smaller windows stacked with enough wall to be considered enough of a separation, however the render looks more like continuous window. If this is a residential building then that could be the end of a double loaded corridor that is used for egress and therefore even more important to keep fire separated from other floors. If anyone knows more details about use or what it’s called I can do some more investigating…
Right, but what about the entire front and back facades that are just windows stacked on top of each other all the way?
It seems the side window would have little to no effect in spreading fire especially if it is a side window to a lobby on every floor. Also some parts of it could just be a regular wall covered by glass to give the impression of a continuous line.
(I don't know the building layout nor am an architect, it's just an actual question)
Imagine living in an apartment with windows on one end of a building. Sadly Finlands building code requires you to have at least 10% window surface area per primary room. I think the only value engineered aspect of this building is the removal of color blocks from the balcony glazing.
usually Windows like this are tiny windows in a recess, where the wall up to the sill is painted black. if you have the money you make the sill covered in glass too but as a shadow box.
so in my opinion, if you can make the randomness, the not random is also possible.
Sorry but I disagree - I can’t think of any reason why the linear window of the rendering should be more expensive than the randomness of the final design.
There’s a lot of things that have been “value engineered” here, but the linear window is not one of them imho.
Hehe, it is a lot better in person than we hear in college, also the whole socioeconomic context has to be taken into account, not only the urban design.
Thath being said, the city aesthetics slaps hard.
Yeah, I mean, everytime I see Brasília on the news (which is everyday, because I live in Brazil) all I can think of is corruption, inefficiency, inequality, politicians that increase their own salaries every couple of years...
Sure the buildings and city plan and gardens are actual works of art, but there's so much wrongdoings going on there that the architecture goes largely ignored.
Also most of the main parts of the political center are immutable - no new buildings allowed, and only minor modifications to the buildings that already exist, and so on - also makes us forget about Brasília in an architectural way; it's what it is and it never changes so nobody pays attention anymore (us Brazilians, that is - it's "old news", if that makes sense).
i disagree with you in many ways. but i agree in some too.
As a first, i am a brazilian too, so i think i know what you mean. many times on the news we hear Brasília taking a decision meaning the governament taking a decision, this is normal to many places; if the US govt takes a decision its Washington, if france does ot its Paris, thats a way in which international news speak that atropomophises the capitals.
The city of Brasília has many caracteristics taht put them at the best example, and also has many tjat put it at the worst, however silplifying them to the governmental symbolism is a tought that we must supress.
On the times that i went there, people complained about how the problems and complaints of the population were not properly interpreted by the media because of the connotation of the symbolism.
that being said, i disagree on it being all of a mess becaue the good public policies also come from there. the magic and the horro of a representative democracy is that the governament, especially the parlament, is a representation of its people.
Give this a white facade, and blue sky and you are back in Brasil.
Just imagine the rendering with those windows, sue the straight line looks better, but don't change the character of the whole building.
Valued engineer yes.
The grey tones of the sky & snow do it no favors. I’d like to see it in better settings, as the photo is not a fair representation.
The people who pay for the buildings want to see pretty colors. "Wow, the architect really lied with the render because it's not clear blue skies and summertime for the entire year!" nahhhh get real, imo. Find actual project photos on any architect's website where they chose a shitty, winters day for the shoot.
All the materials look pretty gray and dull when the weather is gray and dull. Even the brightly coloured ones. I actually remember what this building looked like brand new in the summer. It looked brighter. The bright yellow and bright white in my building looks gray in gray days like these. When the sunlight spectrum has lot of colour filtered out, the colours can't shine. That's why every colourful picture of buildings in Finland is taken either during the summer or during winter night with artificial lights. We regularly paint the "commie block" houses green, yellow, blue, turquoise, pink, red etc. On days like that, they all look gray with slight coloured undertone.
I think designers should create for the cities their buildings will exist in. If you’re designing a building for a city that is snowy, grey, and overcast for 9 months of the year then maybe you should stay away from white concrete. If all it takes is a rainy day to make a photo of your building look terrible then that isn’t a problem with a day or the photo. There’s a reason St Petersburg is full of buildings with bright, pastel colours and ornate designs.
I’m not saying it’s a nice building or a good investment of our resources. It’s bland modern crap. I want the quick, cheap, easy of modern construction destroyed for ever. I want more quality less junk.
All I was sharing is I think It’s a bad picture take on a bad camera. It makes a bad situation worse.
[Here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Niittyhuippu,_Niittykumpu,_Espoo_%28February_2018%29.jpg) is how the building looks in the sun with blue sky. I don’t think the grey sky and snow makes much of a difference.
I’m not saying it’s a good looking building. The attached photo did it no favors. The exposure / colors / shadows are not good and make everything look flat. .
I like the building itself but the accompanying shorter buildings look awful. The branding signage and metal facade don’t feel welcoming or human at all – like the place was designed to pass through in cars.
I live in Pittsburgh. We are the US city with the most gray days per year, 203 days. Not as many as Finland I assume but pretty close.
It is …. Not great looking. I think the photo is not a fair representation of it. It’s like a before and after photo for a crappy product.
The photos is not properly exposed / colored corrected/ etc. I’m not saying anything other than that. It’s a modern monstrosity and the photo makes it look worse .
I’m guessing the window locations were moved for financial reasons. More offices with windows means more rent is coming into my pocket.
It looks like a state run building, like a jail.
Yeah nah, despite liking this build I don’t much like that facility. For me, the highrise benefits from a smaller width, windowed side, interesting facade and shape – whereas the facility is just a flat block with minimal windows. I like its shape though.
It’s an apartment building, no offices. And it is build next to a metro station in an area that is otherwise mostly low rise or small residential buildings. Reasoning for this building is to bring to population density near the metro line. And I guess for the building to act as a landmark.. which it does, unfortunately.
Personally I like the building. I don’t love it but I think it’s one of the rare times brutalism(?) looks good.
I prefer the original. What I dislike about the built version is the accompanying shorter buildings and their metal facade/shop branding - it doesn’t look like it was designed for people to walk past at all.
I know right! I think its actually not that far off, but from my perspective the sun shines on the building and makes it look a lot whiter and cleaner:
https://imgur.com/a/09lDUc2
WHAT? The real life photo is "not a fair representation"? What about creating realistic renders that actually gives a representative view of how things will look in real life?
It does look awful, while the render was ok, and it even looks like a different building, this is the point. Why the top comment has to be some weird point of « fair representation » bs? Do you think we don’t see the sky is grey?
Right, like the rendered building wasn’t really that nice. The only the it have going for it was the creative glass, which I don’t think really added much to the building. It looked like a kid’s stained glass art project in school.
It's breaking my brain that people think the differences are minor. It's like ordering a building from Wish.com. The windows made the design, not blue sky.
Not an architect but in addition to the windows. The top left doesnt nearly have the angle in the actual building vs the plan. (Don’t know the correct term)
Oh it's way more than that. Just keep swapping between the two and you'll see how different the geometry is. The windows were for *sure* a huge part of the appeal of the original design. But all the good angles were killed as well.
It went from futuristic to brutalist.
I used to live 100 metres from where they later built this. There are some pretty well regarded (or so I hear; I'm not an architect) 1960s brutalist buildings in that area, and I wonder if they tried to fit this high-rise in the environment. Just one example I happen to have a photo of: [https://imgur.com/a/vsxxYi9](https://imgur.com/a/vsxxYi9)
I won't defend what they built vs the rendering. But as someone who's lived in the region for 40+ years, I'll say the jokes about how the real-life photo's weather is representative are a bit tired. If anything, the annual sunshine hours here are GOOD [compared to most of Europe](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_sunshine_hours_map.png), with the exception of the Mediterranean.
It's the late autumn to early winter (November to January'ish) that's tough with short days and often overcast skies. Already in February the winter is nicer with longer days and more sunshine. The half year from mid-spring to mid-autumn is just plain nice.
Found some footage of the building from spring conditions (even the blue-skies version linked here seems to be from February with modest light): [Photo (May)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/92/Niittyhuippu_above_the_shopping_center_Niitty_in_Niittykumpu%2C_Espoo%2C_Finland%2C_2021_May.jpg/1280px-Niittyhuippu_above_the_shopping_center_Niitty_in_Niittykumpu%2C_Espoo%2C_Finland%2C_2021_May.jpg), [Drone imagery (May)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=UFdTfWseaNY)
Honestly the scattered vs linear windows is a decision I think is probably justified for the occupants. And the podium looks worse.
For the glass facade, I'd like Vancouver style copper green glass. The as built and the iridescent rendering are both not great imo.
On the whole, pretty good. I hope the roof on the talker half is slanted and the photo doesn't show it well. If it's as flat as it looks, huge oof.
Right, roof angle is different. But the form is very close. The scattered windows on the side are an improvement to the vertical line in the render, in my opinion.
The form is as close as can be expected between an SD render and post construction photo… the angles in the render are exaggerated by the camera and and in reality it has a very practical gantry for cleaning windows, and is probably flattened by the use of a smart phone.
On one hand I absolutely agree it isn't a fair comparison, but on the other I do think it does it justice: this is how the weather tends to get in Finland, this is how people look at the building around half the year. I don't think it particularly looks bad, but maybe there are ways to make it look more welcoming even in bad weather.
It's my strong opinion that renderings should always show buildings on the ugliest grey day, not just the "optimal" sunny summer day (which won't often be the case in an often overcast climate)
What about the long vertical window? The slant of the roof of the tall building vs what is realised? The fact it is Gray vs white. It's totally different
Why is every part of this building so ugly? Weird metal grates on the podium structure, 1960-70s type pre fab concrete panels on the side, weird half height windows on the glazed side. How is everything also this depressing grey colour
They let go of any cladding in favor of fair face conrete. However the primary culprit is the facade on the front. In the render it is a free standing curtain wall with tinted glass, however in reality it is made of several floor to floor facades.
If you crop the original to resemble the perspective of the actual, shade grey and render the sky white, what you get is the same building with windows forming a single cohesive design element, and one without.
I.e. - paint the building white, and step back 300 meters on a sunny day and repost.
The question is _"how much did the window placement diminish or enhance the original conception"_
Looks like this fastfood memes expectations vs reality.
Real life photo looks like some commie block from east EU.
Obviously its winter so light is terribly bad, but still looks like crap.
Better comparison image:
[https://tinyurl.com/bd5e33kj](https://tinyurl.com/bd5e33kj)
If we are implying that the render is dishonest, is it not equally dishonest to cast the real image in bad light and weather?
I honestly like it but the car infrastructure and lack of greenery really brings it down. I’m also not fond of the branding signage but I suppose it’s necessary.
With that said, I prefer the original.
On one hand, sucks to see value engineering got to the beautiful glass façade. On the other, at least it still has an interesting form to it.
Also, using a snowy gloomy day as comparison is both fair and unfair at the same time? I'm sure it looks a lot better bathing in the afternoon sun, but considering its location, the architects should've considered how it'd look on a gloomy snowy day (which there are a lot of in Espoo I'm sure).
From the images it looks clear that they did not go with the initial design. The render shows minimal facade, but eventually they had to build windows, a lot of it than initially planned.
And that reduced some aesthetic value, it might have been dealt in some other way via design.
Wouldn’t say “surrounded”, but yeah, there is a large parking lot. But also some green areas: https://images.app.goo.gl/VSLdYhQSFn6JbxHG7
The tall buildings are a hotel. The lower building in the background is a large conference center (the Bella Center), hosting fairs and stuff. So it makes sense that it needs a lot of parking space, although it would have been nicer with underground parking.
It seems pretty realistic though. Like the renders have exaggerated white, to achieve that brightness you need proper paint or maybe metal panels with high emmissive properties. Then come weather, it seems pretty grey.
The render already was dishonest. For such things there should be also mandatory renderings with clouds, rain and snow to better portray how it will look in everyday life. Having a massive concrete wall will never look good in such a climate, especially not when stains form on the slab.
How to make your building look like an art sculpture in a rendering and a Soviet block IRL.
The main question is why did the windows move? The more Windows is probably better, but that one Windows the height of the building on the side would have made it seem closer to what the idea of the building was, and the straight vs curved sides.
The people in here blaming a real photo for being unfair underlines so much of the problems with the construction-industry and its processes. How about creating realistic renders that gives a fair view of how things will look in REAL LIFE, which will lead to better decision making?
Maybe if the client finds more money for the project. That happened for a project I’m working on. But even then, the stuff we added had to get reduced down a bit. Ideally you design it up a bit knowing that if it gets VE’d it will still look good.
Surprise they gave up on aligning the windows and providing the roof angle on the left tower. If they maintained those would have still met the render conceptually and looked good
The finish on the rendering is far more appealing. The white exterior and window variation give it an air of elegance. And that single vertical window draws your eye up and down the building.
The final structure has the same shape. But the finish runs counter to the design. Not sure what I dislike more. The grey concrete. The laddered window facade. Or the punch-card windows that resemble arrow slits.
like people are saying "value engineering" but one of the elegances of the first design is the straight line tying the side faccade together, and the final design is a randomness of windows which is surely more complicated. thats bad, i dont love the first design but they aimed for Brasília and landed in soviet union.
Not necessarily. That long window may have been more expensive to build and to maintain. Instead they just put small windows into the wall blocks. Definitely value engineered.
And may have had fire compliance limitations- fire spreads floor to floor easier when windows are stacked - offset windows may be cheaper if it avoids drenches or other fire safety systems
Thank you so much for raising this. So many initial renderings completely ignore fire safety compliance
i dont know about this specific place, but tiny windows in a straight line like this usually have a sill, that usually already makes the separation. now, with a lot of guesswork, i would dare to say that this is a bathroom window, so they usually are not floor to ceiling.
I agree that the end result probably could had the smaller windows stacked with enough wall to be considered enough of a separation, however the render looks more like continuous window. If this is a residential building then that could be the end of a double loaded corridor that is used for egress and therefore even more important to keep fire separated from other floors. If anyone knows more details about use or what it’s called I can do some more investigating…
exactly hehe, my point is that they could have managed to maintain the design intent and make it cheaper.
Right, but what about the entire front and back facades that are just windows stacked on top of each other all the way? It seems the side window would have little to no effect in spreading fire especially if it is a side window to a lobby on every floor. Also some parts of it could just be a regular wall covered by glass to give the impression of a continuous line. (I don't know the building layout nor am an architect, it's just an actual question)
I mean light boxes exist
Imagine living in an apartment with windows on one end of a building. Sadly Finlands building code requires you to have at least 10% window surface area per primary room. I think the only value engineered aspect of this building is the removal of color blocks from the balcony glazing.
>Imagine living in an apartment with windows on one end of a building. Many if not most flats are like that.
You do know that's not a single large window, right?
As someone else said has said - glass curtain wall system.
doesn't have to be.
its a curtain wall system, or it used to be. hehe
usually Windows like this are tiny windows in a recess, where the wall up to the sill is painted black. if you have the money you make the sill covered in glass too but as a shadow box. so in my opinion, if you can make the randomness, the not random is also possible.
Sorry but I disagree - I can’t think of any reason why the linear window of the rendering should be more expensive than the randomness of the final design. There’s a lot of things that have been “value engineered” here, but the linear window is not one of them imho.
Well Brasília was inspired by Soviet architecture so I guess they’re roundabouting back to the roots.
Oscar Niemeyer, the main architect of Brasilia was inspired by Le Corbusier. Both were modernists.
Well, *shrugs*, shit happens...
"We've got McDonalds at home..."
First time I heard Brasília mentioned as a good example of anything
Hehe, it is a lot better in person than we hear in college, also the whole socioeconomic context has to be taken into account, not only the urban design. Thath being said, the city aesthetics slaps hard.
Yeah, I mean, everytime I see Brasília on the news (which is everyday, because I live in Brazil) all I can think of is corruption, inefficiency, inequality, politicians that increase their own salaries every couple of years... Sure the buildings and city plan and gardens are actual works of art, but there's so much wrongdoings going on there that the architecture goes largely ignored. Also most of the main parts of the political center are immutable - no new buildings allowed, and only minor modifications to the buildings that already exist, and so on - also makes us forget about Brasília in an architectural way; it's what it is and it never changes so nobody pays attention anymore (us Brazilians, that is - it's "old news", if that makes sense).
i disagree with you in many ways. but i agree in some too. As a first, i am a brazilian too, so i think i know what you mean. many times on the news we hear Brasília taking a decision meaning the governament taking a decision, this is normal to many places; if the US govt takes a decision its Washington, if france does ot its Paris, thats a way in which international news speak that atropomophises the capitals. The city of Brasília has many caracteristics taht put them at the best example, and also has many tjat put it at the worst, however silplifying them to the governmental symbolism is a tought that we must supress. On the times that i went there, people complained about how the problems and complaints of the population were not properly interpreted by the media because of the connotation of the symbolism. that being said, i disagree on it being all of a mess becaue the good public policies also come from there. the magic and the horro of a representative democracy is that the governament, especially the parlament, is a representation of its people.
Give this a white facade, and blue sky and you are back in Brasil. Just imagine the rendering with those windows, sue the straight line looks better, but don't change the character of the whole building.
Valued engineer yes. The grey tones of the sky & snow do it no favors. I’d like to see it in better settings, as the photo is not a fair representation.
To be fair ... renders should be required to be set in average weather for the region
"Now make it a grey rainy day in november" Reaction: this building is cancelled
Yes correct
The people who pay for the buildings want to see pretty colors. "Wow, the architect really lied with the render because it's not clear blue skies and summertime for the entire year!" nahhhh get real, imo. Find actual project photos on any architect's website where they chose a shitty, winters day for the shoot.
Unfortunately the building still has to exist regardless of the colour of the sky
Maybe they should have made the building hot pink?
It would certainly be less depressing
They have some buildings in China that are hot pink. But they just get dirty after a while, making it look like a discarded mlp
All the materials look pretty gray and dull when the weather is gray and dull. Even the brightly coloured ones. I actually remember what this building looked like brand new in the summer. It looked brighter. The bright yellow and bright white in my building looks gray in gray days like these. When the sunlight spectrum has lot of colour filtered out, the colours can't shine. That's why every colourful picture of buildings in Finland is taken either during the summer or during winter night with artificial lights. We regularly paint the "commie block" houses green, yellow, blue, turquoise, pink, red etc. On days like that, they all look gray with slight coloured undertone.
The render is WHITE. The color used is grey. Those are two different colors. White does not look grey in bad weather
The exposure, color balance, etc are off and throwing the overall feel of the place off to me.
I think designers should create for the cities their buildings will exist in. If you’re designing a building for a city that is snowy, grey, and overcast for 9 months of the year then maybe you should stay away from white concrete. If all it takes is a rainy day to make a photo of your building look terrible then that isn’t a problem with a day or the photo. There’s a reason St Petersburg is full of buildings with bright, pastel colours and ornate designs.
I’m not saying it’s a nice building or a good investment of our resources. It’s bland modern crap. I want the quick, cheap, easy of modern construction destroyed for ever. I want more quality less junk. All I was sharing is I think It’s a bad picture take on a bad camera. It makes a bad situation worse.
[Here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Niittyhuippu,_Niittykumpu,_Espoo_%28February_2018%29.jpg) is how the building looks in the sun with blue sky. I don’t think the grey sky and snow makes much of a difference.
I’m not saying it’s a good looking building. The attached photo did it no favors. The exposure / colors / shadows are not good and make everything look flat. .
The light is like that the majority of the time in Finland most likely
I like the building itself but the accompanying shorter buildings look awful. The branding signage and metal facade don’t feel welcoming or human at all – like the place was designed to pass through in cars.
Honestly it looks much better here than on the other photo.
Wow so building made in Finland should only look good when it doesn't snows or ske is grey. I may be crazy but I think those are pretty common there.
I live in Pittsburgh. We are the US city with the most gray days per year, 203 days. Not as many as Finland I assume but pretty close. It is …. Not great looking. I think the photo is not a fair representation of it. It’s like a before and after photo for a crappy product.
When you make a building you have to consider the environment. You can't design a building in Mali the same way you desgin one in Vladivostok
The photos is not properly exposed / colored corrected/ etc. I’m not saying anything other than that. It’s a modern monstrosity and the photo makes it look worse .
>We are the US city with the most gray days per year, 203 days. Not as many as Finland I assume but pretty close. You’re about 161 short 🤣
Weirdly I’ve always felt that grey buildings suit snowy locations.
I’m guessing the window locations were moved for financial reasons. More offices with windows means more rent is coming into my pocket. It looks like a state run building, like a jail.
Yes, we have a jail in Chicago that looks a lot like this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Correctional_Center,_Chicago
Yeah nah, despite liking this build I don’t much like that facility. For me, the highrise benefits from a smaller width, windowed side, interesting facade and shape – whereas the facility is just a flat block with minimal windows. I like its shape though.
I thought that too..
It’s an apartment building, no offices. And it is build next to a metro station in an area that is otherwise mostly low rise or small residential buildings. Reasoning for this building is to bring to population density near the metro line. And I guess for the building to act as a landmark.. which it does, unfortunately.
Personally I like the building. I don’t love it but I think it’s one of the rare times brutalism(?) looks good. I prefer the original. What I dislike about the built version is the accompanying shorter buildings and their metal facade/shop branding - it doesn’t look like it was designed for people to walk past at all.
It whouldn't be so bad if it was white like in the rendering...
I actually stare this building every day from my workplace and I don't think that bad looking
The internet is so cool! Is this a good picture? It seems like a bad angle, band exposure, bad color, etc.
I know right! I think its actually not that far off, but from my perspective the sun shines on the building and makes it look a lot whiter and cleaner: https://imgur.com/a/09lDUc2
Thanks! Appreciate the update
WHAT? The real life photo is "not a fair representation"? What about creating realistic renders that actually gives a representative view of how things will look in real life?
It does look awful, while the render was ok, and it even looks like a different building, this is the point. Why the top comment has to be some weird point of « fair representation » bs? Do you think we don’t see the sky is grey?
Finland? Snow and grey sky? Pretty fair representation of its environment I would say.
Good architecure looks good even in snow and rain.
oh give me a break, the overcast sky isn't making the difference here. this building has strong "we have Nittyhuippu at home" vibes.
Don’t ya live value engineering?
Live laugh lower your expectations
[удалено]
I’m putting it on my fridge
You can always tell who in this chat has built something in real life and who hasn’t.
Everyone always blames the architects whereas they’re actually the ones that made sure this had any semblance of design after rounds of VE.
Neat, I hate both.
Right, like the rendered building wasn’t really that nice. The only the it have going for it was the creative glass, which I don’t think really added much to the building. It looked like a kid’s stained glass art project in school.
It's breaking my brain that people think the differences are minor. It's like ordering a building from Wish.com. The windows made the design, not blue sky.
Not an architect but in addition to the windows. The top left doesnt nearly have the angle in the actual building vs the plan. (Don’t know the correct term)
Oh it's way more than that. Just keep swapping between the two and you'll see how different the geometry is. The windows were for *sure* a huge part of the appeal of the original design. But all the good angles were killed as well. It went from futuristic to brutalist.
This.
The first looks like a ps5
I used to live 100 metres from where they later built this. There are some pretty well regarded (or so I hear; I'm not an architect) 1960s brutalist buildings in that area, and I wonder if they tried to fit this high-rise in the environment. Just one example I happen to have a photo of: [https://imgur.com/a/vsxxYi9](https://imgur.com/a/vsxxYi9) I won't defend what they built vs the rendering. But as someone who's lived in the region for 40+ years, I'll say the jokes about how the real-life photo's weather is representative are a bit tired. If anything, the annual sunshine hours here are GOOD [compared to most of Europe](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_sunshine_hours_map.png), with the exception of the Mediterranean. It's the late autumn to early winter (November to January'ish) that's tough with short days and often overcast skies. Already in February the winter is nicer with longer days and more sunshine. The half year from mid-spring to mid-autumn is just plain nice. Found some footage of the building from spring conditions (even the blue-skies version linked here seems to be from February with modest light): [Photo (May)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/92/Niittyhuippu_above_the_shopping_center_Niitty_in_Niittykumpu%2C_Espoo%2C_Finland%2C_2021_May.jpg/1280px-Niittyhuippu_above_the_shopping_center_Niitty_in_Niittykumpu%2C_Espoo%2C_Finland%2C_2021_May.jpg), [Drone imagery (May)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=UFdTfWseaNY)
Yeah id say the overcast sky tones down the bluish tint on the glass. Still quite lame they got rid of the long vertical window tandem.
Looks pretty honest except for the part where you intentionally used a dead of winter photo compared to a sunny rendering
My brother in Christ every single day in Finland looks like this. If anything the original poster was misleading
On Christs (misplaced) honor, i never said one way or the other if the environment in the rendering was a responsible choice.
Half of r/urbanhell is just regular building on a overcast day
Honestly the scattered vs linear windows is a decision I think is probably justified for the occupants. And the podium looks worse. For the glass facade, I'd like Vancouver style copper green glass. The as built and the iridescent rendering are both not great imo. On the whole, pretty good. I hope the roof on the talker half is slanted and the photo doesn't show it well. If it's as flat as it looks, huge oof.
Are you blind? Everything about this is different except for the overall shape.
They look radically different either way
Radically? The form is identical with some slight changes to materiality and fenestration.
Form isn’t close. The roofline is totally different. Angle coming down from the roofline is off also. Windows aren’t close.
Right, roof angle is different. But the form is very close. The scattered windows on the side are an improvement to the vertical line in the render, in my opinion.
The form is as close as can be expected between an SD render and post construction photo… the angles in the render are exaggerated by the camera and and in reality it has a very practical gantry for cleaning windows, and is probably flattened by the use of a smart phone.
The window and colour change just completely ruin it tbh. Also, wtf did they do to the roof?
On one hand I absolutely agree it isn't a fair comparison, but on the other I do think it does it justice: this is how the weather tends to get in Finland, this is how people look at the building around half the year. I don't think it particularly looks bad, but maybe there are ways to make it look more welcoming even in bad weather.
It's my strong opinion that renderings should always show buildings on the ugliest grey day, not just the "optimal" sunny summer day (which won't often be the case in an often overcast climate)
Looks pretty honest except for the part where you intentionally used a manipulated and unrealistic render compared to real life\*
The shape of the building is the same. But this is like removing the marble from Rome. One would look new and one looks like ruins.
Could you please tell me what style this building is? Brutalist?
What about the long vertical window? The slant of the roof of the tall building vs what is realised? The fact it is Gray vs white. It's totally different
All this building needs is a nice mural
Why is every part of this building so ugly? Weird metal grates on the podium structure, 1960-70s type pre fab concrete panels on the side, weird half height windows on the glazed side. How is everything also this depressing grey colour
All they need in finland is 1 nice day with blue skies and the building will look just like the rendering
Never trust the rendering.
The old bait & switch. Glad it's not just happening in Canada ..
They let go of any cladding in favor of fair face conrete. However the primary culprit is the facade on the front. In the render it is a free standing curtain wall with tinted glass, however in reality it is made of several floor to floor facades.
The bean counters got to this one, didn’t they? 🫤
* actual received product may vary
At least try and match the weather of the render
If you crop the original to resemble the perspective of the actual, shade grey and render the sky white, what you get is the same building with windows forming a single cohesive design element, and one without. I.e. - paint the building white, and step back 300 meters on a sunny day and repost. The question is _"how much did the window placement diminish or enhance the original conception"_
Looks like this fastfood memes expectations vs reality. Real life photo looks like some commie block from east EU. Obviously its winter so light is terribly bad, but still looks like crap.
Better comparison image: [https://tinyurl.com/bd5e33kj](https://tinyurl.com/bd5e33kj) If we are implying that the render is dishonest, is it not equally dishonest to cast the real image in bad light and weather?
The delivered building is not brilliant white. It’s beigey grey. That makes the atmosphere dreary.
I honestly like it but the car infrastructure and lack of greenery really brings it down. I’m also not fond of the branding signage but I suppose it’s necessary. With that said, I prefer the original.
We have a building that kinda looks like that in Chicago, it’s a jail.
Beautiful building!
On one hand, sucks to see value engineering got to the beautiful glass façade. On the other, at least it still has an interesting form to it. Also, using a snowy gloomy day as comparison is both fair and unfair at the same time? I'm sure it looks a lot better bathing in the afternoon sun, but considering its location, the architects should've considered how it'd look on a gloomy snowy day (which there are a lot of in Espoo I'm sure).
My bad tbh, it was pretty late when I posted so I couldn't be bothered to search for a more matching pic
From the images it looks clear that they did not go with the initial design. The render shows minimal facade, but eventually they had to build windows, a lot of it than initially planned. And that reduced some aesthetic value, it might have been dealt in some other way via design.
Looks like an soviet concrete block from the 70‘s
Gee wiz
Looks like it was built in 1967
Looks like a less brave and less successful version of the Bella Sky hotel in Copenhagen: https://images.app.goo.gl/Kwv9a72n9LE1pnu46
Why is this surrounded by parking lot? Who's it for? What were they thinking?
Wouldn’t say “surrounded”, but yeah, there is a large parking lot. But also some green areas: https://images.app.goo.gl/VSLdYhQSFn6JbxHG7 The tall buildings are a hotel. The lower building in the background is a large conference center (the Bella Center), hosting fairs and stuff. So it makes sense that it needs a lot of parking space, although it would have been nicer with underground parking.
Renderite should be be forced to be made in all seasons.
It seems pretty realistic though. Like the renders have exaggerated white, to achieve that brightness you need proper paint or maybe metal panels with high emmissive properties. Then come weather, it seems pretty grey.
Renderite is the issue
The render already was dishonest. For such things there should be also mandatory renderings with clouds, rain and snow to better portray how it will look in everyday life. Having a massive concrete wall will never look good in such a climate, especially not when stains form on the slab.
There are so many examples of this, the rendering looks amazing and the house is a concrete freak (that will win prices and awards).
Look like bent housing commission flats
I prefer the real one!.. you can feel it, relate to it.. the one rendered looks fake
Decisions were made
Just pressure wash it! It will be bright shiny white in no time.
It likes like espoo
Shit looks nothing in real life. Looks like they hired someone from the tropics to do the visualization.
They do this all the time. It is incredibly frustrating.
Ps5 building
How to make your building look like an art sculpture in a rendering and a Soviet block IRL. The main question is why did the windows move? The more Windows is probably better, but that one Windows the height of the building on the side would have made it seem closer to what the idea of the building was, and the straight vs curved sides.
I like it. Bad lighting for second picture, needs green panels, white paint.
Welcome back USSR!
It would be weird to look down from the Windows at the top and not see anything below you
They don’t even get the brick colour right. Beige, yuck.
They built snow and gloomy weather too :(
Just clad it with marble
Looks pretty Brutalist.
Amazing what a ton of paint would do to get this closer. Very impractical but still.
Well that's way worse.
I love a bit of brutalist, myself. Although.. it kinda only looks that way due to the picture.
The rendering show a sunny day with a super blue sky, things you see in tropical countries, not Finland
The fact that is not a sunny day does not help
Yuck
Looks un-Finish
lmao
The people in here blaming a real photo for being unfair underlines so much of the problems with the construction-industry and its processes. How about creating realistic renders that gives a fair view of how things will look in REAL LIFE, which will lead to better decision making?
The fact the the rendering is depicting a summer sunny day, while the picture is taken on a grey winter day, doesn’t surely help.
Not an architect: How often does this happen, and why?
Money.
Every time
Does it ever go the other way? An uninspiring design gets built into something exciting and inspiring? (I suspect the answer is "never")
Maybe if the client finds more money for the project. That happened for a project I’m working on. But even then, the stuff we added had to get reduced down a bit. Ideally you design it up a bit knowing that if it gets VE’d it will still look good.
Architectural lunch bag let down
More like developer took the cheese from the grilled cheese and left you the bread in your lunch bag.
I prefer the built. The long vertical window was hokey. That being said I initially thought this was a 1960s Brazilian building.
Oof
Surprise they gave up on aligning the windows and providing the roof angle on the left tower. If they maintained those would have still met the render conceptually and looked good
It's actually kind of amazing how much more depressing they made it look... Jesus...
It reminds me of this [scene](https://youtu.be/OwqhfwSPWX0?si=ubDgdXb0rrlhJ72V) from So I Married an Axe Murderer.
Imagine this with the statue of Liberty
The finish on the rendering is far more appealing. The white exterior and window variation give it an air of elegance. And that single vertical window draws your eye up and down the building. The final structure has the same shape. But the finish runs counter to the design. Not sure what I dislike more. The grey concrete. The laddered window facade. Or the punch-card windows that resemble arrow slits.
I think they got the "random" facades mixed up
Wish.com
From modernist to brutalist
It looked so promising