innovative architecture

i bitch about boring san diego architecture a lot on this blog, so it was nice to see city beat print an interesting article this week on fearless architects in town. i really like the "on grape" project by sebastian mariscal, which is shown above in the bottom image. in fact, little italy has several buildings featured in the article, including another favorite of mine, the essex lofts, designed by mariscal's former associate (or mentor?), jonathan segal. this is the building with all the cool art on the east side, quite close to the southbound side of interstate 5 as it slices the neighborhood.

segal has designed several great-looking projects, including k lofts near the ballpark downtown. i recently saw one of the units in this project listed for sale at around 700k, if i remember correctly - how cool would it be to live there?

hopefully some of the larger builders downtown will take a few cues from these guys when designing their projects. one example of this would be constellation's stella project in middletown (or "5-points" if you want to call it that). i love the great big windows on each unit.

maybe downtown san diego's delayed maturation is a good thing, considering there is some really innovative thinking in architecture right now, and it can be done on prime lots that aren't too costly to build on (yet). remember, most of these buildings will be with us for years to come - something i'm reminded of whenever i travel to my hometown, albany ny, where the sterile empire state plaza, built in the 60's, bleakly eats up both prime real estate and any kind of human interaction.

so, there's many things to be excited about in san diego's building boom - to paraphrase art brut, "modern architecture makes me want to rock out"!