Canalside Schemes- are they built as planned?

[Heartland]

In 2001 a scheme for Tower Wharf at Chester was proposed which looks very little like what was made. In Birmingham the intended Icknield Port scheme has yet to happen (and the site is simply an eyesore), but if built will it match the published artists impressions. The Tower Wharf sketch shows the following:

  

Edited September 19, 2017 by Heartland

[john6767]

Doubt many will match the early artists impressions.

It may be a small scheme but the artists  impression of the "Dickens Heath Arm" (as it is called on canalplan) shows boats in the "basin".  The reality is that the "basin is about 20ft higher than the canal, and it is basically a water feature.

 

 

Edited September 19, 2017 by john6767

[Naughty Cal]

Architects have a habit of thinking that sites are like a flat piece of paper.

When the engineers get involved and point out the practicalities of what they have planned then things change to make them physically buildable 

[Richard T]

Photoshop, Lumion, Sketchup and many other programmes are very good at doing 'impressions' of buildings. A lot depends on the skill of the operator as the old saying that goes with computers is Garbage in Garbage out!! Some architects have elastic scale rules  - this means that they can get any building no matter how big on any site no matter how small it is!!

Being serious the sketches that Heartland has included above are very crude and in many areas would not have been accepted by planning officers. I work for a large arhitects practice - we employ visualisation specialists. Some of the images produced are very good and on completion of the projetcs it can be difficult to tell a photograph from the visualisations. 3D modelling of buildings has become very sophisticated over the past 10 years.

[Derek R.]

This extends to photography too. As a young lad I used to watch Sunday Night at the London Palladium (a dreadful precursor to Monday morning school) and was always impressed by the opening shots of this grand looking building, which I imagined was in some broad boulevard in London. When I eventually saw that same building tucked away in a back street of London's West End looking almost diminutive, it was quite a shock.

[Heartland]

Sometimes the drawings and illustrations include features which may have added to the area.

Walsall Town basin as proposed in 1993 has features not there now, but which might have been of benefit-

 

[cuthound]

Wot, you mean boats 

[Heartland]

I blame the negative vibes....

But it is true the Walsall deserves better boat traffic