The Best View in Las Catalinas

March 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

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Our latest house under construction, 24 Calle la Ronda, features what may be the best views yet in Las Catalinas.  Not only is there a beautiful ocean view, but there is a wonderful foreground of architecture and Plaza Escondida as well.  24 Calle la Ronda has already been purchased, but neighboring houses with similar cool views are still available.  Up until now it has been hard for most people to imagine how the views work for houses that are not front and center on the beachfront.  24 Calle la Ronda is changing that!

As Las Catalinas matures the views of our urban places will become more famous and treasured than the views of the landscape – or what I should really say is that the two of them will work together to provide an impact that is uniquely stunning.

Below are a few shots from the under-construction 24 Calle la Ronda, along with one shot from the Sketchup computer model that we developed in the planning phase.  The model is pretty accurate, but the reality is way more impressive…

Filed Under: Construction, Living in Las Catalinas, Planning Tagged With: , , , ,

Notre Dame Final Studio 2011

December 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment

img_2180Yesterday we had the final studio presentations at the Notre Dame School of Architecture for this term’s studio work on Las Catalinas.  Very exciting!  Most importantly I think we now have an excellent plan for the area just inland from of the public road from beach town.  Also we got some well thought out building plans and some great images.  What a day – one of those days when my work is so much fun it is hard to think of it as work.

Filed Under: Architecture, Planning Tagged With: , , , ,

Notre Dame Work, 2011

October 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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I’m just back from a trip to the Notre Dame School of Architecture to review the work of this year’s crop of fifth-year students.  Once again, like last year, a group consisting of fifth-year students plus professors Samir Younes and Douglas Duany made a study trip to Las Catalinas in late August and they will be working on a Las Catalinas projects for their studio work all this term.

The projects they are working on this year are the Playa Dantita area and an extension of the main beach town area at Playa Danta.  The work up to now has been on land planning – later they will move on to work on architecture of specific buildings.

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In Dantita I think they’ve done a fine job of laying out a series of hillside lots houses that will enjoy great views and beautiful streetscapes.  Over at the Playa Danta beach town area they are working on a substantial park, and have made good progress on street network that has some real logic to it.  It includes a long route that goes all the way from one end of beach town to the other staying nearly flat at an elevation of 17 to 20 meters.  This route serves as a primary pedestrian route and an interesting organizing feature of the town.

Below you’ll find some pictures from the student’s visit to Las Catalinas and some shots I snapped of their work as it was pinned up for our review.  What you see here is all very preliminary.  The other jurors and I gave some amount of redirection to the groups during the review, but in general we found the work very impressive.  I’m very eager to see how the work progresses through the term!

- Charles

 

 

Filed Under: Architecture, Planning Tagged With: , , , , ,

SketchUp

June 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment
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I’ve been wanting to post this SketchUp model for a long time, but I didn’t have a handy place to put a 117 MB file!  Now I do.  SketchUp has been a very helpful tool for our Las Catalinas planning.  Our wonderful topography really is sort of a secret ingredient for Las Catalinas.  It lets everyone enjoy the wonderful views, the vertical separation between houses enhances privacy, it is wonderfully dramatic and just plain cool!  But these hilltown conditions are also challenging for designers and architects who are used to working on flatter ground, and SketchUp can help with that.

If you are game for a little computer fun and you have a reasonably powerful machine and fast internet, go download a free copy of the SketchUp software here.  Then download a copy of the Las Catalinas model here.   Open the model up and you will be able to walk around the virtual [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Planning Tagged With: , , ,

Cool New Urban Project in Rome.

May 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Professor Samir Younes forwarded this video to me.  It is a proposed New Urban project near Rome.  Italy, that is.  It is at a different scale than Las Catalinas – bigger buildings, more big city.  But it has some things in common such as a great emphasis on beautiful public spaces, an irregular urban pattern, and a traditional architectural language.  I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

I’d like to have a computer model like that for Las Catalinas. But soon we will have something better – the real thing!

Filed Under: Inspirations, Planning, Uncategorized

Punta Guachipelines – Notre Dame has been busy!

September 23, 2010 by 1 Comment

The University of Notre Dame School of Architecture has been very busy with Las Catalinas work the past few weeks.  I spent the day there on Monday for a first review of the work.  They are working on a variety of areas around Las Catalinas, but one of their major focuses is on Punta Guachipelines.  Punta Guachipelines is perhaps the most stunning and dramatic piece of land in all of Las Catalinas, and a fantastic hilltown site.  Being out there is like being on a ship at sea.  Here a perspective of the main hilltown area – first cut.   It is very good, and will get even better.  This is probably the best Las Catalinas hilltown image we have.  It is quite high in definition – click to get the full image and zoom in to your heart’s content.

And to our design and urbanist friends out there, please feel free to post your review and commentary here!  I’m having some technical problem in posting the plan (on which this perspective is based).  I’ll try again tomorrow on that.


Filed Under: Planning Tagged With: , ,

New Names – Votes Are In!

July 20, 2010 by Leave a Comment

OK, thanks everyone for your votes in the poll.  The results are in :

Avenida la Antigua (I cast tiebreaking vote!)

Calle la Ronda

Calle Danta

The maps shall be produced, the house numbers assigned!  Thanks again,

Charles

Filed Under: Planning

More Naming To Do

July 17, 2010 by 3 Comments

We need to select a few more place names at Las Catalinas.  So here is another poll.  I do appreciate your votes in this – I’m a believer in the wisdom of crowds for this kind of thing.

Here is a map that shows the three new streets to be named in the large red font, and then the three polls where you can vote.  If you don’t love any of the choices, please feel free to do a write-in vote.  Polls are open until mid-day on Tuesday.  Thanks for helping!

Filed Under: Planning

Pricing Philosophy at Las Catalinas

June 11, 2010 by 1 Comment

Early buyers at Las Catalinas deserve  a great price.

  • They are playing a critical role in getting our town launched.
  • They will (though we will strive mightily to minimize it) have to deal with some hassles related to future construction.
  • Once we have a critical mass of wonderful buildings and public spaces built at Las Catalinas, our selling job will be vastly easier than it is today – and our early buyers will have made that happen.

So, our early buyers deserve to get a house that on the day they move in is worth far more than they paid for it, and then appreciates further from there.

Here is how our pricing methodology for our first seven houses (Phase Zero – all sold now and under construction) worked: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Living in Las Catalinas, Planning Tagged With:

New Place Names – The Winners

March 28, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Thanks for your votes, everyone. Here are the results:

1. Plaza Danta – this was actually only a close second in the votes, but I’m bumping it up to be winner because I think it is a bit more unique than Plaza del Mar.

2. Plazita Los Alemendros – a clear winner.

3. Paseo del Mar – clear winner.

4. Terrazas de Eden – tied for first – I’m giving it the nod with approval of Eden’s parents!

5. Plaza Escondida – clear winner.

6. Paseo de Los Ninos – clear winner.

7. Camino Las Catalinas – clear winner.

The voting was very helpful. Thanks to all who participated!

Filed Under: Living in Las Catalinas, Planning Tagged With:
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