Creating Places: A Citizen Observer's Look at Nashville's Built Environment


Writer's Note: William Williams' interest in the manmade environment dates to 1970, at which point the then-young Williams started a collection of postcards of city skylines. The collection now numbers 1,000-plus cards. Among the writer's specific interests are exterior building design, city district planning, demographics, signage, mixed-use development, mass transit and green/sustainable construction and living. Williams began his Creating Places column with The City Paper in February 2005. The column in its original form was discontinued in September 2008 and reinvented via this blog in November 2008. Creating Places can be found on the home page of the website of The City Paper, at which Williams has worked in various capacities since October 2000.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Creating Places: Random Observations

* The structure that will be the future home to Nordstrom (at The Mall at Green Hills) is framed and topped out. I like the way it straddles the sidewalk along the north side of Abbott Martin Road. Nice height, too.

* And speaking of Green Hills, a soon-t0-be-completed office structure in Bedford Commons (seemingly to be called the Annie Campbell Building) is looking fairly attractive — at least as far as conservatively designed structures can look in 2010.

* I'm curious as to how the park that will front Convent Place (along 21st Avenue South) will appear and function once finished. Landscaping will be a key.

* Similarly, the gymnasium under construction at Christ the King School (and running along Belmont Boulevard) has me intrigued, in part, because so much "academic design" in Nashville during the past few years has been painfully uninspired.

* On the academic building theme, I consider the exterior design of the recently completed James D. Hughes Center on the Lipscomb University campus to be solid — but nothing more.
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