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The image here is a thumbnail link to a bigger version of the illustration.
http://www.designstop.com/misc/mahonebay2.jpg
I designed the condo housing project a few years ago and it has been held up by a zoning dispute ever since. I just learned yesterday that our provincial Supreme Court has overthrown my client's development agreement with the the elected town council who had approved the project. It is very discouraging
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img] but I did get to have fun rendering the project with xara - and I was paid.
Regards, Ross
PS. In the time the project was on hold, the structural engineer died
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img]
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
[This message was edited by Mike Bailey on August 24, 2000 at 04:03 AM.]
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The image here is a thumbnail link to a bigger version of the illustration.
http://www.designstop.com/misc/mahonebay2.jpg
I designed the condo housing project a few years ago and it has been held up by a zoning dispute ever since. I just learned yesterday that our provincial Supreme Court has overthrown my client's development agreement with the the elected town council who had approved the project. It is very discouraging
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img] but I did get to have fun rendering the project with xara - and I was paid.
Regards, Ross
PS. In the time the project was on hold, the structural engineer died
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img]
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
[This message was edited by Mike Bailey on August 24, 2000 at 04:03 AM.]
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Ross
Pity about the project, (and the engineer); excellent image and I'm glad to hear you got paid for it. Earmarked your webpage after checking it out. Lot's of useful information and I hope you can find the time to continue.
Arnold
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The thumbnail looks great and wish I could see a larger version but when I clicked on it, I only got a white page, is it just me??
Dennis [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]
Carillus Design
[This message was edited by Dennis Cox on August 11, 2000 at 11:27 PM.]
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It worked for me, must be a slow server at i/us Dennis.
Ross, great rendering and striking design. Are you an architect as well as a renderer?
Gary
Gary Priester
Moderator Person
Be It Every So Humble...
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I cannot see the thumbnail (just an outline where it should be) and when I click on it I get a "file not found" message. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img]
Also, in the top left hand corner of the fourum an image (connecting to i-us.infopop.net) never loads. Paranoia sets in. Does anyone else have this happen to them??
Phil
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If you aren't seeing the thumbnail it would be because my server wasn't doing its job of serving the file.(So much for guaranteed 99.9% uptime!) So if you don't see it or the linked image it has nothing to do with i/us or its server.
I'm glad you guys like the image. In my work as an architectural designer I have found xara really useful for developing reasonably informative illustrations about my designs. Architects usually communicate with each other with pencil or pen sketches. Unfortunately even very good sketches often fail to adequately communicate the design ideas. Thankfully, I have found that with xara it is possible to bring enough realism to the ideas that others can "buy" into the ideas. I would love to be accomplished at 3d modeling for its ability to communicate but until I develope those skills I'll stick with xara.
Regards, Ross
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
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Phil,
I have the exact same problems.
<ul>
<LI>seeing the empty image box at the top of every forum --- I finally isolated that as being a problem with the page being written for IE visitors more than for Netscape vistors (not throwing any blame just observing a fact)
<ul>
<LI>since you posted that you had this problem, and since I was able to see one of Ross' other pages, I suddenly wondered how could Ross' server be selectively failing on that thumbnail and link but not on the other thumbnail and link??[/list]
<LI>I tried viewing this page in IE . . . aha! IE is more forgiving about interpreting HTML code.
<LI>Where my Netscape sees
http://www.designstop.com/misc/mahone bay.jpg
<LI>My IE sees the same link and compensates for the space and places a %20 in the URL. So I actually find the image at
http://www.designstop.com/misc/mahone%20bay.jpg
[/list]
OK so I wasn't losing sleep over this but I feel better having applied some HTML sleuthing skills and discovered why the thumbnail and image were missing.
Athena
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]
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Thanks for your investigation! I guess it's okay to post with the html but don't use file names containing spaces (that's always good html practice - but sometimes I'm sloppy). On my other post with a remotely served thumbnail I tried to have the html center the thumbnail. In my IE5 browser the i/us forum didn't render the <c></c> tag.
I understand that this forum software only allows editing of your posts for a limited time. I can't fix the problem with the space in the file name. If it's possible for our moderators to edit all posts without the time restriction - I ask that one of them edit my original post, taking out the spaces ( the "%20" ) in the two file names. In a moment I will upload new appropriately renamed files to my server.
Thanks, Ross
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on August 13, 2000 at 01:41 PM.]
[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on August 13, 2000 at 01:42 PM.]
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It is a shame that one of the people with that vision didn't live to see your shared vision come to life.
I don't know how the canadian land developers are but since I live in a part of Texas that still has beautiful trees I found myself wondering if the untouched landscape wasn't just as beautiful. When I think of Canada, I always think of beautiful trees and natural landscape. (Yes, I'll go so far as to say, I think of Canada as pristine,pure, and beautiful. Probably this is a "greener on the other side" issue)
Down here some residents have gotten angry because the developers or the contractors (hard to pinpoint who is to blame) just plow away all the big beautiful trees to build strip centers (which we don't need)when some of the trees could have been saved if the developer had been more careful. Then they go back with a landscaper and plant these shrubs or spindly little trees that just don't compare to the beautiful old trees that used to live there.
I live in the Houston area near The Woodlands, which used to be owned by the Mitchell family (of Mitchell Energy fame). When they(the Mitchells) were the stewards of The Woodlands, they made rules for developers that emphasized the preservation of the many beautiful trees in that area. That is the kind of land development I prefer. You just have to see The Woodlands to appreciate it (where there is at least the illusion of nature and "progress" co-existing).
I'm not blaming land owners, mind you. Here in Texas, they tax the land so a person has to figure out the best way to make money off of their land so they can pay their taxes (and raising the rent on a bunch of trees is just plain hard [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] ). But if no one(not the land owners, or the developers, or the contractors,) is to blame, how do things like disappearing vegetation happen?
Then we hear the bigwigs (presidents and vice presidents) tell the US citizens (yep, I know Canada and Mexico are American countries just like the US) come on the TV and say we need to preserve our natural resources. But not one legislator really gives land owners incentive to protect the land. By taxing landowners, they actually penalize people for owning land (whether its only got trees, cacti, cattle, or condos).
I'm curious, is your Provincial Supreme Court, elected or appointed? One would hope that the Provincial Supreme Court had a larger picture in mind, not just larger dollar signs in their pockets. In Texas, we do elect our Texas Supreme Court Justices (a few at a time). But that leaves us with the problem of the voters (and I'm one of those guilty of this) not knowing who is the best judge for the job. It's hard for working people to keep track of who's ruled how on what.
Anyway, ramblings aside. That is a really nice picture. I'm really relieved you got paid for that fine work. To me, as a freelancer, not getting paid for work you did on good faith is pretty high up there on the tragedy scale. It would have been really horrible if the developer had said, "Sorry Ross, the deal didn't go through. . . we can't pay you."
Please keep posting these wonderful pictures. And thank you for the neat advice on how you got the raggedy edge in the bank picture.
Thanks,
Athena
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
*******
August 28, 2000
Chris,
I just tested the eternal editability feature that you turned on, way back when. It seems to be working so it looks like you got this feature to be universal within I-US forums.
Athena
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]
[This message was edited by T. Athena Hatton on August 27, 2000 at 11:12 PM.]
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Although off-topic, in that it isn't a discussion of xara, this message is in response to Athena and is perhaps of interest to others:
The waterfront project I illustrated had a very slow and painful death. The developer who came to my architectural firm is a very interesting fellow. He is approaching full retirement and was looking to develop a condo project where he and a few good friends could live. He'd develop it and sell units to a few buddies and they'd all live happily ever after. Of course he'd sell some other units - so he'd get his for "free". The land in question is a piece of old landfill at one edge of a very attractive town. It had no trees. It was really just a unpaved parking lot that afforded some great waterfront views to the cars that illegally parked there and to the three houses across the street.
The land is zoned "waterfront industrial". Under this zoning it could be a junk yard, a garbage recycling operation, or (if it were big enough) an oil refinery or paper mill. The town's planner advised the town council that the proposed condo development conformed to the zoning. He did so with the thought that "waterfront industrial" is probably the most wide open of zones. To put it simply, if by right you can accept a polluting pulp mill then there should be nothing stopping you from building a relatively modest high-end housing development.
The town was not a pushover. Our developer didn't give up. We had 14 public presentations before council and its planning advisory committee. The project was redesigned three times in effort to win their approval. The design I posted above was actually the first one. What was finally approved after about one year of negotiations with the town is actually very different from the illustration. I should also point out that we presented the final scheme to the town's heritage group who advise council and we received their unanimous endorsement.
After we had the town's offical "notice of intention to enter into a development agreement" there is in our municipal law an opportunity for upset citizens to appeal. Four people got together and appealed on the basis that condos shouldn't be built on waterfront industrial land. The appeal was made to a gov't appointed board charged to see that municipal councils act democratically and that they apply laws correctly. This appeals process took several months and cost both the citizens group and the town a lot of legal fees. The council had to defend its actions to the board. Our client also had significant legal costs in his efforts to assist the town with its case. Eventually the review board agreed with the town council in support of the development. We thought we would proceed to construction.
It wasn't to be! The citizens group (all four of them) appealed the board's ruling to the provincial supreme court saying both coucil and the review board were in error. After several more months and more legal costs, three (appointed) judges of the supreme court agreed with the citizens group and ended all chance of the project ever being built. Their decision cannot be appealed.
I must say although the lawyers made a pile of money in this matter, it never really came down to one side having better lawyers or a "dream team". I find it interesting that the town's lawyer who originally advised the town on the legality of the planner's interpretation of the zoning - is now our province's Minister of Justice! In the time all of this has happened, he was elected to the Legislature and his party gave the Justice portfolio.
So when I write that I was happy to have been paid you can now see that I wasn't refering to getting paid for the rendering. It was nice to get paid for the hundreds of hours put into the project. The project and the process was certainly a struggle. I truly feel very sorry for my client. (He probably can't afford to retire any more!)
Regards, Ross
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
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Thanks for that Athena.
Phil
PS. Nice stuff Ross! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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Did the four citizens live across the street from the property? Can't imagine why else you would want an industrial site over residential...don't block my view.
Love your work,
Mickie
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Two of the four lived across the street. The other two were their friends. They of course were concerned about their views but our law doesn't support a "right to view" so they couldn't argue anything about disruption of their views. It is also interesting that the two who lived across the street also had home-based employment. As their driveways have limited parking, they both have their customers park on the vacant space across the street! It was very clear to me that they had a conflict of interest when they claimed their objections only related to preserving zoning integrity - not their own personal interests.
Regards, Ross
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
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I don't know what happened. I can't see the graphic.
Ww
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Hi wALDO,
I tried to reply directly to you via email rather than posting to the forum thread. Unfortunately the message was bounced back - errors in your posted email address.
You mention not seeing the graphic. Please note Athena's first post to this same thread. She has uncovered why some people can't see the images. (The problem is the file name I used for the graphic has a space in it that netscape navigator won't accept).
Because the i/us forum software restricts editing of one's own posts after so many minutes, I can't go back and change the post. I wonder if with your moderator status, you can get into my post to edit out the spaces in the urls I used to have the images served from my server?
Regards, Ross
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
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I fixed the links for you. Hope ya don't mind?
Mb
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Ross:
I changed the time allowed for editing posts some weeks ago to unlimited. Perhaps I overlooked this forum. Can you try editing an older post?
<blockquote>
<font color=green>Chris Dickman</font>
http://www.i-us.com/images/sig.gif
</blockquote>
