Comments on: Pb Micro-Ghost Towns

By: Jesus Sherrard

Jesus Sherrard — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:07:44 +0000

You made some fine points there. I did a hunt on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog

By: Edward Pusch

Edward Pusch — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:09:07 +0000

This domain appears to get a good ammount of visitors. How do you promote it? It offers a nice unique twist on things. I guess having something useful or substantial to say is the most important factor.

By: dan cortland

dan cortland — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:17:56 +0000

Pb Elemental cranked out a remarkable number of progressive projects like this one with the big orange wall on 23rd Ave. Alas, their timing was just a wee bit off.

Big orange walls having had their heyday around 1967.

By: vanderleun

vanderleun — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:05:58 +0000

Recession over? In that case, place any extra money in the stock market and make a killing.

Don’t worry, I’ll flip a dollar in your cup in a year. If you have a cup.

By: not deluded

not deluded — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:17:21 +0000

you’re all koola id drinkers. These buildings all look horrible. they do not fit the neighborhoods and they have a blacnk hostile inhuman look to them. In the years to come, no one will copy this model nor will it ever represent “home.” It’s stuff like this that makes Seattleites hate new development and density. Not to mention the elitist and self congratulatory attitude that goes with this kind of stuff.

Wow, a box, wow, unashamedly bare materials, you know, it’s not even original anymore.

It does sustain the fantasies of self proclaimed egotechts, obviously, but that’s about all you can say for it.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:51:24 +0000

There was nothing inherently faulty in their designs that caused the business model to fail. They (seemingly, don’t know the individuals personally) just got way out over their skis as developers. But almost every developer got over their skis as developers, too. Thats the b*tch about this recession; both the “good” and “bad” developers are taking it in the shorts and separating the performance of the two is difficult. The number of what I would categorize as good developers in trouble is very high.

By: jc

jc — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:50:20 +0000

Really? People are still talking about Pb?

They’ve been done and over with for a while. They haven’t done anything original or new in along time and that what they’ve done isn’t selling (and wasn’t even when the economy was good). A few great projects. Then a lot of repetitious crap.

hugeasscity should move on. everybody else did.

By: Detsea

Detsea — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:04:48 +0000

i concur with Timmy&Jimmy(11) and cherry(7).

jay(6) – your list is stupid. go home and cry yourself to sleep. i might read the list if koolhaas made it, but not you.

By: Timmy&Jimmy

Timmy&Jimmy — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:52:55 +0000

It takes years to master space, form and materials. The “kids” who started pbElemental have a long way to go in order to produce intelligent, sophisticated, useful, beautiful buildings.

The fact that their projects are sitting empty – not to mention they most likely lost their clients alot of money -(who would hire these untested designers anyway? their work looks like it’s straight out of architecture school), is a testament not to the deflated housing market, but to their utter lack of design talent.

By: Detsea

Detsea — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:50:59 +0000

As you mentioned, yes they ‘cranked out a number of projects’. But I’d like to point out that most PB elemental work is not progressive. They have branded a style of architecture and do exactly what you said, ‘crank it out’. They were a cash machine doing the same thing over and over again, and they failed doing it.

I do appreciate some of their work and the nice detailing that is done on many of their single family homes. However, most of their multifamily projects are overly trendy and built using extremely cheap materials.

There are 2 reasons that their firm went from 40+ employees down to 3 within a matter of months. 1. their business model failed. 2. their tacky trend was beaten to death.

I am an architect. I do understand design. PB has done some nice work. I don’t like to see people fail, but maybe this is a wake up call for those guys to try something different. They are no doubt smart designers. Let’s see if they can rebound from this and become progressive.