Design Your Own Alouis Condo Building

Design Your Own Alouis Condo BuildingImage: Bob Borson
Nuala Sawyer
Published on July 29, 2014
Our post a couple weeks ago covering the upcoming transformation of Alouis Auto Radiator into retail and condo buildings  garnered plenty of feedback, with some commenters curious about the future retail spaces on Divisadero and others concerned about fallout at The Independent. 
The vast majority of the comments, however, were about the aesthetics. Dreamed up by Forum Design, the look of the modern condos proved to be a hot topic. As a reminder, here's what the architect has proposed:


Here's what a few of you had to say:

"This design trend is revolting. It looks like a library from the mid 1970's. Come on."

"Retail front looks promising. Huge improvement. Great addition to Divis corridor. Condo tower needs to be held to higher design standard than indicated in tacky horrible images shown in article."

"The design looks like they purchased 16 Matson Line containers and made them into condos. The owners need a more creative architect."

"Looks like those cheap, poor quality insta-condos on Folsom."

The general consensus seems to be that the building design is seriously lacking in originality and simply doesn't fit with the neighborhood. In response, commenter Steve Dombek took the design into his own hands.

"The retail/restaurant space looks great, why not continue that theme for the rest of the building? In fact, why not add a few extra floors of housing on top of the retail/restaurant space, and give the whole thing a Mission Revival look?"

This is what he came up with: 


(Image: Steve Dombek)

For all the rest of you that think you can do better than what's currently being planned, we are posing a challenge: if you really truly dislike the condo design, and have some design chops, we'd like to see your mockups and ideas. 

Link to them in the comments below, or send them along to tips {at} hoodline {{dot}} com. If we get enough feedback, we'll post all your entries next week. Who knows, maybe you could be the one to influence the new building's design for the better.