At the Webb Companies/Studio Gang presentation of the updated scheme for the CentrePointe block on Thursday, much was made of the “tower of tubes”.

Architects and urban designers often speak of elegant solutions. This phrasing is deliberate. Too often, design is portrayed as purely the delivery of elegance, when place-based solutions are equally important.  So while elegance matters — and is what elevates a scheme from being functional to inspirational — the heart of the matter is finding solutions to the opportunities and challenges a specific location presents — from where to put the loading docks? to what form best represents Lexington?

“We spent a lot of time imagining ourselves walking past all sides of this project,” said Wes Walker, of Studio Gang. Pedestrianism was a driving element in the site plan, as Gang illustrated with a week-by-week schematic series showing how they continued to refine the hotel drop-off and loading dock location in their effort to provide a world-class visitor experience alongside a daily local experience on the sidewalk.

The sidewalk experience is built upon some basic premises that are relevant everywhere — buildings should come to edge of the sidewalk, doors and windows should be frequent, and outdoors spaces such as patios and passages should have activity on them. On this last point, the scheme places a patio dining experience right on the corner of Vine and Limestone.

While Studio Gang built their scheme upon good urban fundamentals, it was the inspiration drawn from elements of Lexington and the Bluegrass that elevate a fundamentally sound site plan to an exciting replacement for Victorian Square as the game-break shot on ESPN.

Woodford Webb opened the presentation with the astute observation that this block provides the opportunity to build up, not out. Right he is, but going up in a city center situation presents challenges that must be met. The original scheme for the development demonstrated what happens when the location is not addressed. As Gang put it “we inherited a mass along Main Street” that cast shadows on the Courthouse, the street, and neighboring structures. They solved the problem by breaking the mass into pieces — a slender tower, an asymmetrical office building, pedestrian passageways, and five Main Street side buildings to be designed by regional architects.

Gang walked the audience through a thoughtful interpretation of an element of the Bluegrass that is often passed-over — the fossilized coral that makes up the limestone under our feet–limestone that contributes to both the bourbon and horse industries by providing filtered water and calcium-rich pasture grass. Gang seized upon the structure of coral for the design of tower, both structural and aesthetic.

“What really sets this project apart is the remarkable level to which poetic inspiration — inspiration taken directly from this place — has helped give the project form and meaning,” said Graham Pohl, one of the contributing architects and ProgressLex contributor. “That is far more difficult to achieve, and Gang has succeeded on a very high level.”

Gang also announced the five Kentucky architects that will contribute buildings along the Main Street side of the block, a prospect that could seem gimmicky were it not for the intention — to reclaim the diversity and modulation provided along a main street by two and half centuries of building. Given the loss of the buildings that had provided such texture over the last century, this has the potential to be a graceful integration of a mega-block site plan with the fine grain of Main Street.

It is naïve to presume that the scheme presented Thursday is a final product. Finances, tenancy, and refining of the design into construction documents are powerful factors in shaping the end product. That said, we have a design team that goes beyond “what does it look like” to provide elegant solutions to the challenges and opportunities presented by the place. The discussion since Thursday has focused quite a bit on how it looks, but reducing this design to a “tower of tubes” doesn’t even scratch the surface.