Nyhaven: Views From Within (Nuclear City - 5/8)

[KoV Liberty]

I like it! Will the paintbrushes work in an old (very) of Photoshop?

[just_a_guy]

Great updates and great looking interchanges. I don't know about you but I seem the prefer building dificult interchanges like the one in your last pic.

[carkid1998]

Wow! May I ask how you do the overhead region view? I hope it's not photoshop because I can't afford it

[woodb3kmaster]

Alex (Driftmaster07): Thank you, Alex! I've already answered your question in numerous PMs, so you already know that the brushes plugin requires (I think) Photoshop 7 or later. However, it's possible that similar plugins may exist for free image-editing software like the GIMP (I don't know, since I don't use any of those programs).

just_a_guy: Thanks! Yes, I too enjoy pushing the envelope of what the RHW can do, although I'll have to wait for RHW 4.0 (or later) to be released before I can do some of the  things I want to do.

Ryan (carkid1998): Unfortunately, I do, in fact, use Photoshop to make overhead region views, but I'm sure you can make them in the GIMP or any other free image-editing program. David (dedgren) wrote a good tutorial on how to make them for square regions; it's in the Tutorials section of the forums here.



Well, this update is a day later than I wanted it to be, but in my defense, I was away from my computer for most of yesterday (I was on vacation), so I wasn't really able to post it before now. Anyway, here's Update 32!



The 2390s were a busy decade for me. Not just because of the Hunters Island land reclamation project, the new City Hall, the beginnings of the Downtown Rail Loop and the seawall-building that was going on - those projects certainly kept me busy, but there was more going on than that. All that decade, HM King Zachary, who had come to the throne of Lower Columbia back in 2385, funded the construction of half a dozen new high-rise housing projects in the inner city of Nyhaven, and as chief engineer of the city, it was my job to keep tabs on each of them. That meant making lots of stops at the construction sites to make sure the construction was following all the building codes and staying on schedule. I must have spent hours sitting in traffic on my way between City Hall and the various construction sites!



The first of the king's projects to come to my attention would be a four-tower estate called University Crescent, so named because it would be built on three city blocks on Main Street, just north of the University of Nyhaven.



Another project would be built on two blocks just across August Avenue from Spanish Town. This project would require moving a fire station that sat on one of the blocks, and construction couldn't begin until the firefighters had moved into some new digs nearby.



It wasn't pleasant, but eventually, all of the properties on the future site of University Crescent had been bought, so demolition was able to begin in the summer of 2393. Once all the old buildings were gone, it was time to prepare the site for construction. That meant taking out the two old streets that divided the site and grading a new access road within the property.



Meanwhile, I received a flood of new building applications coming from developers who wanted to build new mid-rises north of the downtown CBD. They all seemed like pretty solid plans, so I had no reservations approving them. Soon, a forest of cranes had sprung up north of downtown.



The two-block estate wasn't the only housing project that would be built near Spanish Town. On the opposite side of the neighborhood, I was watching as another estate went up. Construction on this one started in early 2395.



At about the same time, the first two towers of University Crescent started rising out of the ground.



Further south, a new set of towers was under construction just off Greenway. The aptly-named Greenway House was going up not far from New Nippon.



It felt like ages, but eventually, the first of the Spanish Town developments started construction. That fire station really slowed things down over there!



The final housing project to get my approval was the Mercer Terrace estate. Like so many of the other projects, this one, being built on Mercer Avenue south of Rossmore Lake Park, consisted of four high-rise towers rising out of a common base structure. After doing a little research to find out why they were all so similar, I found out that all the big projects were designed by the same architectural firm, the Bixel Group.



By the summer of 2397, the other Spanish Town estate was well on its way toward completion. It seemed like it was only under construction for a little while!



University Crescent was progressing nicely, too. It didn't take long for the first pair of towers to be completed. After that, workers moved on to building the other pair.



In 2398, as I was working on walling in Elochoman Slough near midtown, I stopped by the area north of downtown, only to find that all the cranes were gone. All the new buildings were finished and filled to the brim with new Nyhaveners.



The next year, work was finished on University Crescent. I have to say, the Bixel Group did a great job designing those towers!



Greenway House opened its doors at about the same time as University Crescent. While not quite as stunning as the other estates, this one still went a long way toward providing affordable housing in inner Nyhaven.



The close of the century also saw the completion of the two Spanish Town projects. I bet their residents have great views of each other's buildings!





Mercer Terrace was the last estate to open its doors, opening just before Christmas 2399. It was pretty, at least, that's what I thought when I saw the finished building for the first time...

[djvandrake]

 

Great update!  Lots of nice looking new towers.  How fitting is it the new buildings in the "University Crescent" are arranged in something of a Crescent shape?   

[just_a_guy]

Moving on to denser developements I see. That's good! Hopefully Nyhaven won't fall into the transportation problems that some west coast cities (like LA for example) have gotten into because of its huge urban sprawl.

Great update!

[KoV Liberty]

Nice update! But what is the building in the second to last pic with the flare effect?

[builderbuiltoff]

great update, looks real nice

[jimbo_jj]

Those are some great choices for new apartments. The University Crescent looks especially good! Looks like you were able to orient the buildings just enough for its namesake. Yes, when planning works out. Excellent work!

-James

[Ryan B.]

Where can I find the Jeffersons?



Great update!   

[ldvger]

Zack-

Well, I am only starting pg.7, but I am totally, totally impressed with your work on Nyhaven, it's totally awesome.  With my slow WiFi connection, it's taken me many hours to get this far and I played more games of solitaire than I care to count while I refreshed pages, but it was well worth it.  I love the "organic" feel of the city and the way it has grown more than anything else.  Also super enjoy your narrative story as a city engineer in charge of infrastructure, realy an excellent persepctive to tell a story from, well chosen!

One of my biggest questions is how do you achieve the great satellite views of your region?  Could you find time to post/create a tutorial for this process?  Or, point those of us, like myself, who may be interested in doing somethign similar, to where you learned this technique? 

A big two thumbs up    . I am likely going to take a break from my own MD to finish reading up to date with yours.  You make me want to abandon my MD and start something totally new....

Lora/LD

[danielcote]

Great update! I love you're choice of archetecture!

You know I've always wanted to become an archetect when I get out of school! A Civil archatect designing buildings.

[Battlecat]

Beautiful shots!  Great job integrating those huge residential towers into your region!  Those are incredibly huge!  They look great though. 

[woodb3kmaster]

djvandrake: Glad you liked it! Really, the name University Crescent was inspired by the arrangement of the buildings, so thanks for approving of it!

just_a_guy: Thank you! Yes, high-rise development has arrived in full force in Nyhaven. I'm sure there will be plenty of ways to keep road congestion from becoming a serious problem.

It's interesting that you mention Los Angeles as the paragon of sprawl. Although a lot of people think LA has uber-low density, according to Robert Bruegmann's book Sprawl, at the level of the entire metropolitan area, it is actually the densest major city in the US (even more so than New York), with an average density of just over 7,000 people per square mile in 2000. It turns out that there was a lot of "leapfrog"-type development early in LA's expansion, with many areas not being developed until more recently.

Alex (Driftmaster07): Thanks! That building would be Bixel's Cayman Rise.

builderbuiltoff: Welcome to Nyhaven, and thank you for commenting! I'm glad you like what you see.

James (jimbo_jj): I'm glad you approve of my choices! Bixel has put together some really great buildings, and I'm glad you like the way they look in Nyhaven.  Thanks for stopping by!

Ryan B.: Good one! Glad you liked the update!

Lora (ldvger): Welcome to Nyhaven, and thanks for stopping by! I'm glad you're enjoying my updates. I'm especially glad you like my story's unique perspective; I wanted to do something different when I started this MD, and I don't think anyone had yet hit upon the idea of describing their construction projects from their chief engineer's viewpoint. Lots of people seem to like it, though, so I'd say it was a good idea.

As for making those top-down satellite images, David (dedgren) has put together a great tutorial on making them, although his approach is specific to square regions. Since your SF region is rectangular, you'll likely have to play around in the GIMP (or any other free image-editing software program you want) to find the right aspect ratio to resize your outputs from Region Census to.

Let me encourage you to keep plugging away at your SF recreation. You're doing a fantastic job with it! Of course, you could start a little side-project if you want to start building some actual cities, but that's entirely up to you. Come back soon!

Daniel (danielcote): Thank you! As it happens, I started university with the intention of becoming a civil architect, but since UCLA had only a graduate program in architecture when I started going here, I had to start out as a Civil Engineering major. That didn't last long, however - having to take calculus proved too difficult, so I became a Linguistics major instead. Good luck on your future career plans! I'm sure you'll do great!

Battlecat: Thanks, my friend! They really are gigantic buildings, aren't they? I'm glad you like them.



As I remember, some of you wanted to see a full picture of the performing arts center that was built in Update 24, since I only showed little bits of it at the time. Well, after a long delay, your requests are finally fulfilled! Take a look below:



Enjoy!

[ecoba]

Did I not comment yet? Shame on me, Zack.

That was a great update, and I especially like the way that you style your updates when you are constructing things. Taking lots of in process pics, and then(gasp) photoshopping them!

The Performing Arts Centre is beautiful, and that updates is one of my favourites in all of Nyhaven (but of course not saying they're all not good. Hope that made sense.).

Ethan

[danielcote]

It looks Great and the street layout is fantastic. The parking garage must be pretty useful and the preforming arts center is conveniently by a school.

[Nanami]

Nice update

[woodb3kmaster]

Ethan (ecoba): There's no need to be ashamed, Ethan - better late than never! Thanks for your very kind words, and I think I understood that last part (you weren't saying that not all of my updates are good, right?). Take care!

Daniel (danielcote): Thank you, Daniel!

976: Thanks!



Well, my classes started today, so today's update unfortunately marks the end of the weekly updates. After today, I'm going back to my old schedule of posting a full update every other week and a special on the odd Thursdays, and I'll likely stick to this schedule for the whole school year. Though I hate to make you all wait longer between updates, at least this slower pace will let me prolong Nyhaven's life - I currently have ideas for updates that will last through next May, and I'm sure new ideas will come to mind before then. Anyway, it's update time!



Life in the engineering department never slows down, or so it seems. I've almost always had a few different projects on my plate at once. The early 2400s were no different. As construction progressed on the Downtown Rail Loop and Route 203, I was hard at work on an extension to the Nyhaven MetroRail's Puget Line, which I had first built 30 years earlier:



The existing line was kind of short, and from the start, it had always ended at Midtown Junction. Now there was a growing number of Nyhaveners on the south bank of the Columbia River who were taking the Puget Line into town, and they were growing tired of having to change trains at Midtown Junction. With this in mind, I drew up plans for an extension of the line through downtown to Nyhaven Central Station.

At first, I had planned for the line to continue on an elevated guideway from the tracks it shared with the Port Line, cutting across Chinatown and running over the city streets. But one day, I opened up the latest issue of the Nyhaven Sentinel to read this:



I personally was on the side of the editorial board, but I knew I had to listen to the critics. Consigning my elevated plans to the trashcan, I redesigned the extension to run mostly underground. It would be expensive to build, but public opinion demanded it.



A few months later, in the spring of 2402, the city held a groundbreaking ceremony at Midtown Junction. This was merely a formality, since no construction would take place at that station.



The real start of construction took place further north, on the edge of Chinatown, where the Port Line's guideway turned to the west. My workers built a new set of tracks continuing to the north and diving underground.



Not far from the ramp leading underground, there was a subway station on Saint Mark's Line. I wanted the Puget Line to serve it, so the tunnels turned west to pass under the older Saint Mark's Line tunnels.



Before long, the tunnelers reached the Loop tunnels. This marked the end of new tunneling on the south side of downtown, since the Puget Line would be routed along the course of the Loop for several blocks to the north.



Tunneling resumed just north of the First Avenue/Broadway station, to take the line away from the Loop and into Central Station.



A year later, the tunnels reached Central Station. All that remained was to build new platforms in the station and run tests on the new rolling stock.



At last, when January of 2405 rolled around, the extension was ready for its debut. On opening day, stations along the eastern side of the Loop saw thousands more passengers pass through them than before. The line was a resounding success!




The MetroRail system now made more sense with the Puget Line crossing downtown. People in the southern suburbs could get to their jobs more efficiently, and they were thankful.

[KoV Liberty]

Looks cool! Too bad I'm banned from Simtrop to download it.

[Nanami]

Looks cool! Too bad I'm banned from Simtrop to download it.

what happen?