maestro said: The towers, the podiums and, everything else are a bore. It's fine for where it is proposed. Damn flood plains. Has it ever been considered to raise the sidewalks as well to the height of the retail? Click to expand...

This will be an un-informed, non-engineer comment but here is goes:What's the deal with our floodplains and the silly steps up to buildings that are located in them? Surely there are countless cities around the world that are in flood plains but don't do these steps everywhere which do more to kill retail viability / street atmosphere than any flood actually would. I get that this design prevents or minimizes hypothetical flood damage every couple decades, but then what are other cities doing? is our flood risk actually that much more significant/common? Or are we just more sticklers engineering any possible risk out of buildings (as well as any possibility of a reasonable pedestrian realm)?Can someone more well-versed in flood design, city comparisons and engineering help me out here as to why we are doing this and why (in my limited perception at least) no other place seems to try this hard? Much appreciated