06-08-2023, 11:03 AM
(06-08-2023, 08:58 AM)westwardloo Wrote: I wish The Region could get mid-rises like those. I know Europe has its fair share of Architectural stinkers, but by in large most of the cities I have been to are filled with beautiful well thought out mid-rise developments. I just don't understand what is wrong with architecture in Canada? Do our developers just not give a shit? or are our architects just incapable of thoughtful design? Does the lack of historic buildings in Canada cause an indifference to architecture? It doesn't cost that much more to choose the right materials for a project.
It's like we just throw exterior cladding at the walls and hope it makes a building.
I wish as well. Canada has plenty of good architects as well as architectural institutions. The main problem is the developers. It's they who don't really give a shit about what their buildings look like, they just want them built to recoup their investments.
It's a shame because so much talent gets wasted. It makes the architects frustrated when they are stuck designing these awful buildings, knowing the developers aren't putting much thought into the work. It can begin to cause a talent drain too. I don't know if you've ever been to the University of Waterloo School of Architecture but if you've ever been, have gone to their public exhibitions or have watched lectures on their YouTube channel, you can see just how good these students are. But often they end up graduating and move away to further their career.
I also put some blame on the city. If we had a design panel like Toronto does - where teams of architects, designers, artists, planners etc judge buildings and provide critique to the City of Toronto - then maybe we could get nicer buildings. We also have a lot of little things like requiring setbacks which are quite ugly IMO nor do we often build buildings together. They usually have a space between them (though I understand that at times it's necessary). And yeah we seem to hate midrise buildings. I wish we could follow the City of Toronto and open up all low density neighbourhoods to midrise development.
Unfortunately I don't think there's much we can do apart from suggesting the formation of a design panel and doing stuff like attending public meetings about developments and critiquing the design. At the same time I am not sure I trust the cities or region to implement a design panel correctly.
Like I mentioned...I don't think it's hard to design a good building. Sadly it seems like we lack sufficient local talent. Plus we have so many developers who don't care about the design, they just want something constructed ASAP so even if there are architects doing good work, they get handicapped. HIP and IN8 are good examples. They've developed a few buildings and forced the architects to redesign it in order to save money on materials. The Gaslight District project in Cambridge is one example. I briefly chatted with one of the architects last year or so and she said that they originally had an okay design on the podium but the developer made them redo it to lower costs and that's how it ended up with that awful grey wall covering the podium. I suspect that is what happened with Duke Tower as well because the original design looked much different than the bargain bin cladding and precast monochrome stripes they used.