Lower Kitchener (534 Charles St E) | 32, 27, 15 fl | Proposed

[westwardloo]

This one is yet another disappointing tower for the region. Not sure what about the region entices these pathetic attempts at design. London somehow has some sharp looking towers recently constructed/proposed/ under construction. I understand the odd tower being a shit show of design, everywhere has that, but it feels like majority of the towers built are a mess with little to no money spent on design. I don't hate the podium, it has potential and is better than most in the region, although they added the same grey white and dark grey precast panels as the Duke . The tower has some serious issues with it, I don't even know where to start.

[Joedelay Highhoe]

Our council has made it very clear to developers that they aren't going to approve any nice looking towers. Only the ugly and poorly laid out towers get approved. I would guess that any half decent developer is taking their time and money elsewhere. Soon DTK will look like University and Lester. As citizens, the only power we have is to leave town.

[ac3r]

I've thought about trying to propose a design panel that can work with the cities, region, developers and architects to promote good design in regards to not only building architecture but also landscape architecture and urban space. Toronto has one that I've worked with before called the Design Review Panel. But ugh...the amount of effort that would be required to get something like that going and the endless negotiations have put me off from it for now. I wouldn't be getting paid for this and the chances of it even succeeding would be questionable, so it doesn't seem like it would be worth the effort. I'm already busy enough and although I have roots in Waterloo Region, I don't see it as home enough to really want to take on such a Sisyphean task. Maybe...maybe not. It'd take a lot of preparation even if I had a team to work with (which I don't).

[Lebronj23]

At least it’s better than the initial render. But yeah…I wonder when an average Toronto developer will take a shot here, it was looking promising last year but this is a crazy slow down. Nobody here is even putting there project on sale because of the conditions. Q condos has been on sale for 8 months. 24 Charles and 88 Queen are both approved for months but not moving forward

[tomh009]

Yes, the short tower looks much better than the tall one, which has 1970s apartment building vibes.

[ac3r]

At least it’s better than the initial render. But yeah…I wonder when an average Toronto developer will take a shot here, it was looking promising last year but this is a crazy slow down. Nobody here is even putting there project on sale because of the conditions. Q condos has been on sale for 8 months. 24 Charles and 88 Queen are both approved for months but not moving forward

I suspect this "slow down" will be hurting us for a long time. I mean it was inevitable post-pandemic. The economy boomed during that catastrophe, but reality was going to catch up because it was all propped up artificially. Now we're having a major recession which was guaranteed to happen following that, so we're likely going to see - at the local, national and international/global level - a slow down of spending and construction in all regards, from infrastructure to housing. I would even argue that the Waterloo Region renaissance is over. I doubt we'll see a major boom in construction for years to come. New projects will continue to come out, but it's going to be a trickle rather than a torrent. A new condo or apartment every so often, but it won't be multiple new projects each month and construction cranes in the sky wherever you look. I suspect the LRT expansion and train station will be also suffering from this too.

[bravado]

At least it’s better than the initial render. But yeah…I wonder when an average Toronto developer will take a shot here, it was looking promising last year but this is a crazy slow down. Nobody here is even putting there project on sale because of the conditions. Q condos has been on sale for 8 months. 24 Charles and 88 Queen are both approved for months but not moving forward

I suspect this "slow down" will be hurting us for a long time. I mean it was inevitable post-pandemic. The economy boomed during that catastrophe, but reality was going to catch up because it was all propped up artificially. Now we're having a major recession which was guaranteed to happen following that, so we're likely going to see - at the local, national and international/global level - a slow down of spending and construction in all regards, from infrastructure to housing. I would even argue that the Waterloo Region renaissance is over. I doubt we'll see a major boom in construction for years to come. New projects will continue to come out, but it's going to be a trickle rather than a torrent. A new condo or apartment every so often, but it won't be multiple new projects each month and construction cranes in the sky wherever you look. I suspect the LRT expansion and train station will be also suffering from this too.

Thankfully the housing crisis has been solved, so we can just ride this one out for a while.

[Spokes]

Genuinely curious, why would someone design this? Is a design like this cheaper compared to something that looks good. And by a significant amount?

[jwilliamson]

I suspect the LRT expansion and train station will be also suffering from this too.

Honestly, losing the train station might not be a bad thing. $100 million is way too much to pay for a small station with no amenities.

[ac3r]

I suspect the LRT expansion and train station will be also suffering from this too.

Honestly, losing the train station might not be a bad thing. $100 million is way too much to pay for a small station with no amenities.

I do agree. Though I think having a nice train station in a city should be a symbol of pride, much like a City Hall building can be. It's somewhere that people go to on a regular or semi-regular basis. A grand station with a nice design should be a must for a city/region that wants to take itself seriously. However indeed, the lack of amenities is disappointing. They had such grand visions for this at the start with the project not just being a train station, but an entire mixed-use development. Then it turned into just a train station...with nothing really there. I suspect they have long term plans for more development as the property is significant, but if it's 30-40 years out at best, what's the point?

Genuinely curious, why would someone design this?  Is a design like this cheaper compared to something that looks good. And by a significant amount?

It's a lack of talent. You also get a lot of architects who aren't, well, artists in a sense. You look at the work of so called Starchitects and you can see they have an aesthetic sensibility and are also governed by personal philosophical and ideological beliefs. You can look at buildings by Zaha Hadid and immediately see she worked within an aesthetic she prefers and is governed by a belief system that incorporates it.

Then you look at the architects who design for companies like SRM or Drewlo and you can see how they lack those sensibilities. They design in a formulaic, capitalistic way. It's like with music. Plenty of people can learn how to play a violin or grand piano. The technical side of reading music and playing an instrument is really down to basic "rules". But playing those instruments in a way that can convey actual emotion takes a special person to touch the strings or keys in the right way to achieve a good composition. The redesigns of this project that were recently posted show a pretty bland looking project. I can just look at them and using the exact materials they've chosen, can mentally imagine a much more evocative and interesting design. The tower doesn't need to look that awful. The midrise sections and podium could easily be a lot more interesting with some adjustments. I think it's just an issue of who these developers hire, which also comes down to how much they're willing to spend to work with and then what budget they will allocate to things like materials (but again, even with limited materials you should be able to create something good). And...well...just having people around with a "good eye" who can look at something and say, yeah, this is great. Or this is terrible.

[bravado]

Honestly, losing the train station might not be a bad thing. $100 million is way too much to pay for a small station with no amenities.

I do agree. Though I think having a nice train station in a city should be a symbol of pride, much like a City Hall building can be. It's somewhere that people go to on a regular or semi-regular basis. A grand station with a nice design should be a must for a city/region that wants to take itself seriously. However indeed, the lack of amenities is disappointing. They had such grand visions for this at the start with the project not just being a train station, but an entire mixed-use development. Then it turned into just a train station...with nothing really there. I suspect they have long term plans for more development as the property is significant, but if it's 30-40 years out at best, what's the point?

Genuinely curious, why would someone design this?  Is a design like this cheaper compared to something that looks good. And by a significant amount?

It's a lack of talent. You also get a lot of architects who aren't, well, artists in a sense. You look at the work of so called Starchitects and you can see they have an aesthetic sensibility and are also governed by personal philosophical and ideological beliefs. You can look at buildings by Zaha Hadid and immediately see she worked within an aesthetic she prefers and is governed by a belief system that incorporates it.

Then you look at the architects who design for companies like SRM or Drewlo and you can see how they lack those sensibilities. They design in a formulaic, capitalistic way. It's like with music. Plenty of people can learn how to play a violin or grand piano. The technical side of reading music and playing an instrument is really down to basic "rules". But playing those instruments in a way that can convey actual emotion takes a special person to touch the strings or keys in the right way to achieve a good composition. The redesigns of this project that were recently posted show a pretty bland looking project. I can just look at them and using the exact materials they've chosen, can mentally imagine a much more evocative and interesting design. The tower doesn't need to look that awful. The midrise sections and podium could easily be a lot more interesting with some adjustments. I think it's just an issue of who these developers hire, which also comes down to how much they're willing to spend to work with and then what budget they will allocate to things like materials (but again, even with limited materials you should be able to create something good). And...well...just having people around with a "good eye" who can look at something and say, yeah, this is great. Or this is terrible.

I guess I don't get many chances to talk to architects...

In your opinion, what structural changes are needed to incentivize beauty? Does this come from clients who don't care, or overworked/uninspired firms cranking out projects as soon as possible?

If we want beautiful buildings again, do we need to have robber barons to pay for it like a century ago or is there a way to incentivize it on a bigger scale?

[GtwoK]

You would think firms would want to strive to be recognized for vision and talent, in the name of awards and artistic notoriety and such. Why isn't that?

Hell, even when I worked at Christie Digital, the design team had such a vision for the design of the projectors we made — things that were industrial grade and would never be seen by consumers. They always wanted to make them elegant in that class of product, strove for design awards. And yet we've got these massive, permanent (for all intents and purposes) buildings that will be seen daily by thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, and firms are happy just hiring Joe Shmo, on the basis of "he graduated, that's enough"

[jwilliamson]

Honestly, losing the train station might not be a bad thing. $100 million is way too much to pay for a small station with no amenities.

I do agree. Though I think having a nice train station in a city should be a symbol of pride, much like a City Hall building can be. It's somewhere that people go to on a regular or semi-regular basis. A grand station with a nice design should be a must for a city/region that wants to take itself seriously. However indeed, the lack of amenities is disappointing. They had such grand visions for this at the start with the project not just being a train station, but an entire mixed-use development. Then it turned into just a train station...with nothing really there. I suspect they have long term plans for more development as the property is significant, but if it's 30-40 years out at best, what's the point?

Genuinely curious, why would someone design this?  Is a design like this cheaper compared to something that looks good. And by a significant amount?

It's a lack of talent. You also get a lot of architects who aren't, well, artists in a sense. You look at the work of so called Starchitects and you can see they have an aesthetic sensibility and are also governed by personal philosophical and ideological beliefs. You can look at buildings by Zaha Hadid and immediately see she worked within an aesthetic she prefers and is governed by a belief system that incorporates it.

Then you look at the architects who design for companies like SRM or Drewlo and you can see how they lack those sensibilities. They design in a formulaic, capitalistic way. It's like with music. Plenty of people can learn how to play a violin or grand piano. The technical side of reading music and playing an instrument is really down to basic "rules". But playing those instruments in a way that can convey actual emotion takes a special person to touch the strings or keys in the right way to achieve a good composition. The redesigns of this project that were recently posted show a pretty bland looking project. I can just look at them and using the exact materials they've chosen, can mentally imagine a much more evocative and interesting design. The tower doesn't need to look that awful. The midrise sections and podium could easily be a lot more interesting with some adjustments. I think it's just an issue of who these developers hire, which also comes down to how much they're willing to spend to work with and then what budget they will allocate to things like materials (but again, even with limited materials you should be able to create something good). And...well...just having people around with a "good eye" who can look at something and say, yeah, this is great. Or this is terrible.

If building a beautiful city actually requires architects who have artistry, it will never happen here. I don't think that's actually a requirement though. We need basic designs that look good
when implemented by mediocre architects, with easy ways to vary their appearances so they don't get too repetitive.

If you imagine yourself in some non-descript neighbourhood of your favourite city, were all (or even most) of the buildings designed by an architect with a sense of artistry? Were the buildings designed on their own, or were designs repeated over many buildings?

[nms]

I'm not sure if this should be tossed into separate architecture thread (is there one?), but I'll toss my oar in anyways.

Waterloo Region does have good architecture, including some buildings that have hit it out of the park, regardless of the decade (or century that they were built in). Much of the good architecture was commissioned as civic or institutional architecture (think of City Halls, post offices, high schools, or university buildings). Yes, there were also some awful civic or institutional buildings too, but in general, things looked okay. Some pieces even came to define was Waterloo Region looked like so that when you saw it, you knew that you were in Waterloo Region and not somewhere else. Some of the large factories and office buildings in the area had good architectural design too.

On the residential side of things, some architecture, built over the last 150 years, is remarkable for its form and style, regardless of the size of building or the market it was designed for. Some of it has since been painted white with black trim, but hopefully that fad will change.

Good landscapes and streetscapes like art, rely on a variety of line, form, colour and texture that are balanced with each other. Simply tossing a fruit salad of line, form, colour and texture at a development does not a good development make. I grew up in neighbourhood where there were a variety of finishes (brick, siding) and colours (name your brick colour, and sidings colours) and sizes. Houses varied in their overall shape even though the interiors were often identically laid out. Add in some boulevard trees and the street looked pleasing.

The worst example of the opposite effect is West Waterloo near the parking lot for the west side trail (Sundew Drive at Mayapple St). Most every house is slate grey as far as the eye can see. There is little room in front of the houses for any kind of greenery or boulevard plantings. Maybe, in time, the streetscape will soften as individual owners add their own changes to the buildings.

The University campuses also have a pleasing feel to them (with a few exceptions). No, there isn't much variety in the shape of the buildings, but when your Board of Governors is made up of factory owners, it is any surprise that many of the early buildings could easily fit on an industrial campus?

I too, look forward to something different in our commercial and residential architecture.

[neonjoe]

Looking at the street view for the suburban example above I can guess that the builder is Eastforest Homes/Activa. They have been building the same models of the same homes for the last 30 years with slight variations. Locally they seem to be the most prolific builder of cookie cutter homes, I'd dare to say even worse the Mattamy. The suburbs from the last 25ish years are the most boring, the only upside is that far more park land and local amenities are now in the newest suburban areas....