Midtown Lofts | ?m | 6 fl | Complete

[tomh009]

I have a lot of friends who study architecture at UoW and see all these things going up and say, once they graduate, they'll most certainly be working in Toronto instead of here because there are more opportunities to design and build more innovative and contemporary projects, because everything that gets approved in this city looks like this or this. City Centre, the pharmacy building etc were exceptions due to their status symbol, but the rest of these projects are going to age horribly - visually and physically - in 15-20 years.

I think your links are somewhat unfair.  First, the cities cannot dictate the architecture of what gets built, just the zoning parameters.  Of course the design might sway some if the developer is asking for variances, but if the building is within the zoning restrictions, the developer can determine what to build.  A large city will always have more opportunities, and more large buildings.  On the other hand, Toronto architectural firms will often be involved in larger projects outside Toronto as well.

But I think there have been a number of interesting-looking projects in Kitchener and Waterloo over the past few years (or coming up), not looking at all like your links:

• UW School of Pharmacy
  
• UW Quantum Nano Centre
  
• UW Engineering 7 (not my cup of tea but ...)
  
• UW Optometry expansion
  
• WLU School of Business
  
• City Centre Condos
  
• 100 Victoria
  
• K2
  
• 250 Lester
  
• Google Breithaupt Block
  
• CIGI
  
• Perimeter Institute
  
• Quantum Valley Investments
  

There are others that might qualify, I left off the Albert and Sunview developments, for example, even if they aren't the typical cubes like you posted.  The point is that in spite of King Street between University and Columbia, there is real design being applied even in Kitchener and Waterloo.