(04-27-2022, 05:58 PM)dtkmelissa Wrote:(04-27-2022, 01:23 PM)ac3r Wrote: I sent an angry e-mail to SRM once telling them to stop designing shit...but I don't think that'll work lol. TBH I don't think there is much to do besides going to community meetings and objecting against the design choices and voicing concerns, for example with their bait and switch design of Duke Tower where the final building looked nothing like the original proposal. It'd be possible to do that in a way that does not make you a NIMBY, but nevertheless lets the developer know that you do not like their design choices and would object to approval unless it's improved. I could totally get behind that because SRM is absolute garbage.
Sadly, I don't think IN8 cares because they are choosing to work with SRM due to the fact they're a cheap firm to hire for designs. But as a result, they design garbage. Just compare their work to, for example, Hariri Pontarini Architects who design beautiful condo projects in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver etc.
But what we really need in the region/cities is a design review panel like other cities have. Toronto has one that covers a lot of aspects of design:
I'd love to have something like that here in Waterloo Region one day...I'd happily join it myself! Not every building in Toronto is an award winner but you'd almost never see a disaster like Duke Tower built at the corner of Bay and Adelaide for a reason: their design panel would raise concerns and object to it.
How do those design panels get implemented? For example, how would we get one started in Waterloo Region?
It's a very long process. The one in Toronto took a long time to get started and only ended up becoming a trial project at first, until it was realized that it would be a benefit.
You'd first need a good proposal to sell it. Then you'd need to gather a series of professionals - architects, landscape architects, planners, engineers, perhaps even Indigenous people - to propose the idea to the city (or cities) and/or region, though more likely the cities as the region doesn't have much say in development. You'd need to make a good case as to why it would be a benefit for the city in question to have such a thing, and why it's a negative to not have one. You'd also need to organize a team, bring in some legal people (to combat potential conflicts of interest etc). Then as a team you'd need to develop goals, plans, strategies etc that can help define a design panels purpose, goals and so on. Impartiality is paramount with this stuff.
Ultimately, I don't know much. I know for sure you'd need to do that, then to pitch the idea to council and see what they say. They could vote yes, or no. You'd need to keep pressuring them about it. I think we would greatly benefit from implementing something like this - especially right now when the cities in this region have been experiencing a renaissance with a huge construction boom. It's as good a time as any to start having some sort of "bare minimum" of design principles that could be used to ensure the beautification of our cities, rather than wait. But as for how to get it started...I don't know the minutiae. If I were starting anything like this, I'd need a few months to plan and to get into contact with existing design panels in other cities. But I am actually totally open to the idea of having something like this here. I doubt I'd have the time to be involved much, but I'd happily help if I ever find any of my colleagues in the industry considering it.