General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[ac3r]

That is stainless steel...and not the façade.

[dtkvictim]

There's rarely a thread I enter on this forum where I don't expect one of your contrarian "Frankly..." post. Often I agree with you, sometimes I don't. But that you read into this largely true statement as disparagement is your own choice. I don't think it's surprising for that manner of posting to exhaust people.

---

Back on the original topic: I've defended diversity of buildings (as one of the few people who likes Circa) and will continue to do so because it's a subjective matter. But it's also absurd to argue that all cities balance out to the same positive/negative public sentiment on beauty, as though human's tastes are perfectly distributed across all possible building types and architectural styles. Some cities are measurably (public opinion) more beautiful than others, even if there are outliers that disagree with the average. I suspect if KW was polled, the general feeling towards our recent developments would be "meh", which may be the best we can hope for during a housing crisis. My opinion is thoroughly negative, if you'd like to know my bias.

I think the idea of the psychological effect of built environments that ac3r tried bringing up can't be hand-waved away so easily either. Of course this is a very difficult topic to discuss, due to the subjective components of it, but it's extremely important. Dan (as you've openly made it clear which building you live in before), I just so happen to spend my entire working day sitting next to a window, of which your building takes up a significant portion of my view. Unfortunately, the view I have is one that contributes negatively to my mental health, during a year where positive contributions are much needed. Your building is one of many negative components making up that view. I have no problem "disparaging" your building for two reasons

1) You didn't design or build it, so disparaging it is not an attack on you or your abilities
2) I am fairly certain I have to spend way, way more time having to look at the outside of your building than you do, and so I feel more qualified to talk about the effects of having it imposed upon me

That you like your building is fantastic, and I'm only commenting on the outward appearance. I happen to find the building that I live in to be attractive, but if someone else told me they didn't, the word "disparaging" wouldn't cross my mind. Their opinion is still useful and valuable in building a future that works for more people, but it does not affect me on a personal level.

At the risk of being "contrarian"...like I said originally. It's "cool" to hate the new stuff. I mean, it's a classic line. So yes, I suspect that the majority of our largely conservative (little c, not big C) city would object to the new buildings. I don't think that matters much, as I pointed out, things which there is now a swell of support behind (Brutalist architecture) that was hated before as well.

I must ask, what would be less offensive than my building? At a certain point, the objection becomes "I don't like BUILDINGS" rather than "I don't like THAT building". This is the response I am hearing most often at this point. I'm all for different forms of housing, but tall buildings are one of the forms I support. Or to put it another way, are there buildings in the city which you can point to that you do not find offensive?

You've packed a huge amount of things that I'd like to address into those 2 small paragraphs, to the point that I'll only address a few them in order to stay coherent.

On your point to the conservative mindset of our city: I think you're conflating opposition to change and development with people's aesthetic preferences. While there may be significant overlap between those two when it comes to people's actions, I was speaking purely to the latter. I believe we'd have far less NIMBYism if so many people didn't feel at best "meh" about the appearance of proposed developments.

About tall buildings, as a believer that restrictive zoning is one of the single biggest issues with our city: of course I support their right to be built. That said, I can probably count on my fingers the number of high-rise buildings globally that I find to be beautiful. Fascinating, interesting, attractive? There are probably thousands around the world, but beauty is the only visual benchmark for livability that matters to me. I do view my support and my concerns for high-rise buildings to be an unreconciled contradiction in my mind though, so I'm open to developing those ideas further.

As for your building (which sits in the lower bound of high-rises, so see my above paragraph), my words probably read as inappropriately hard on your building in particular, but I didn't mean it that way. The buildings that have been painted entirely a drab grey are worse. The parking lots are worse. The general lack of greenery on Charles is worse. My thoughts towards your building are only one part of my overall negative view. I'm not sure how to answer what I find "less offensive" without just listing my personal tastes, but I can tell you that the huge concrete stripe doesn't help my already grey view. My tastes are quite broad, but almost always include ornamentation and natural (or natural appearing) materials and colours, so you can probably see why I am unsatisfied by most of what gets built these days.

And for what it's worth, I'm always pleasantly surprised by the two apartments on Ellen St just north of Center in the Square, at least compared to most other apartments of similar scale.

[danbrotherston]

At the risk of being "contrarian"...like I said originally. It's "cool" to hate the new stuff. I mean, it's a classic line. So yes, I suspect that the majority of our largely conservative (little c, not big C) city would object to the new buildings. I don't think that matters much, as I pointed out, things which there is now a swell of support behind (Brutalist architecture) that was hated before as well.

I must ask, what would be less offensive than my building? At a certain point, the objection becomes "I don't like BUILDINGS" rather than "I don't like THAT building". This is the response I am hearing most often at this point. I'm all for different forms of housing, but tall buildings are one of the forms I support. Or to put it another way, are there buildings in the city which you can point to that you do not find offensive?

You've packed a huge amount of things that I'd like to address into those 2 small paragraphs, to the point that I'll only address a few them in order to stay coherent.

On your point to the conservative mindset of our city: I think you're conflating opposition to change and development with people's aesthetic preferences. While there may be significant overlap between those two when it comes to people's actions, I was speaking purely to the latter. I believe we'd have far less NIMBYism if so many people didn't feel at best "meh" about the appearance of proposed developments.

About tall buildings, as a believer that restrictive zoning is one of the single biggest issues with our city: of course I support their right to be built. That said, I can probably count on my fingers the number of high-rise buildings globally that I find to be beautiful. Fascinating, interesting, attractive? There are probably thousands around the world, but beauty is the only visual benchmark for livability that matters to me. I do view my support and my concerns for high-rise buildings to be an unreconciled contradiction in my mind though, so I'm open to developing those ideas further.

As for your building (which sits in the lower bound of high-rises, so see my above paragraph), my words probably read as inappropriately hard on your building in particular, but I didn't mean it that way. The buildings that have been painted entirely a drab grey are worse. The parking lots are worse. The general lack of greenery on Charles is worse. My thoughts towards your building are only one part of my overall negative view. I'm not sure how to answer what I find "less offensive" without just listing my personal tastes, but I can tell you that the huge concrete stripe doesn't help my already grey view. My tastes are quite broad, but almost always include ornamentation and natural (or natural appearing) materials and colours, so you can probably see why I am unsatisfied by most of what gets built these days.

And for what it's worth, I'm always pleasantly surprised by the two apartments on Ellen St just north of Center in the Square, at least compared to most other apartments of similar scale.

Lol. I mean, we're fully in agreement that zoning is our biggest obstacle.

In terms of buildings, there are multiple facets. In terms of how a building looks in a cityscape, this can be interesting, and frankly, I like big buildings in that regard, I go up to our roof and just look around the city.

In terms of how a building interacts with the street, this is a function of massing and first floor uses, and some things generally about the building.

For example one of my favourite buildings in the city is the apartment building at 221 Queen St. Conestoga Apartments. The building itself is a fairly plain apartment building, but it's a mixed use building with retail on the first floor, it's not amazing, with the ramp and all, but for the era, it's really good. And further, the residents often put up lights on their balconies, and it really adds colour to my experience of the city.

The apartments on Ellen are pleasant enough, I certainly don't find them objectionable (I even looked at a unit in those buildings), I'd even say I like the esthetics of them, but as we've established, I'm not as critical as some. But I don't find them nearly as interesting as 221 Queen.

Another example, is Margaret Ave. between Queen and Young. It has many forms of housing, including Avenue Terrace...a small lower end condo building which I really like, and Queen Margaret Place, a pair of tall apartment buildings. While I don't think the buildings are particularly interesting in themselves (although I think QMP has a store), they make for a really interesting and varied neighbourhood.

I think objecting to any given development is problematic. Even the student developments we all love to hate, that I admit are not great, could be just fine in the right context.  And this is why I fully agree with you, that the primary problem is restrictive zoning, because they end up forcing everything to be similar.

[DK519]

Plans for the development at King and Borden.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcXr-0L...y1kq7/view

   

[BruceAshe]

Plans for the development at King and Borden.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcXr-0L...y1kq7/view

I find the coloured film on the balconies interesting. Has anyone seen this used anywhere? Just curious how it actually looks. The idea of all the units facing King seems new to me too. Might help alleviate some concerns from neighbours.

[ZEBuilder]

Plans for the development at King and Borden.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcXr-0L...y1kq7/view

I'm no architect but the coloured balconies are a interesting concept that I think if done well would be pretty neat. It's massing seems great given the location considering it's a block from a LRT station. The other neat part I noticed is it's another development that VIVE is planning and based on they're current projects I doubt it'll turn out bad.

[ac3r]

It's dichronic film they want to place over the glass. Fairly common material to add to get some interesting colour gradients. Lots of examples of how it can look here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=3m+dichronic&i...&ia=images

Should be a nice building if it gets approved.

[panamaniac]

The polychromatic film seems pretty quirky, but at least it's not more dark grey precast brick. The scale seems perfect for the location. I like the narrowness of it. Some thought seems to have gone into it.

[Bytor]

Plans for the development at King and Borden.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcXr-0L...y1kq7/view

Are you able to give a link to that post instead of a screen cap? NextDoor's search sucks.

[DK519]

Plans for the development at King and Borden.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcXr-0L...y1kq7/view

Are you able to give a link to that post instead of a screen cap? NextDoor's search sucks.

It was a Facebook post by the KENA neighborhood association.

https://www.facebook.com/249724975154167...873054740/

[tomh009]

Are you able to give a link to that post instead of a screen cap? NextDoor's search sucks.

It was a Facebook post by the KENA neighborhood association.

https://www.facebook.com/249724975154167...873054740/

The comments are positive! Not like some other neighbourhood associations not to be named here ...

[Nextasy]

Wow I don't like the look of that king/borden development. I mean density yes please but....if we're gonna have a massive wall blocking the view of downtown from the south could we make it look better than whatever that is?

Unrelated, there is a new 26-storey project coming for the parking lot and medical building at King & Pine (across from GRH). No documents on the city website yet, but the applicant is MHBC and the owner is CANTIRO KING GENERAL PARTNER LTD.

[ac3r]

Yeah I posted about that a few days ago. Looks like shit, unsurprisingly.

[jeffster]

Plans for the development at King and Borden.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcXr-0L...y1kq7/view

I assume they'd be buying the orthodontic office next door as well then.

[DK519]

Plans for the development at King and Borden.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcXr-0L...y1kq7/view

I assume they'd be buying the orthodontic office next door as well then.

That's a couple blocks away closer to Stirling.