Welcome Guest!
In order to take advantage of all the great features that Waterloo Region Connected has to offer, including participating in the lively discussions below, you're going to have to register. The good news is that it'll take less than a minute and you can get started enjoying Waterloo Region's best online community right away.
or Create an Account




Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Downtown Kitchener Tall Building Urban Design Guideline.
#46
Clearly, they do not know quite how to handle the ideas of Heritage:
-Complement adjacent built form through compatible height, scale, massing, and materials (be like the existing heritage)
-Sensitive transition to surrounding urban contexts, accounting for both the existing context and the planned vision for an area (be like the existing heritage, yet somehow heritage can have a planned future vision which is both the same as what has been, and yet not)
-Implement design cues (materials, architectural features, colours, rhythms) from good surrounding built form. (be like the existing heritage)
-Tall buildings should not interrupt or impose upon an existing or planned neighbourhood character or the public realm. (be like the existing heritage)
-Tall buildings should be contemporary and not replicate existing or historical architectural styles. (DO NOT be like the existing heritage)

and it goes on like this, pages of how to be like existing buildings, even when the forms the TBUDG is telling adjacent buildings to replicate are *terrible* (e.g. Kaufman has one of the worst pedestrian and streetfront presences in the city, somehow even worse than structured parking lots; this is not something we should replicate).

They even have both the point that TBUDG does not restrict abrupt changes in height explicitly mentioned, and then also guidelines for how sites which force abrupt changes in height should not be deemed appropriate for tall buildings. This feels a lot like a chicken-in-every-pot guideline which can be used to justify or cancel any project.
Reply


#47
(11-27-2017, 11:43 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: Clearly, they do not know quite how to handle the ideas of Heritage:
-Complement adjacent built form through compatible height, scale, massing, and materials (be like the existing heritage)
-Sensitive transition to surrounding urban contexts, accounting for both the existing context and the planned vision for an area (be like the existing heritage, yet somehow heritage can have a planned future vision which is both the same as what has been, and yet not)
-Implement design cues (materials, architectural features, colours, rhythms) from good surrounding built form. (be like the existing heritage)
-Tall buildings should not interrupt or impose upon an existing or planned neighbourhood character or the public realm. (be like the existing heritage)
-Tall buildings should be contemporary and not replicate existing or historical architectural styles. (DO NOT be like the existing heritage)

and it goes on like this, pages of how to be like existing buildings, even when the forms the TBUDG is telling adjacent buildings to replicate are *terrible* (e.g. Kaufman has one of the worst pedestrian and streetfront presences in the city, somehow even worse than structured parking lots; this is not something we should replicate).

They even have both the point that TBUDG does not restrict abrupt changes in height explicitly mentioned, and then also guidelines for how sites which force abrupt changes in height should not be deemed appropriate for tall buildings. This feels a lot like a chicken-in-every-pot guideline which can be used to justify or cancel any project.

I'd have to defer to the authors of the guidelines, but those seem like misinterpretations to me (and of the word "complement").  The example of One Victoria and the Kaufman building has nothing to do with the latter's street level presence (made obvious by the commercial store fronts of the former).
Reply
#48
I didn't see the actual document posted: https://www.kitchener.ca/en/resourcesgen...elines.pdf
Reply
« Next Oldest | Next Newest »



Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)

About Waterloo Region Connected

Launched in August 2014, Waterloo Region Connected is an online community that brings together all the things that make Waterloo Region great. Waterloo Region Connected provides user-driven content fueled by a lively discussion forum covering topics like urban development, transportation projects, heritage issues, businesses and other issues of interest to those in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and the four Townships - North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot, and Woolwich.

              User Links