General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[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.

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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.