09-28-2023, 04:18 PM
(09-28-2023, 04:01 PM)ac3r Wrote:(09-28-2023, 03:24 PM)westwardloo Wrote: Is the stone/ brick/ Mansard roof because of Heritage report?
Ahh no, the heritage report was about the original 1993 post-modern building by Montgomery Sisam which the LTC home wants to expand and reconfigure. The report was to determine what could be done and how it should be done. I am not sure if it's even heritage protected or anything, but it still had an assessment done due to the prestige of the architects.
Sadly SRM was given the job of expanding the original building so I'm sure it'll look awful which is a real shame. Looks like it'll be similar to their usual work...monochrome, straight lines, cheap materials. Vaguely similar to the original building but probably with very cheap materials. While the original building is dated looking, it could be nicely cleaned up and modernized in a tasteful way but I don't think anyone expects SRM to be capable of achieving that.
The stand alone 5 story retirement home will by Robert J Dyck. His work all sort of looks the same and aims for that faux-historical look. It appears he's more of an architectural engineer rather than an architectural designer so that's why it looks so meh. He has done a few other retirement homes in the region and they all have that same look: https://www.rjdyckarchitect.com/retirement_homes.html
It would have been very nice if they rehired Montgomery Sisam because they are still around and their portfolio of work is very good and they still continue to work on LTC, retirement and other institutional type buildings, but I suspect hiring them would have been way out of the budget for whoever operates this LTC. In any case you can check out some of their work here to see the difference between bad design (SRM and Dyck) and good design: https://www.montgomerysisam.com/projects/
It was brought to council sometime this summer for the existing building to get a heritage designation. Can't find it right now, but here's the article talking about the heritage proposal: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...3ed0a.html