The Gaslight District | completed

[ijmorlan]

That last photo! Why is there a massive blank wall facing the road?

Blank?!? It has large colourful stripes in every colour from taupe to grey!

[Bjays93]

It's hideous. I have photos from a few weeks ago and decided to not even post them because I wanted to save people's eyes.

[cherrypark]

The irony of Martin Simmons office next to that brick. Like a daily reminder of the perils of developer decision making.

[Lens]

Looks OK from across the river

Gaslight District - Cambridge by Matt, on Flickr

[ac3r]

The irony of Martin Simmons office next to that brick. Like a daily reminder of the perils of developer decision making.

They had almost nothing to do with the podium of the towers - they were mostly doing the work on the heritage buildings. Gaslight Condos was a joint effort with Martin Simmons and ABA Architects, the latter of which was primarily responsible for the towers. HIP Developments was the one who ultimately made the decision to go with this monstrosity though:

haaaaaa I was on the design team for the Gaslight podiums! The architect ended up going with with the vertical stripe idea because of how easy it was to prefab the concrete and *fake* bricks. I didn't support that design because the stripes emphasized the height of the parking podium and had nothing to do with the surrounding context of downtown Galt. But yeah the Gaslight condos are kind of embarrassing and primitive, however still a step forward for the development of Cambridge in my opinion. I gotta say though that the units on the bottom of the podium, once finished, are going to look kickass

I was working under the project architect for Gaslight at the time and he selected the idea from design team (aka the grunts) that we put forward to the developer (HIP) so ultimately the developer made the decision

This was posted by an architect over on Reddit and she was spot on about the vertical stripes.

[Bjays93]

The irony of Martin Simmons office next to that brick. Like a daily reminder of the perils of developer decision making.

They had almost nothing to do with the podium of the towers - they were mostly doing the work on the heritage buildings. Gaslight Condos was a joint effort with Martin Simmons and ABA Architects, the latter of which was primarily responsible for the towers. HIP Developments was the one who ultimately made the decision to go with this monstrosity though:

haaaaaa I was on the design team for the Gaslight podiums! The architect ended up going with with the vertical stripe idea because of how easy it was to prefab the concrete and *fake* bricks. I didn't support that design because the stripes emphasized the height of the parking podium and had nothing to do with the surrounding context of downtown Galt. But yeah the Gaslight condos are kind of embarrassing and primitive, however still a step forward for the development of Cambridge in my opinion. I gotta say though that the units on the bottom of the podium, once finished, are going to look kickass

I was working under the project architect for Gaslight at the time and he selected the idea from design team (aka the grunts) that we put forward to the developer (HIP) so ultimately the developer made the decision

This was posted by an architect over on Reddit and she was spot on about the vertical stripes.

This is the real issue. I honestly don't care how the towers look. They could look like shit they could look great. I'd prefer they look great but the problem is the podium. If you want more height in Galt, if you want the residents to support more height, the podium needs to match the surrounding context. There are multiple new projects in this area alone that do a reasonably good job. You dont need 1800's stonework but stone and brick go a long way in Galt particularly when your development is literally on a heritage site. If the podium matched with the southworks mall it wouldn't matter how bad the towers are because it would still look like it fits in with the fabric of the community. At the end of the day this does not

[ac3r]

My only hope is that they wrap the podium in some sort of glass or metal coverings as seen in the renderings. However, I don't know how up to date those are. You can see it on the bottom left in the image below, but then if you look closely...what is under that is different: they appear to illustrate open parking garage views, whereas the towers themselves as they are now are those horrific blank walls with stripes, so the designs may have changed.

We'll have to see. You're 100% correct in saying that if this turns out to look truly awful, the residents of Cambridge may become begin to object to further developments.

[Bjays93]

My only hope is that they wrap the podium in some sort of glass or metal coverings as seen in the renderings. However, I don't know how up to date those are. You can see it on the bottom left in the image below, but then if you look closely...what is under that is different: they appear to illustrate open parking garage views, whereas the towers themselves as they are now are those horrific blank walls with stripes, so the designs may have changed.

We'll have to see. You're 100% correct in saying that if this turns out to look truly awful, the residents of Cambridge may become begin to object to further developments.

That is an old rendering. The newest renderings do feature those beautiful black and white podium stripes with nothing else to cover them up

[ac3r]

Oh, thanks, I found the updated renderings. The link to the Gaslight Condos in the first post is dead and goes to an Apache2 installation confirmation page, but now I see them over on https://thegaslightcondos.ca/. That's too bad. Luckily I don't go to Cambridge often, so my eyes will be spared haha.

[Coke6pk]

Few shots here. Sorry not great, was just passing by on the trail.

Not your fault. I believe it is impossible to get a "great shot" of this development.

Coke

[jeffster]

That last photo! Why is there a massive blank wall facing the road?

I can't believe for a second that this would be the end product. Something has to happen here. Anything. You can't tell me the designers looked at this and said "ahhhhh, we has ourselves a winner!"

[neonjoe]

Some nice tagging may help it blend into Cambridge a bit better.... its inevitable that a blank ugly wall will get tagged. If they had spent more to make it nicer it would be far less of a potential canvas for 'artists'

[ac3r]

That last photo! Why is there a massive blank wall facing the road?

I can't believe for a second that this would be the end product. Something has to happen here. Anything. You can't tell me the designers looked at this and said "ahhhhh, we has ourselves a winner!"

Nope. Once the rest of the complex comes together it might look a little more coherent, but it seems like that is going to be it.

Speaking of tagging - art isn't a bad idea. I highly doubt they would want to spend the money on that, but some metal sculptures on the side could work or some murals like what is on the one side of Charlie West.

[cherrypark]

I can't believe for a second that this would be the end product. Something has to happen here. Anything. You can't tell me the designers looked at this and said "ahhhhh, we has ourselves a winner!"

Nope. Once the rest of the complex comes together it might look a little more coherent, but it seems like that is going to be it.

Speaking of tagging - art isn't a bad idea. I highly doubt they would want to spend the money on that, but some metal sculptures on the side could work or some murals like what is on the one side of Charlie West.

 
I was just admiring the Calgary Beltway art project and the big murals there. Would have been better off leaving this wall a plain prefab colour and paying someone to make something out of it.

[ac3r]

How far along has this project become? It has to surely be nearing completion by now as it started back in 2020 and the sales of the place started even before that. I bet it looks awful because the podium was looking atrocious back in mid 2021 unfortunately.