Duke Tower Kitchener | 39 fl | completed

[panamaniac]

Not surprised in the slightest with those ugly garage podium precast panels. This project is tall, that is it. It is not going to be a looker that the region can be proud of. The best thing about this project is that it pushes the height up. Eventually a developer with more prestige will come along and want to take over the tallest building in the region. 

Still disappointing at least the mesh was somewhat interesting. Hopefully they just find an artist to do a mural on it. Not holding my breath on that though.

 
Given the colour variation and the striped pattern that seems to be emerging, that seems not to be an option.

[westwardloo]

 
Given the colour variation and the striped pattern that seems to be emerging, that seems not to be an option.

 Unfortunately you are correct.

Pretty easy to paint precast concrete though.

[taylortbb]

Building is continuing to rise fast, now up above 22 Frederick.

   

[cherrypark]

Also not surprised the render to reality conversion is a massive let down. It makes you wonder why there isn't a process in place to force them to uphold a degree of the quality of architectural design in the final build. At least Circa 1877 didn't exactly hide what it was going to look like. This is not looking to be even close.

[Momo26]

How many floors is that rental beige apartment building in behind? For comparison.

[taylortbb]

How many floors is that rental beige apartment building in behind? For comparison.

My previos shot compared them, https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/...1#pid80891 . 

For comparison to The Regency (the grey building right beside it), DTK will be a little over 2.3x as tall.

[Momo26]

This thing is going to be a Goliath amongst Davids.

[ijmorlan]

This thing is going to be a Goliath amongst Davids.

I hope that doesn’t mean it gets knocked over by a stone

[Lens]

Also not surprised the render to reality conversion is a massive let down. It makes you wonder why there isn't a process in place to force them to uphold a degree of the quality of architectural design in the final build. At least Circa 1877 didn't exactly hide what it was going to look like. This is not looking to be even close. The process in place is the building permit process.

I don't think we should EVER trust renders. The are purely for marketing and selling units/space.

The municipality has to approve all drawings but this is done behind closed doors so the public never sees that part of the process or knows what is asked to be changed by the city.

[tomh009]

There is kind of a texture to the precast panels, almost like giant brushmarks, which does make them look somewhat less bad. Will take a photo later.

[panamaniac]

“(S)omewhat less bad” is not very encouraging ...

[ac3r]

How many floors is that rental beige apartment building in behind? For comparison.

It's 18 floors, so DTK is going to tower over that thing quite a bit.

[ac3r]

Also not surprised the render to reality conversion is a massive let down. It makes you wonder why there isn't a process in place to force them to uphold a degree of the quality of architectural design in the final build. At least Circa 1877 didn't exactly hide what it was going to look like. This is not looking to be even close. The process in place is the building permit process.

I don't think we should EVER trust renders. The are purely for marketing and selling units/space.

The municipality has to approve all drawings but this is done behind closed doors so the public never sees that part of the process or knows what is asked to be changed by the city.

It really depends on who does the renders and in what. When I saw the renders for DTK, I was a bit underwhelmed because I can tell the renders were not done very well. The textures and lighting the architect used are of poor quality. Other architects can do pretty amazing stuff with rendering programs (like V-Ray, Rhino, Revit, Blender etc), but it depends on how good the textures they have are and how much patience they have.

I think the problem with DTK is that the podium seemed to include a metal mesh, but for some reason they put some painted concrete panels instead. Maybe they have plans on putting a mesh over top of these? Here's hoping...

[westwardloo]

Not sure if everyone has only seen an initial marketing render of this project or not but from the renderings I have seen it looks like they are building it as proposed with precast concert panels. 

It appears that they are going to attach some metal louvers in a "decorative" pattern. some of the louvers are supposed to hid LED light fixtures, but who knows.

I am not sure the Architects thought it was going to look this bad when they designed it, but does not appear to be turning out great.

   

[jgsz]

Maybe the criticism of the podium was too much.  Now there's a fire at or near the building.