Little Mountain Redevelopment | U/C

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by djh

I think that mentality is exactly how so many ugly post-war tower blocks ended up being created. Many of which are now the eponymous American "housing projects" or European "council flats" and cold war repetitive eastern european towers. They just wanted cheap buildings to accommodate people, and any costs above function were eliminated.

If the builders don't care, how can the residents be expected to care? Of course you end up with the worst places to live if they are nothing more than cages in the sky?! So no, I don't think Vancouver should simply build the cheapest, ugliest buildings all in the name of "it's a housing crisis, let's just get them up and who cares how it looks". Equally so, no development should be mired in red tape or architects agonising over minutiae. But there is a sensible balance point in the triangle where there is rapid progress, at a reasonable cost, at a decent aesthetic quality.

Meh, there are plenty of rather plain highrise buildings in the West End that date from the 1950's-60s that would never pass the UDP yet have given people homes for decades.