I think simple, concrete midrises and highrises are far preferable to the plethora of cheap, woodframe condos and apartments that have seemingly been at the forefront of the solutions to "solving" Canada's housing crisis.
Sure a lot of the "commie blocks" in this thread aren't the prettiest buildings, but I think most of us would rather live in these concrete highrises than in a six storey woodframe apartment building. Many woodframe apartments and condos have what are often described as "paperthin" walls and floors where you can hear your neighbours every move. This usually isn't such a big problem in concrete high rises, or cement block condos and apartments.
Moreover, high rises can not only offer great views to their residents, they take up a much lower footprint, and can help save a lot of green space. I think a lot of the ugly examples in this thread have more to do with poor planning that led to building too many bland, high rise buildings in clusters than it has to do with each building actually looking ugly on their own.
432 Park Avenue might be controversial to many, but I don't think it looks ugly on its own. However, if there were 6 of them in a cluster... maybe it would look ugly.
Canada should be aiming to build more attractive and affordable concrete high rises as a major component of the response to the housing crisis... as housing for the middle class, not just as socialized housing projects.
This concrete highrise in Vancouver from
the Great Canadian Brutalism Appreciation Thread is a great example of how utilitarian, concrete high rises don't need to be ugly blights on the skylines of our cities.
Canada has all the resources needed to vastly increase concrete production, and I think we should be utilizing concrete construction a lot more to embrace bigger, bolder solutions to the housing crisis across the entire country.
Moreover, Canada has more timber than almost any other country on earth. There's a huge opportunity to grow a massive mass timber industry here in Canada. Lowering the price of materials for mass timber builds could make mass timber high rises a much bigger part of the solution to solving Canada's housing crisis than it is at the moment.
From and architectural and noise perspective I think most people would rather live in concrete commie blocks than cheap, wood framed apartments. However, from a location standpoint, it seems many Canadians choose to live in cheap, wood framed apartment and condos, because they are often in better locations, or concrete high rises aren't even an option... (or are only an option for people on social assistance, etc).
Moving on from calling "commie blocks" might be a good place to start,
But learning from past mistakes, and not allowing so many simple, utilitarian high rises to be built in such ugly clusters is probably an even more important thing to keep in mind in terms of softening people's view towards non luxury high rise developments.
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