Commie-block (slabsville) capital of Canada

[urbandreamer]

Etobicoke.

[TorontoDrew]

Are there any American cities with a lot of commie blocks? I can't think of any. They had there own style of ugly being built at the same time I think.

Commie blocks might actually be nicer, well at least to live in.
Harlem (source) wikipedia.org

[softee]

^ NYC is the only American city that has lots, although they look a bit different than the Ontario variety. Check out Co-op city in the Bronx.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by softee

^ NYC is the only American city that has lots, although they look a bit different than the Ontario variety. Check out Co-op city in the Bronx.

There were some others that had quite a few, St. Louis imploded Pruitt-Igoe.

[MolsonExport]

Minneapolis has the famous crack stacks:

wookie

[TorontoDrew]

I've seen those in Chicago, and in Seattle. You can see some potential in them to update them.

[MolsonExport]

Today, could anyone deny that the crown belongs to KW?

[O-tacular]

The contemporary version of old school concrete commie blocks seems to be cheap woodframe condo buildings that serve the same purpose. They’re 6 stories tall, mostly grey and white stucco with no distinguishing features for a block length slab. There’s some under construction that I pass by every day. Will have to take a picture.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

The contemporary version of old school concrete commie blocks seems to be cheap woodframe condo buildings that serve the same purpose. They’re 6 stories tall, mostly grey and white stucco with no distinguishing features for a block length slab. There’s some under construction that I pass by every day. Will have to take a picture.

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.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

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.

This is a pretty clear example of a post with heavy consensus bias and I wonder if you've ever lived in one of these large projects. There are many downsides that you've ignored, probably the biggest being how dependent you become on scarce elevator resources, which ends up isolating people to their units unless they have a really good reason to go out. On the balance, the low to mid rise buildings are preferable.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by theman23

This is a pretty clear example of a post with heavy consensus bias and I wonder if you've ever lived in one of these large projects. There are many downsides that you've ignored, probably the biggest being how dependent you become on scarce elevator resources, which ends up isolating people to their units unless they have a really good reason to go out. On the balance, the low to mid rise buildings are preferable.

I lived in a 32 storey apartment building for two years... and never any real issues waiting on elevators... it was hardly a reason to not go out. I'd much rather live on the 32nd storey in a building with an elevator than a 4 storey building without an elevator.

My high rise community was located directly beside a vibrant mall, and the community had a decent amount of green space for residents to enjoy.

I think building high rise communities that are isolated and far away from shopping and desirable places to go are far bigger issues than waiting on elevators.

Build them near shopping, transit, and places people actually want to go, and there won't be any huge issues.

[Nouvellecosse]

Concrete is one of the most carbon intensive building materials so we should absolutely not be encouraging its use more than it already is. Wood on the other hand can be produced sustainably and with less carbon impact. I say "can" because of course wood can also be produced unsustainably and with higher than necessary emissions, but the solution to that is for the industry to better adapt to producing a sustainable product. With concrete, it isn't clear that a whole lot can be done for its environmental impact.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Concrete is one of the most carbon intensive building materials so we should absolutely not be encouraging its use more than it already is. Wood on the other hand can be produced sustainably and with less carbon impact. I say "can" because of course wood can also be produced unsustainably and with higher than necessary emissions, but the solution to that is for the industry to better adapt to producing a sustainable product. With concrete, it isn't clear that a whole lot can be done for its environmental impact.

If Canada didn't have abundant supplies of all the resources needed to make concrete, I'd tend to agree. However, Canada does have abundant supplies of all the materials needed to make concrete, and in the grand scheme of things, Canada doubling or even tripling its concrete production would be pretty inconsequential in terms of rising global emissions... but could be massively impactful in terms of dealing with Canada's housing crisis.

I have read a few things about seawater being utilized to lower the carbon impact of concrete, but not sure how solid the science is. Though, considering how amazing Roman concrete was compared to modern concrete, maybe there really is something there. Here's an interesting article from UC Berkeley on the subject from a while back.

I'm not saying we shouldn't care about carbon emissions... we absoutely should... but I would still much rather live in a concrete high rise than in a six storey wood frame construction building, even if it meant increasing my carbon footprint.

Mass timber seems to be a very interesting option, with huge potential to reduce emissions related to housing construction, especially high rise construction, but the cost still needs to come down for it to be a bigger part of the solution.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ Canada has plenty of wood resources too and almost certainly has a greater comparative advantage with it than concrete. In fact, with our natural resource wealth we probably have vast supplies of every major construction material. So i don't find having abundant supplies of concrete ingredients persuasive at all. And while personal taste is largely subjective, the majority of people seem to either prefer low and midrises over highrises, or are agnostic to form factor. In fact, there's a great deal of political opposition to highrises that has led to them being limited to small percentages of most metro areas while buildings in the 6 story range or shorter are much more politically palatable.

So while I respect your individual taste, I don't think it's scalable for domestic housing policy. But I agree 100% with your desire to lower the cost of mass timber construction and I'd also re-assess if we could substantially lower the carbon footprint of concrete. Hopefully something does come of that since concrete is very useful for many things.

[Cowtown_Tim]

With basic wood frame buildings being allowed up to 6 storeys these days, they've kind of become the new commie blocks, but in the 'Khrushchevka' style. I think these are going up everywhere, not just Calgary, and are very popular. Not much concrete used in these, so from an environmental perspective, there is that..

[MolsonExport]

^as banal (due to their ubiquity) as they might be, I believe that they will age better and hold their value better than the hundreds of soul-sucking suburban (and urban) condo towers that offer shoeboxes in the sky. Especially when the common services/areas (elevators, lobbies, etc.) start showing their age.

[MolsonExport]

Condo owners living in this building must be gnashing their teeth at all the bad press that this building has attracted (cracks, swaying, ugliness, etc., etc.). Youtube videos that espouse the negative aspects of this building are commonplace.

It would be ugly if it were duplicated. It ain't pretty, though (and that criticism applies to several pencil towers on Billionnaire's Row). Have you seen the views from these towers though? Incredible.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

If Canada didn't have abundant supplies of all the resources needed to make concrete, I'd tend to agree. However, Canada does have abundant supplies of all the materials needed to make concrete, and in the grand scheme of things, Canada doubling or even tripling its concrete production would be pretty inconsequential in terms of rising global emissions... but could be massively impactful in terms of dealing with Canada's housing crisis.

I have read a few things about seawater being utilized to lower the carbon impact of concrete, but not sure how solid the science is. Though, considering how amazing Roman concrete was compared to modern concrete, maybe there really is something there. Here's an interesting article from UC Berkeley on the subject from a while back.

I'm not saying we shouldn't care about carbon emissions... we absoutely should... but I would still much rather live in a concrete high rise than in a six storey wood frame construction building, even if it meant increasing my carbon footprint.

Mass timber seems to be a very interesting option, with huge potential to reduce emissions related to housing construction, especially high rise construction, but the cost still needs to come down for it to be a bigger part of the solution.

Concrete at least has some feeling of permanence.

There is a pretty noticeable environmental impact I noticed on a recent vacation to Canmore though. The cement plant in Exshaw as you enter the Rockies on the TCH has been 'eating' this mountain for probably a century. In my lifetime it has quite visibly diminished. Even since my last trip to the mountains it looks reduced in size.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lac+De..._ep=EgoyMDI1MDcxMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lac+De..._ep=EgoyMDI1MDcxMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Then again logging is another blight on the landscape. At least trees can be regrown though. Mountains can't.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Condo owners living in this building must be gnashing their teeth at all the bad press that this building has attracted (cracks, swaying, ugliness, etc., etc.). Youtube videos that espouse the negative aspects of this building are commonplace.

It would be ugly if it were duplicated. It ain't pretty, though (and that criticism applies to several pencil towers on Billionnaire's Row). Have you seen the views from these towers though? Incredible.

Those poor, poor billionaires.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

I lived in a 32 storey apartment building for two years... and never any real issues waiting on elevators... it was hardly a reason to not go out. I'd much rather live on the 32nd storey in a building with an elevator than a 4 storey building without an elevator.

My high rise community was located directly beside a vibrant mall, and the community had a decent amount of green space for residents to enjoy.

I think building high rise communities that are isolated and far away from shopping and desirable places to go are far bigger issues than waiting on elevators.

Build them near shopping, transit, and places people actually want to go, and there won't be any huge issues.

You must have been lucky, or perhaps lived in one during a period in life without any significant time pressure. Having to add on 10 minutes to your commute for the elevator wait on a daily basis is not a fun experience. Not to mention the hassle of taking out the garbage. With a low to mid rise you can always just take the stairs. The issue is even worse in newer builds as they cramp in more and more units into smaller floor plates while cutting back the number of elevators.