General Updates and News

[Empire]

Couple of Halifax sunsets:
Photos by Empire...pls excuse the quality.

Downtown from Woodside ferry....new convention centre far left


South end of Downtown....Fenwick tower far left


1801 Hollis in centre of photo


Rapelling down 1801 for charity

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Empire

Couple of Halifax sunsets:
Photos by Empire...pls excuse the quality.
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Even though the re-purposed NS Power Inc. headquarters isn't overly tall, it really stands out when lit up at night. I think this has to be one of the best reuses of an old structure in all of Canada.

[portapetey]

The Junior Ranks development doesn't seem to get much attention here, and doesn't seem to have its own thread. I drove past this evening and was surprised to see how big it is now.

I see our dmajackson has some older updates on it on his blog:

http://urbanhalifax.tumblr.com/tagged/JuniorRanks

It seems to be topped out and has quite a bit of the cladding finished now, since those pics were taken.

[counterfactual]

Last day to send in comments for this Quinpool development!

http://shapeyourcityhalifax.ca/quinpool6067

[portapetey]

Nice little bit of recognition to celebrate for something in our downtown:

http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifax/201...n-halifax-nabs-international-praise.html

[Aya_Akai]

Originally Posted by portapetey

Nice little bit of recognition to celebrate for something in our downtown:

http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifax/201...n-halifax-nabs-international-praise.html

I heard about this! Fantastic news! Although I read the article about this on the CBC as well and they had a lot more to say about the people that felt negatively towards this art piece. I don't (and never have, really) understand the mentality of people around here.. at all.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by portapetey

Nice little bit of recognition to celebrate for something in our downtown:

http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifax/201...n-halifax-nabs-international-praise.html

Here is a link showing the top 20 - https://www.facebook.com/allcitycanvas/videos/791226700988976/?theater from their Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/allcitycanvas/#_=_

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by HaliStreaks

I heard about this! Fantastic news! Although I read the article about this on the CBC as well and they had a lot more to say about the people that felt negatively towards this art piece. I don't (and never have, really) understand the mentality of people around here.. at all.

To what 'mentality' are you referring? In our society shouldn't people have the right to express their opinions on something, especially something that is so prominent in our downtown?

I have to say that graffiti/urban art doesn't appeal to my tastes, but I understand that not everybody shares my taste. I'm happy for their international recognition, but I'm not going to lie and tell you I think it's beautiful.

Regarding the article, somebody speaking passionately at a bar after a few "wobbly pops" shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. And hey, he compared Halifax people to the people of Paris in their expression of their opinions towards art... shouldn't that be taken as a compliment?

Sorry, but I can't agree with your negativity regarding Haligonians.

Here's a link to the CBC article, for those who haven't seen it:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/freak-lunchbox-mural-online-recognition-1.3391843

[Hali87]

^It was more an issue of conflicting tastes than conflicting mentalities, IMO.

Probably a lot of people were sad to see the old mural go, a lot of people don't find the new one particularly appealing (I do, but I can see why others wouldn't). Some are probably upset that the space was awarded to a Montreal artist and not a local one. Some probably love the juxtaposition of this with Province House and City Hall (and the oldest building in the city) right there next to it - so hip and unexpected! - while others probably find that tacky and offensive.

It's a conversation starter, for sure.

Edit: expanding on this, part of the "problem" is that it was the removal of something that tended to appeal to the older generations and its replacement with something that tends to appeal much more to the younger ones, and generally less to the older ones (though of course there are exceptions).

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Hali87

^It was more an issue of conflicting tastes than conflicting mentalities, IMO.

Probably a lot of people were sad to see the old mural go, a lot of people don't find the new one particularly appealing (I do, but I can see why others wouldn't). Some are probably upset that the space was awarded to a Montreal artist and not a local one. Some probably love the juxtaposition of this with Province House and City Hall (and the oldest building in the city) right there next to it - so hip and unexpected! - while others probably find that tacky and offensive.

It's a conversation starter, for sure.

We need at least another dozen; get people talking, looking,disagreeing,thinking.
Many years ago I lived in a town of 140,000 where the council bought a Henry Moore sculpture and put it at the steps to the library. Generated a lot of talk and media coverage across the country and beyond.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Colin May

We need at least another dozen; get people talking, looking,disagreeing,thinking.
Many years ago I lived in a town of 140,000 where the council bought a Henry Moore sculpture and put it at the steps to the library. Generated a lot of talk and media coverage across the country and beyond.

I'm fairly sure there are "dozens more", if you keep your eyes open.
This one is probably the boldest/loudest, but there are plenty of murals ("traditional" and otherwise) around the city.

[Dmajackson]

3138 Isleville


Halifax Developments Blog (Photo by David Jackson)

[someone123]

This one is nicely scaled and I think it's a positive addition to the area, but the quality of finishes on "faux historic" new builds like this always seems to be kind of low. I wonder if or when there will be a new building that gets the Hal Forbes type treatment? It should be possible, and aesthetically it makes perfect sense to go all in like that. If they're not going to add that kind of rich detailing I think architects should just avoid historic styles and build something modern that's suited to the simpler building materials that are easiest and cheapest to put up today.

[Dmajackson]

Originally Posted by portapetey

The Junior Ranks development doesn't seem to get much attention here, and doesn't seem to have its own thread. I drove past this evening and was surprised to see how big it is now.

I see our dmajackson has some older updates on it on his blog:

http://urbanhalifax.tumblr.com/tagged/JuniorRanks

It seems to be topped out and has quite a bit of the cladding finished now, since those pics were taken.

Halifax Developments Blog (Photo by David Jackson)

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by someone123

This one is nicely scaled and I think it's a positive addition to the area, but the quality of finishes on "faux historic" new builds like this always seems to be kind of low. I wonder if or when there will be a new building that gets the Hal Forbes type treatment? It should be possible, and aesthetically it makes perfect sense to go all in like that. If they're not going to add that kind of rich detailing I think architects should just avoid historic styles and build something modern that's suited to the simpler building materials that are easiest and cheapest to put up today.

This is about two blocks from my house, and it looks pretty bad when contrasted with the buildings its trying to emulate. The one with Mother's Pizza on Young Street is okay, but this one is very poor. I really hope builders in the area knock this off, because it'd look ridiculous if the real Hydrostone strip on Young Street were slowly surrounded by a bunch of cheap-looking knockoffs.

I'd be all for the faux-historic thing if it were done sparingly, and builders really went all-out and made them look genuinely historic and high-quality (i.e., the Forbes route). Otherwise, forget it.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

This is about two blocks from my house, and it looks pretty bad when contrasted with the buildings its trying to emulate. The one with Mother's Pizza on Young Street is okay, but this one is very poor. I really hope builders in the area knock this off, because it'd look ridiculous if the real Hydrostone strip on Young Street were slowly surrounded by a bunch of cheap-looking knockoffs.

I'd be all for the faux-historic thing if it were done sparingly, and builders really went all-out and made them look genuinely historic and high-quality (i.e., the Forbes route). Otherwise, forget it.

I wonder if this is the kind of thing that a design review committee would reject if the Centre Plan required design reviews or if this sort of quality is too subtle for even the best planning regimes in the city? The quality downtown seems to be better but I'm not sure if that's because HRM by Design is forcing developers' hands or because the projects themselves are simply more valuable and there's a bigger economic incentive to using better materials and creating better designs.

Development agreements in other parts of the city are so vague that you can't say much about qualitative aspects of new buildings. The developers will agree to use things like "stone or material with a stone-like appearance", which could mean sandstone or could mean hideous precast. When the Marriott hotel at Argyle and Sackville was proposed it was originally sold as a "brick and sandstone" building, and the early renderings looked kind of like the building at Barrington and Prince. In some abstract quantitative respects those two buildings are very similar but in reality they are like night and day in terms of built quality.

[Ziobrop]

sadly the richmond area seems to be getting alot of buildings with low quality finishes.
they look good in the renderings, but when built are 🞵🞵🞵🞵.

i also dont get the tudor thing. sure if you were building right across the street from the hydrostone, you want to fit in, but nither of these buildings are that close. so why?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

You could be right, but Chedrawe is definitely right about the pointlessness of view planes in this direction.

For me, I think the best way to preserve the BMO, and actually to make it more grand, would be for it to be incorporated into a larger tower development. It would be podium for a higher tower. Would be great here.

Until some mayor or provincial government comes along who has the guts to finally take on, and reign in, the idiotic view planes, we will have worse developments, and developers will still have an excuse to hide behind.

Well, if this bunch gets their way, forget about all that:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/halifax-library-neighbouring-development-1.3396207

Sweet mother of god, only in Halifax. I think all the nuts now roll to the right coast.

[Hali87]

Ugh. Everything about the Doyle Block redevelopment seems like such a failure. I really wish the developer, city, and/or HT could have come to some sort of compromise, à la Vic (as in, cooperating and actually saving some heritage + an excellent development) to save parts of the original structures. If that had been achieved then I don't think as many people would be annoyed with losing that particular view. But at this point, blocking the view is kind of adding insult to injury and a lot more people are going to be bothered by that simply because they don't like the development in the first place.

At least the building design is relatively nice. Imagine if he'd proposed a clone of the Gottingen/Falkland building.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by Ziobrop

sadly the richmond area seems to be getting alot of buildings with low quality finishes.
they look good in the renderings, but when built are 🞵🞵🞵🞵.

i also dont get the tudor thing. sure if you were building right across the street from the hydrostone, you want to fit in, but nither of these buildings are that close. so why?

They could at least add some diagonal braces and make it look like a swiss chalet.