Ugly Canada 2 (Only architecture, planning and design faux pas)

[emlyn145]

it was built for the car, but before car-based developers or planners had any idea what they were doing.

[FrAnKs]

Québec City.
Top floor was recently added. Not sure what to think of this.

[GlassCity]

I am, and I think it is very very bad.

[SkahHigh]

Horrible

[megadude]

There are bylaws regarding number of storeys, width of driveways, height of unkempt lawns, height of fences, use of clothes lines in backyards, etc. but I guess there's no bylaws on style and design.

There are for cities, particularly when it comes to commercial properties I suppose, but what is there for residential properties when it comes to something as subjective as aesthetics?

This reminds me from last year of the "Star Trek" cottage in Muskoka that was in the works. It conformed to all regulations and it seemed like the guy was intent on building it. Lots of neighbours went to town hall trying to block it because it didn't fit in with the surroundings.

[DAVEinEDMONTON]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

No, it really doesn't. It's a shitty suburban-looking, parking-surrounded, mostly stucco clad stripmall plopped in a central area. The only way it could be worse is if it were painted in the same colour pallet as the Venetian.

Chad, once again, you have no idea what you are talking about. The one rendering the you posted shows that it is not "surrounded " by parking where. in fact, the east side of the complex has only a small laneway for limited parking and it sets the building somewhat away from the road which is fine.

That being said, I am not sure what your problem is. The distance this complex is from central downtown is farther away form the central core than 17th avenue in Calgary. Perhaps you should take a look at the architectural splendor that is the retail complexes along 17th avenue and observe that lots of the those complexes have... oh my god Chad, wait, wait for it...…...parking!!!

Seems those "shitty suburban looking, parking surrounded, (boring) mostly stucco clad" buildings are the rule of thumb in Calgary...at least on 17th avenue anyway.

For anyone that is interested, there is a nice render video on the builder's website.

Looks impressive to me.

http://www.manchestersquare.ca

[osirisboy]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

No, it really doesn't. It's a shitty suburban-looking, parking-surrounded, mostly stucco clad stripmall plopped in a central area. The only way it could be worse is if it were painted in the same colour pallet as the Venetian.

looks like it's clad in brick in the rendering. I like it.

[J.OT13]

As far as suburban strip malls go, Manchester square is decent. I agree the name is not appropriate for the style, and I would prefer if they did not include the laneway around the building (parking lot alone would suffice).

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by DAVEinEDMONTON

Chad, once again, you have no idea what you are talking about. The one rendering the you posted shows that it is not "surrounded " by parking where. in fact, the east side of the complex has only a small laneway for limited parking and it sets the building somewhat away from the road which is fine.

That being said, I am not sure what your problem is. The distance this complex is from central downtown is farther away form the central core than 17th avenue in Calgary. Perhaps you should take a look at the architectural splendor that is the retail complexes along 17th avenue and observe that lots of the those complexes have... oh my god Chad, wait, wait for it...…...parking!!!

Seems those "shitty suburban looking, parking surrounded, (boring) mostly stucco clad" buildings are the rule of thumb in Calgary...at least on 17th avenue anyway.

For anyone that is interested, there is a nice render video on the builder's website.

Looks impressive to me.

http://www.manchestersquare.ca

The only complexes on 17 Ave that have surface parking were built decades age, not this freakin year. Seems like you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. It is a garbage development and is an affront to urbansim. The fact that you clearly don't see any of what's wrong with this development, or are at least just cognitively dissonant about it, means that there's really no further dialogue to be had on the matter. Are you one of those who thinks the Venetian isn't too bad either?

Originally Posted by J.OT13

As far as suburban strip malls go, Manchester square is decent. I agree the name is not appropriate for the style, and I would prefer if they did not include the laneway around the building (parking lot alone would suffice).

It's not suburban, it's very much inner city. That's the problem. If it was suburban I wouldn't have posted it.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

It's not suburban, it's very much inner city. That's the problem. If it was suburban I wouldn't have posted it.

At 12016 – 107 Avenue, Edmonton? It's inner city, but in a mid-century suburban area. Just outside what might be considered a downtown neighborhood.

Granted, I'm basing myself off Google Maps/Street View and my general knowledge of Edmonton. I've never been in person.

Ottawa has much bigger offenders like Train Yards. A big-box suburban nightmare across VIA Rail tacks/station from the Confederation Line, two kilometers from the downtown core. This was a huge development site with solid potential for TOD, but they decided this was a better use for the land:


https://www.shopping-canada.com/shop...wa-train-yards


https://mcrobie.com/2019/05/ottawa-t...strial-avenue/

They've at least built two office buildings since at the edge of the tracks (only one shown in the images), but so far, no one has built the long promised tunnel across the VIA Rail tracks to provide proper access to the Confederation Line.

[Chadillaccc]

Ooof! with that amount of land you could fit thousands more people in the inner city!

Calgary has a sort of similar situation with the West Village lands, to the west of downtown. However, those were contaminated by decades of creosote, and will cost hundreds of millions to clean up, so they've just sort of been left alone for now. We have enough lots to fill in the downtown and Beltline before having to worry about that though. It was going to be the site of our new Arena, Stadium, and Entertainment District, but the plan was too half-baked, with only one major transit connection (Sunalta Station) and the city wasn't interested in putting money towards it.

[J.OT13]

When they started developing that site in Ottawa, I was too young to remember if and how much contamination was involved, but I assume there was a significant amount considering it was a rail yard (though relatively small scale compared to others in Ottawa and elsewhere, past and present).

LeBreton Flats is very similar to Calgary's West Village. Heavily contaminated from a century of industry, a massive former railyard and decades of use as a snow dump. Many plans for redevelopments have come and gone, and up until recently an arena deal that fell through. Over the last two decades, a few bland condos and the new (2005) National War Museum have been built. A new Central Library, in partnership with the National Archives is planned for the south-east corner of the Flats (at the Line 1 downtown tunnel portal). The area is served by Pimisi (Line 1, upper right of the Flats on the image below) and Bayview (Line 1 and 2, as seen in the centre of the image below) stations.

It's an ugly scar in the centre of town today, but it's full of potential.


https://globalnews.ca/news/5412454/n...ats-plan-2020/

[Chadillaccc]

Here's hoping both our blighted inner city areas get the love they deserve one day! Sounds like the one in Ottawa is well on its way!

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Here's hoping both our blighted inner city areas get the love they deserve one day! Sounds like the one in Ottawa is well on its way!

[DAVEinEDMONTON]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

The only complexes on 17 Ave that have surface parking were built decades age, not this freakin year. Seems like you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. It is a garbage development and is an affront to urbansim. The fact that you clearly don't see any of what's wrong with this development, or are at least just cognitively dissonant about it, means that there's really no further dialogue to be had on the matter. Are you one of those who thinks the Venetian isn't too bad either?





It's not suburban, it's very much inner city. That's the problem. If it was suburban I wouldn't have posted it.

The principles related to parking in urban or suburban development are the same now as in the distant past so your issues with the parking is somewhat ridiculous. I am not sure what inner city is really supposed to mean other that somehow because it is close to downtown that no parking is allowed. You really haven't thoroughly looked at the location and you do not know it at all to say that providing parking as part of renovated retail project is fundamentally wrong. It is not surrounded parking. It was an old warehouse on a rail spur and there is no other nearby public street parking to the west, north or south side of the building as the south side is a secondary road into downtown and the west is the converted rail spur into a bike path and the north is solid warehouses.

Would love to see you sink your dollars into a project like this and build a complex with 20 CRUs and take that chance to not address parking as part of the development because clearly you do not understand that it forms an important element to any retail development. You have no understanding of the location in Edmonton even though I have tried to provide you with details of the history and where it is relative to downtown. I have provided similar examples in Calgary that do the same thing on a pedestrian corridor. However, the property in question is not on or near any pedestrian area. It is an older warehouse corridor and parking is fundamental. You are shooting at the hip bringing up assumptions of what should or should not be without clearly knowing what you are talking about and now that you are being called out for your ignorance you have not once but twice mentioned the Venetian like that is some sort of mega insult.

Cleary, I am not the one who is looking like a fool.

[DAVEinEDMONTON]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

As far as suburban strip malls go, Manchester square is decent. I agree the name is not appropriate for the style, and I would prefer if they did not include the laneway around the building (parking lot alone would suffice).

I would have preferred no laneway as well but I did take a look at the old footprint of what was there before on googlemaps and it seems that the developer is using the east side and the northern parts of the old warehouse building as is. The original footprint on the east side has that excess space which looks like is was just scrub land and not really used for much. The addition of the laneway seems to be to provide at least some parking and make it useable as part of the development.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by FrAnKs

Québec City.
Top floor was recently added. Not sure what to think of this.

I don't mind it at all.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by DAVEinEDMONTON

The principles related to parking in urban or suburban development are the same now as in the distant past so your issues with the parking is somewhat ridiculous. I am not sure what inner city is really supposed to mean other that somehow because it is close to downtown that no parking is allowed. You really haven't thoroughly looked at the location and you do not know it at all to say that providing parking as part of renovated retail project is fundamentally wrong. It is not surrounded parking. It was an old warehouse on a rail spur and there is no other nearby public street parking to the west, north or south side of the building as the south side is a secondary road into downtown and the west is the converted rail spur into a bike path and the north is solid warehouses.

Would love to see you sink your dollars into a project like this and build a complex with 20 CRUs and take that chance to not address parking as part of the development because clearly you do not understand that it forms an important element to any retail development. You have no understanding of the location in Edmonton even though I have tried to provide you with details of the history and where it is relative to downtown. I have provided similar examples in Calgary that do the same thing on a pedestrian corridor. However, the property in question is not on or near any pedestrian area. It is an older warehouse corridor and parking is fundamental. You are shooting at the hip bringing up assumptions of what should or should not be without clearly knowing what you are talking about and now that you are being called out for your ignorance you have not once but twice mentioned the Venetian like that is some sort of mega insult.

Cleary, I am not the one who is looking like a fool.

Did you design the damn thing or something? Jesus Christ dude, take a breath. My point is that our cities, as most are, should be trying to do better, not stay in the past as this development is doing. I never said there shouldn't be parking, just that it shouldn't be surrounded by it. Any modern strip mall, especially in an inner city (since you seem unclear on the concept, the fact that this is a 4 minute walk from Oliver, the most densely populated neighbourhood in Edmonton, makes it very inner city) should be putting its parking at the back of the building at least.

The fact that it's not near a major pedestrian thoroughfare is more a symptom of a greater problem with the Edmonton planning commission and land use designations than just a thing to say to defend this development. Developments like this reinforce the fact that 104 will just be another hellscape of parking lots from 121 to 109 for the foreseeable future (other than the beautiful MacEwan campus).

Also, you didn't provide any examples of parking on Calgary pedestrian thoroughfares, you simply said there are some, to which I replied that they were built decades ago, not in 2019 for shits sake

I never called you a fool, but supporting such a shitty development, grasping at straws to defend it... yeah, kinda makes you look like a fool.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by DAVEinEDMONTON

The principles related to parking in urban or suburban development are the same now as in the distant past so your issues with the parking is somewhat ridiculous. I am not sure what inner city is really supposed to mean other that somehow because it is close to downtown that no parking is allowed. You really haven't thoroughly looked at the location and you do not know it at all to say that providing parking as part of renovated retail project is fundamentally wrong. It is not surrounded parking. It was an old warehouse on a rail spur and there is no other nearby public street parking to the west, north or south side of the building as the south side is a secondary road into downtown and the west is the converted rail spur into a bike path and the north is solid warehouses.

Would love to see you sink your dollars into a project like this and build a complex with 20 CRUs and take that chance to not address parking as part of the development because clearly you do not understand that it forms an important element to any retail development. You have no understanding of the location in Edmonton even though I have tried to provide you with details of the history and where it is relative to downtown. I have provided similar examples in Calgary that do the same thing on a pedestrian corridor. However, the property in question is not on or near any pedestrian area. It is an older warehouse corridor and parking is fundamental. You are shooting at the hip bringing up assumptions of what should or should not be without clearly knowing what you are talking about and now that you are being called out for your ignorance you have not once but twice mentioned the Venetian like that is some sort of mega insult.

Cleary, I am not the one who is looking like a fool.

Forget parking. It's tacky. Yes, the video makes its overall massing look not too bad, but it's a fake Dutch village in the middle of Edmonton. It lacks taste. Not Venetian level but still bad.

[TSteph9]

I figure this one could be polarizing because there's plenty of debate elsewhere about whether it's amazing or an eyesore. Enigma on The Park, Toronto.


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