That base has achieved a new rare synthesis of ugly, uninviting and impractical.

True! It looks like the whole building unexpectedly sunk ten feet.

Abandoning Moriyama's beautiful and masterful SC building to justify creating a parking garage is just about the perfect encapsulation of this current Conservative government's mindset I've seen yet. Goons.

Well! I'm impressed. This is a big step up for Kitchener compared to all the gawky, boxy mediocrities that have been passing for architecture here lately. It looks awfully busy - no telling yet how that will all translate - but it's great to see a building expressively attempt make good on it's...

Here's the government backgrounder document on the deal (so far).

I liked the previous renders more than these later ones. The streetscape / lower eight floors looks alright , but the new tower design is exceedingly dull. If a little more flair was given to the tower's upper parts, it could be an all-round winner. It's great seeing these parking lots getting...

That hatchet job on the front street-level facades is a new low. I'd rather they dismantled the facades and moved them elsewhere than subject them to this permanent, insulting bit of hackwork. It doesn't seem right that SRM is getting all these commissions in downtown Kitchener, one after the...

A few more...

New news from The Star. Link here: https://archive.ph/atlTz

At this point, I hope so. The zoning is so monotonous, the towers so bluntly crowded in without graciousness, the station looking so dully unspectacular... I hope most, if not all of this project goes back to the drawing board.

To-day:

It could use a concert hall. It could use a bowling alley, movie theatres, a unique arts venue or a branch or two of some international museum. It could use subsidized artist studios that could accommodate everything from painting to industrial sculpture to video. Maybe some architecturally...

The choices made with this building are really interesting. I don't know if it's completely successful, but in this case, it's kind of good not knowing. It's bold and different while working hard to be an asset, and these days, that's saying something. I grew up near Hamilton in the '70's, and...

This....thing, this forced hybrid, is utterly ridiculous. The house cuttings insult preservation even as they bite the ankles of the tower they're supposed to grace. Fused unhappily together, apologetics and routine explanations aside, the whole things is just lousy architecture. We've really...

Another round. Sorry, these are a bit dim.

Re: Chow's comment about the Better Living Centre. Here's an aerial view for comparison of the sites.

It's one of those depressing things that in the renderings, the square was to have noticeable lines running across it north to south, with the entire surface done entirely in granite. A fortune was spent, and the granite procured, but all of it was of the grey colour we all know and love -...

A rather famous doorway, in the papers n' everything. The building housed Club Toronto for years, a highly popular gay bathhouse, back in the day. It was one of the places raided during the infamous Bathhouse raids in 1981 which led to a huge backlash and enormous boost of solidarity to...