While I don't disagree that there still is some leftover "boom-juice" driving our population growth, I agree with some of the other posters that draw from international migration and urbanization trends. It doesn't seem like positive job growth is the central factor to this region's population...

This was expensive, but damn did they ever do it right. This marvelous building will be a dominant feature of downtown for our whole lives, and I am glad they spent the money ensuring it was as beautiful as envisioned. I hope Calgary never forgets this example and builds all large cultural...

a little OT, but it excites me to see that even with a bit of economic depression, Calgary and region (even Edmonton!) have continued to grow pretty substantially population wise. A calgary region with 2+million opens up more interesting possibilities. When both Edmonton and Calgary hit 2...

I just saw the rendering and I would say that "crap" is a generous description.

Lol I was going to post exactly on these lines: I generally abhor brutalist design, outside of some really spectacular examples like the SFU campus. However, if you were to pick any example of brutalist architecture in Calgary to leave as is this is what I would have chosen. Does anyone know...

I have very few qualms about how this building turned out- it is definitely the magnum opus of our current skyline. That being said, I feel like these cantilever sections look much less interesting/ useful (and smaller?) than they did in the renderings. If I recall, the lower one was to be...

Fair concerns... having active streetscapes around our buildings in the core is a great goal, but I think the "streetscape" and community that is built up in the +15 areas is pretty interesting on it's own as well. I could get behind a better balancing of retail spaces between ground floor/ +15...

I think that the +15 network just acts as a secondary streetscape for the city. Most buildings downtown have retail options and public spaces on their +15 floors to accommodate this. It creates liveliness and community even in the dead of winter. I think it serves a wonderful complimentary role...

what do you have against the +15 network? I rather like it, and it's unique among winter cities. Edmontonians certainly envy the crap out of it.

Looking forward to seeing how the crown piece turns out- happy it's not another building with a flat top at least! I think this could add to the mountain-like aesthetic that 8th avenue place did. The glass looks pretty good imo!

Let us get to generating real revenue and I will start pitching it. Though fair warning, Terry and Steve (CEO and President) are both Edmonton boys and Oilers fans... There's also the small matter of Bill C-45 expressly forbidding using the naming rights sports venues for promotion as a...

WestJet Corral! the Aurora Dome! Enmax Corral! The Big Rock!

I don't want to pile on too too much, but I was thinking how this is sort of a comparable project to the reclad of the McKimmie building at the U of Calgary. Brutalist structures redesigned, though they took completely different approaches: OG MacKimmie: Reclad MacKimmie: The new glass...

This is Brutalist reclad done right. Compared to the redo of the stanley milner in Edmonton the difference is staggering.

Our convention facility should be in banff, right on the end of a high speed rail option that links it directly to Calgary. Banff has those intangible tourist+ benefits that places like NO and LA have. We will never come close to the scale of conventions that LV can handle.

I was actually pretty excited to see how this turned out after the renderings, but the cladding choice is an obvious fumble in my opinion. Doubly so because it sits in such a prominent/visible spot in the downtown public realm.

Inspiration:

You are probably correct! Though I would say that, in my fictional reality, it seems unlikely that CN and CP would so willingly cede any sort of capacity to passenger rail. As such, my corridors were thought to be mostly new *with the exception of the entry points to the major cities.* Rail is...

I was discussing the reality of large scale infrastructure projects with some friends last night: our central topic was how, applying the current infrastructure thinking/rational to our forefathers, the Canadian government would never have been able to fund/build a trans continental railroad...