haltcatchfire said:
Or use all that volume underground below buildings to accommodate the cars and let the middle of the neighborhood be a park,
playground, community centre and school etc.
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Sure! whatever accommodates enough cars but I can see a massive underground parkade being really expensive. Whatever the solution is, someone needs to figure it out because parkades are the single biggest cost added on to the final price of multi-family units which can deter people from buying and people still need parking. Unfortunately (or Fortunately), Calgary isn't in Europe so the majority of the people, even in the inner city, will need cars for the foreseeable future.
 
Mountain Man said:
No more beige!!!
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gsunnyg said:
That whole area needs to be redeveloped into midrises 4-8 stories high and maybe an odd highrise cluster if the city and neighborhood will allow it. Same thing along the east side of Sunnyside station. Just that extra density boost would help the mainstreets become vibrant year around. It really is surprising how little density there is near our downtown core along the river. Most mid-large size metros have neighborhoods that tend to get denser as you approach the core.
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It's certainly getting better, but we have an uphill battle from the New Yorks, Montreals, Torontos of the world when we missed out on that 1880s - 1930s urban boom prior to widespread car ownership and strict anti-urban land use controls. So much of their stock of walkable, dense neighbourhoods were developed then.

This is helpful in a number of ways, even today:
  • lots of precedent of car-free development (and a large existing market for it)
  • tons of local examples to point to for tweaks and exceptions to any infills
  • cultural and political weight in pedestrian-first planning: so many of your constituents live in walkable neighbourhoods they refuse to accept narrow, shitty sidewalks and unplowed street corners they struggle to get their strollers over.
gsunnyg said:
Another thing I've never understood is why the city doesn't build one big midrise parkade in the center of these neighborhoods for residents to park their cars and retrieve them when required This would allow for surrounding multi-family developments to have minimal parking. It would allow condos and rental buildings to be much more affordable. Better to build one big parkade accessible with a monthly pass for locals rather than have each developer take on the expense of building their own parkade. If these neighborhoods become amenity-rich and are walkable, Id assume the occasional instance someone needs a car they can walk a block down to a community parkade and retrieve it to commute outside the area.
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De-bundling parking is what you are describing and is a great idea (read up on Donald Shoup for more on this).

Due to how the City (and most cities) approaches land use regulation, the onus is on the site to "handle" all it's parking needs onsite. This manifests itself into parking requirements which are arbitrary, pseudo-science and not connected to actual supply or demand. The cost of paying for this arbitrary amount of parking is bundled into the price of the building, increasing housing and construction costs for everyone - regardless on if you plan to have a car or not. Once built, parking becomes super painful to "de-bundle" from the building/unit so it's difficult to commoditize and free up (e.g. security gates, owner-only garages, no way to track or mediate disputes etc.) so you might be forced to buy/build a $30,000 parkade stall - but you can't rent it out very easily to recoup that money.

What you are suggesting is far better approach. Make all new developments have zero parking requirements (and perhaps a maximum), instead contributing to a common garage site that can be managed collectively to avoid the challenges that come from the bundling problem - not dissimilar to how Downtown parking worked, you need both sides of the equation (parking maximums/no minimums + public garages). As a bonus, without each building having it's own parking, buildings are cheaper to build, less disruptive (no ramps) and go up faster (less underground). This ultimately translates into simpler, more affordable structures that permanently help more people live in good (and otherwise expensive) locations. All the knock-on effects of environmental and economic benefits from more people living closer together become far more possible too.

Or if you don't want to build a new parking structure, find mechanisms that can unlock all the existing private parking everywhere so it's commodified. Perhaps some clever apps or property management firms can sort this out and find a way to commodify all that private parking that exists. Calgary probably has at least 5 to 10 million parking stalls (all on and off street parking), it's not a physical lack of stalls that the issue - it's the access that needs to be solved.

Improvements are on the way with the removal of commercial parking requirements and the favourable relaxations of parking rules in the inner city. But much more needs to be done to solve this issue and start influencing areas outside the core to transition from car-dependent to "car-lite". Solving parking (by removing it) and car-dependence is the critical factor for all our development issues.
 
Looks way better than the overhead view, where you'd think it was just two beige tones of paneling. The alternating sections of horizontal wood is nice. The windows look darker which adds some contrast to the flatness of the overhead view where windows look greyish. The tones with the dark windows look pretty good now.

Some of the details won't likely end up like that though. That horizontal cedar? will need to be trimmed and won't look so sharp. After it's applied to a strapping over a black material it will be proud of the doors and windows. Highly unlikely the balcony railings end up like that too, no thickness and unsupported ahead of the slab edge. Even if they did, this design is a poor idea as it collects dirt between the glass and the slab.

I don't see the need for the brown brick as a material on the cantilevered band over the entry doors. Brick isn't used as an element anywhere else from what I can tell, and a longstanding architectural rule is you don't clad unsupported elements in a psychologically heavy material. There's also some sort of stone at the main floor screen walls which is too discontinuous as it changes back to concrete at the planters and entrance.

These renderings that simplify these details and play tricks act as a great sales tool making a rather pedestrian design look better. Just show us what it really looks like.
 
Actually doesn't look bad with those renderings I'm just not a fan of the landscaping running along with the building, has suburban vibes. They should just widen the sidewalk with concrete or stone and add some benches. The tree canopy already does a great job to make the pathway greener. Even though it's a straight design, I like the way Pixel is laid out, tree canopy on one side and concrete development on the other, just seems more balanced, simple, and urban. The only thing missing with Pixel is a wider sidewalk
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jdixon said:
I'd be worried a wider sidewalk would gradually crush the roots and kill those mature trees.
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I'm talking about the building side, where they have the landscaping rendered on the drawing, the grass surrounding the row of trees can stay. IMO putting grass to fill the spots where the building angles just looks a bit unnecessary. People are guaranteed to walk all over it and it'll probably be yellow for 6 months and snow the other 6, might as well try something cool with it. The next few plots of land next to this site will also be eventually redeveloped to higher density in the future, so more foot traffic down this sidewalk is guaranteed. Maybe they can make it a small public space for people to sit, have lunch, etc. Or like I said before, just expanded concrete to walk/stand on beats a narrow section of grass (Just me nitpicking, getting inspired by Watched Walker videos from Europe lol )
 
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