[ap70]

"every city has the architecture it deserves"

I just realized that "every city has the architecture it deserves".
If Toronto wants to grow sick, so let it grow sick!

If they build small places it is because there are clients that get happy for living in a cubicle.

I am conveinced that all the barriers that Canada imposes to Internationaly
Trained Architects have no relation to codes, education or liability. It is just a "market protection" that is well designed to force all the foreign professionals to spend large amounts of money and time over a bunch of institutions and organizations.

Installing barriers help to unmotivate and unmotivating will keep the creativity and alternative out of the market, so the market can still be painted by the same color it always was.

 

[Hydrogen]

So only foreign architects can save us from ourselves?

I just realized that "every city has the architecture it deserves".

Maybe you could explain what that actually means?

 

[ap70]

So only foreign architects can save us from ourselves?

Sorry, I think I got off topic a bit with the "foreign architects" posts...

What I mean is; If nor the local buyers, nor the architects associations or building codes can avoid an empty fashioned architecture to be build in a city like Toronto, who cares? Let the micro units to be build because what is important now is the way that buildings look and not how the offer a good standard of living for "all" its users. Or what we learn in the Architectural courses is exactly the opposite?

Toronto is rich in promoting its multiculturality however it is really poor when allowing it. It is not a matter of savaging but a matter of exchanging!
It is a huge city, close to New York however its behavior is like a camp side town "let's play our music and don't talk to strangers".

 

[androiduk]

I get part of what you're saying and I think it translates into, our cities have to be liveable and so do our buildings. You can pave everything over, turn every street into a one way race track and cram as many people into as small a place as possible but don't expect a happy population. I'm pretty sure crime and suicides would go through the roof.

 

[TrickyRicky]

I'm going to devils advocate on this a bit ap70 and say that many of the interior concerns you raise exist but are not of long-term concern. The only aspect of the condo unit that is of long-term significance are the boundaries to unit size as dictated by the primary structural members, shear-walls, columns, and the exterior. Finishings and internal partitians are dictated by economics and the trends they generate. This is a good thing. Having architectural or building standards mandate design beyond their primary objectives of insuring occupational health and safety may yield some good results, but it may also have negative consequences ranging from affordability, to flexibility to hampering design and innovation itself.

On the issue of barriers to foreign trained professionals, I agree with you. However, I would keep in mind that professional organizations from architects, to doctors, to steelworkers, doop the public into believing their primary objective is keeping up the standards of their craft. They do do this, however in reality their existance is primarily about throwing up barriers and limiting competition in order to protect their membership and limit external competition.

Finally, on the issue of architecture and design itself. I find that architects tend to highly over-inflate their capacity to impact change. My theory is that this is a result of the insular nature of the professional community and the overwhelmingly positive external signals they get from the general public. What I mean is that people love architecture but inflate the architect's role in the process of building things from inception to occupancy, a role that diminishes with each passing year. So, if the object is to raise the standards of internal design in condo units, the architectural community are not the only, or perhaps not at all the people you need to address this issue with.