There should be a buy law on the higher the building climbs the more aesthetically pleasing it should look to its environment around it! If the building is going to have a box blan look it then it shouldn't deserves the height that it's asking for !
 
The minute we start enacting ironclad design requirements based on aesthetics, things will get infinitely worse. Who would get to decide the aesthetics? What would be their qualifications, pedigree, credentials? Wouldn't it simply result in bland, watered-down committee/consensus designs based on some bogus, vanilla notion of architectural beauty? Isn't there enough decisions made by bureaucratic committee already (notwithstanding their good intentions)?

You can't legislate good taste.
 
It would be nice if at the very least they would legislate good quality, meaning materials used....agreed on aesthetics and design it's far more complicated.
 
So @FMCS, then there'd be a list of approved materials for every building to choose from? Who chooses what's on the list, how detailed vs. generic is it, how often do they review the list to make sure it's keeping up with new products, how does it withstand court challenges (company X sues because their product which is used here, there, everywhere, isn't on the Toronto list, etc.)…

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Irishmonk said:
Toronto could do what Vancouver does:

http://guidelines.vancouver.ca/H005.pdf

Example:
"All Higher Buildings must establish a significant and recognizable new benchmark for architectural creativity and excellence, while making a significant contribution to the beauty and visual power of the city’s skyline..."
Click to expand...

I'd say it hasn't been particularly successful, though; I don't find Vancouver's collection of contemporary tall buildings any more inspiring than Toronto's.
 
Agreed with @ADRM. There are good things going up in Vancouver, like Kengo Kuma and BIG-designed buildings for Westbank, but it's still quite developer driven: you need a good one to push the envelop, pay for high quality materials, higher fees for better architecture firms, etc. There's an affordability factor both there and here that mean that most projects, despite the high falutin' ideals, are similarly average. So, Vancouver can talk the talk, but it's not coming out miles ahead there, (and you still have a panel of DRP-types judges there from private practice who know all too well that only the occasional signature project is really going to achieve them).

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I don't know about that. Vancouver and Toronto are on opposite trajectories. It's a different market out there. Still, there's no comparison between this one, Sugar Wharf and 415 Yonge to 1500 West Georgia, 1550 Alberni or 969 Burrard.
 
Yeah, that's just a bizarre comparison; one can take any city's more interesting buildings (or, in this case, proposals) and compare them to another city's less interesting ones, and it won't tell you anything at all. It's the definition of apples to oranges.

Any of One Bloor (east or west), Mirvish-Gehry, Mirvish Village, CIBC Square, BIG King West, 2 Tecumseth, 48-58 Scollard, 383 Yonge, or Waves at Bayside would be significant and impressive additions to Vancouver's skyline, but comparing those to any of Vancouver's more pedestrian proposals is similarly unhelpful.
 
interchange42 said:
You're picking a few signature projects out of a sea of mediocrity.

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Lol
ADRM said:
Yeah, that's just a bizarre comparison; one can take any city's more interesting buildings (or, in this case, proposals) and compare them to another city's less interesting ones, and it won't tell you anything at all. It's the definition of apples to oranges.

Any of One Bloor (east or west), Mirvish-Gehry, Mirvish Village, CIBC Square, BIG King West, 2 Tecumseth, 48-58 Scollard, 383 Yonge, or Waves at Bayside would be significant and impressive additions to Vancouver's skyline, but comparing those to any of Vancouver's more pedestrian proposals is similarly unhelpful.
Click to expand...

Oh well, if you read many of his posts he doesn't think much of whats being built here in this city anyways
 
ADRM said:
Yeah, that's just a bizarre comparison; one can take any city's more interesting buildings (or, in this case, proposals) and compare them to another city's less interesting ones, and it won't tell you anything at all. It's the definition of apples to oranges.

Any of One Bloor (east or west), Mirvish-Gehry, Mirvish Village, CIBC Square, BIG King West, 2 Tecumseth, 48-58 Scollard, 383 Yonge, or Waves at Bayside would be significant and impressive additions to Vancouver's skyline, but comparing those to any of Vancouver's more pedestrian proposals is similarly unhelpful.
Click to expand...

I honestly didn't give it too much thought. Those are just some recent examples of tall proposals in their respective cities. Similarly, the context was for taller buildings and presumably residential. Successfully or unsuccessfully, Vancouver does encourage more interesting designs for office.

I would definitely give Vancouver current tallest (Living Shangri-la, Trump, One Wall, Residences at Hotel Georgia, Shaw, and Meville) the edge over Toronto's tallest(Adelaide Hotel, Aura, Number One Bloor, Harbour Plaza twins, Ice twins, Shangri-la) I'm not giving them the edge because the best are better but, because the weakest are better. That's what you expect from a policy; not better architecture but, better average architecture.

You are right though. Toronto definitely fares a lot better than I thought on towers under construction. There's some exceptionally good towers and also some exceptionally bad towers. Vancouver, aside from Vancouver House, is pretty forgettable.
 
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