We all know that buildings don't always turn out like the renderings. Last-minute changes and real-life materials can all cause discrepancies between the vision and reality of a project. In our Flash Forward Friday feature, we take a look at how different projects stack up.

The project rendering, image via Gibbs Gage Architects

This edition of Flash Forward Friday follows a fitting suggestion by Forum contributor Surrealplaces, who captured Calgary's Fifteen15 — commonly known as Royal View East — from the same angle depicted in the original rendering. The 22-storey building developed by Bentall Kennedy and designed by Gibbs Gage Architects promised to inject more rental apartment units, augmented by a fitness facility and landscaped courtyard, into the Beltline community.

The finished building, image by Forum contributor Surrealplaces

With the building completed, it's an appropriate time to look back at how the finished product aligns with the initial rendering. The highlighting vertical strips of brick aren't quite as strikingly red as depicted and the white-painted balcony undersides are more apparent in reality. The exterior's window wall glass also takes on a green hue rather than the more conservative grey sheen that had been envisioned. The signature white roof element is becoming a bit of a hallmark of Bentall Kennedy-Gibbs Gage partnerships, with the residential Portfolio development incorporating a similar crowning appendage. Though the overall material finishing of the structure is marked by darker tones than artistically illustrated, Fifteen15 is a faithful adaptation of the early drawings and a welcome addition to the neighbourhood.