Why Are Condos Ugly?

Why people don’t pay for nice looking buildings and architects don’t design them.
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References & Sources
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[1] 1 in 7, 14.28%
[2] 53 in 64, 82.81%
[3] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chet_Hanks
[4] 6.06 stories (least favorite) 8.3 stories (favourite)
[5] www.omhm.qc.ca/en/housing-dir...
[6] www.gitomer.com/the-eiffel-to...
[7] ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/pa...

[@kaloyanpetrov7863]

I'm first year is architecture university and I swear that when in finish with it I will build beautiful buildings inspired from the old architecture styles.

[@pestato]

Hope you will, man. We definitely need The Second Renaissance

[@scoops2]

Given the quality of your content I'm always shocked you only have 5k subscribers. Looking forward to being a hipster who was here first when you're at 250k, Paige.

[@PaigeMTL]

Don't worry. The swearing, jokes and unaligned positions will keep me underground.

[@CalCalCal6996]

Since my move to Montreal this past month, you are quickly becoming my favourite channel on KZbin. Thanks so much for uploading

[@mageyeah7763]

I’ve seen some good modern design, but I’m not buying the idea pushed by way to many modern architects that a box is an interesting design choice. I kinda doubt they believe it either. Obviously a plain box is the cheapest way to generate square footage.

[@smplfi9859]

but what if it's a million dollar big box on a hill!?!?!?

[@My-nl6sg]

not only cheapest, but the easiest to design. Old buildings have craftsman who are specialized into detailing things, the sculptors for your ornaments, painters, carpenter for wood forms, etc... so you can have nice porches, interesting windows, brick patterns, actual ornaments. modern day architects are just all trained the same and they either have to come up with some brand new shit themselves out of the blue, or select from a catalog of industrially produced elements like glass curtainwalls. speaking as an architecture student lol

[@8181k]

Option 1: Make a building match its neighborhood and people won't notice the extra 3 stories on top of it. They'll go on with their lives undisturbed by the sneakily added density to their neighborhood. Option 2: Design a building stands out like a sore thumb. Receive fervent protests from residents. Redesign the project, reduce its size. Repeat 3 times. Then build it 5 years later at half the density originally planned. It's great that we live in a world where option 2 is chosen 95% of the time because of esoteric design preferences and architects wanting to show how "innovative" they are.

[@derpmansderpyskin]

I think option one is far more common, you just never hear about it.

[@BikeHelmetMk2]

@@derpmansderpyskin Sure isn't in my city. They always go for the gaudy new stuff - right next to streets of consistent older designs. It's like developers intentionally try to piss off the locals with ugly stuff.

[@roelsch]

You can learn a few things from looking at that Renaissance street scene (7:29): - Uniformity is overrated. We have a mishmash of building materials, heights, stud heights, etc. To modern city planning standards it is a mess. Well, so what. - However one building tends to have one finish. If your zoning code has a rule mandating at least 2 ‘contrasting’ surface materials, get rid of it. It will make many buildings aggressively ugly. - Despite being a very narrow street by modern standards, it does not feel horribly cramped and oppressive. The reason it would feel so today is the constant noise and danger of car traffic, and the space it takes up. Here you see people who can just do their thing. To add to the art analogy, many modern buildings are like just painting the entire canvas beige because fruit bowls are passé. “Ornamentation is a sin”, that sort of thing. Big mistake.

[@jonw999999]

I'm an architect and say architects have the worst taste... they claim to be innovative then design the exact same tired random window and color pattern boxes as every other shitty design.

[@PaigeMTL]

Can you DM me? What firm do you work for?

[@jarjarbinks6018]

Even in the suburbs I notice a general trend in building material among apartments probably partially due to not wanting to stand out. Lots of wooden homes around with multistory wooden apartment buildings sprouting up every once in while

[@Xerxesjc28]

Are things different in Canada than the USA on who gets to decide stuff like this? In the US its mostly the owners/developers/city regulations who tell or push architects to make these awful choices. Architects are hired by developers who want something cheap and quick to build that can make them the most money. I only have just started my career in architecture, so I don't know too much, but many architects try telling developers/city councils/permit regulators, that stuff you mentioned but we just basically must do what we are getting paid for. With that said, in architecture school a lot of what you mentioned is true, the fruit bowl example is spot on. "Make something different but with small barely noticeable elements that fit in with the surrounding that only someone trained in architecture would notice". However, in the real world (with few exceptions such as from famous architects/firms) you are mostly just being forced to do what the people who hired you want.

[@PaigeMTL]

It's the same. The "developers" are representing us as buyers in the selfish bastard side of the equation @5:25 . The general public does not value (say) limestone on their own home so developers don't build with it very often. I think people like to blame developers because it lets us shirk responsibility for being cheap and selfish. There's no shortage of people who choose to buy ugly condos with rooftop pools, more floorspace and gyms and my survey shows this. However there are plenty of occasions where architects are choosing between two similar priced materials and choose something that irritates the public. I use clay bricks in this one because it's cost comparable with concrete, people love it, but the profession often choose metal panels or concrete because they have a cool idea they want to do.

[@nunyabusiness1489]

I think that what is WAY overlooked in these types of discussions is building width. It is extremely rare for a very wide building of ANY architectural style to contribute to a human-scaled, granular, diverse streetscape. People like detail and variety, and the best way to provide that is by building narrow buildings. Even if the architecture of an individual building is bad, it being narrow reduces the negative aesthetic effect because it "ruins" a smaller percentage of the block and still contributes to the granularity and detail that people like, whereas a wide building just creates a dull, monotonous streetcape that overwhelms the surrounding environment. There HAS TO be a reason that most people have a far more viscerally negative reaction to, say, Soviet "commie-blocks" than to Japanese apartment buildings. They are both built with boring modernist architecture and are both usually mid-rise buildings, but the latter is usually narrow and human-scaled while the former are very wide; so I can't really see any other reason for the huge disparity in their popularity. People also often talk about building height being the primary factor in human-scale design, but that just doesn't stand to reason because nobody is looking up when they're walking down the street to see how tall buildings are; what they do notice (unconsciously) though is how frequently the environment changes in their horizontal field of view, which is primarily influenced by building width. (For further reading, here's a blog post about how building width is most important factor in human-scale design: urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/06/is-building-height-debate-mistaken.html?m=1) ) And for real life evidence of how narrow buildings contribute to diverse, aesthetically-pleasing streetscapes and neighborhoods, look no further than Athens, Istanbul, and Tokyo, which are widely acclaimed as beautiful cities despite almost entirely consisting of modernist architecture. (For further reading on how architectural doesn't dictate the beauty of place, here's a strong towns article: www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/1/19/boring-buildings-great-places )

[@PaigeMTL]

I think you’ve just found a correlation to something people usually like. Narrow lots are a hallmark of medium density for lots of reasons.

[@nunyabusiness1489]

@@PaigeMTL No, I think most people actually do have a preference for narrow, urban-style buildings (i.e. built one lot at time, along and close to a street, rather than in planned developments), but that it's just a preference that don't consciously know they have, and they ascribe it to things that they do consciously like, such old/traditional architecture and lower-height buildings, both of which are more likely to be on narrow lots. If someone did a poll showing renderings of otherwise-identical buildings of different widths and asking which one respondents prefer, I'd bet that more people would say they prefer the narrower buildings. [EDIT:] or a poll showing half of respondents a rendering of narrow identical building and the other half a wide one, which would be randomly assigned, with multiple different styles and then asking them if they like it, and people would probably be more likely to say they like the narrow buildings. Also, I fixed the second link my other comment

[@ANTSEMUT1]

@@nunyabusiness1489 why do Paris haussmann buildings look great then? They are pretty wide.

[@randalalansmith9883]

Meanwhile, in CA, nobody used structural clay bricks after 1906. So any red brick facing screams "fake".

[@seannajera1265]

Growing up in Las Vegas, I will always be tormented by horribly textured stucco. PLEASE DO NOT BUY A HOUSE IF THE STUCCO LOOKS CRAP

[@Hyperventilacion]

Already waiting for the third video about bricks, happy holidays!

[@mdhazeldine]

This is a brilliant analysis of something I've observed and intuitively understood but not been able to articulate nearly as well as you just did here. The thing I would say in defense of architects and against developers though, is that if you pander to what joe public wants, you end up with streets that are very boring and "safe" looking. There's no boundary pushing and you end up with buildings that are just a bad parody of styles of the past. We've have no Eiffel Towers or Pompidou centres. Joe public needs architects to save them from themselves, but architects also need joe public to save them from THEMselves too (so we don't end up with street that look like a lab experiment gone bad). They just need to understand each other better. Architects need to find a way to give the public what they actually want (or will want in 25-50 years in the future) when they don't actually realise what they want.

[@Nostalg1a]

Ironic since every new development seems like a copy of themselves with no real attention to detail or local identity. Also using the same forms and materials on a worldwide scale, where we see virtually the same facades from America to Europe is detrimental to visual and cultural diversity.

[@Tyurannical]

this is a fun one! appreciated the conclusion. Something I'm seeing a lot locally in 'my' downtown (Halifax) are buildings that retain old-looking facades on the first few stories and then have 3-10 floors of glass above that. Anecdotally, responses to that concession are still mixed; it tends to look pretty incongruous. It's nice they're trying, though! It's funny to think we could head into an era of "regressive" architecture if the public controlled the aesthetics of what got built, when some of the most iconic historic architectural styles were themselves aping aspects of past buildings.

[@n.b.3521]

@Bill M This is super common in Toronto. I think it's a good compromise and definitely better than destroying the old streetscape completely. One nice thing is that on foggy days, the newer glass towers above almost disappear and it's only the old city that remains.

[@markvogel5872]

It's the homoginization of spaces. It could be any location in the world because it all looks the same. So sad when we see the beauty that used to be put into buildings. It's so awful.....

[@technodude5252]

My favorite kind of Paige video, a Brick video!

[@rewindoflow]

Me: "I've always said it's smarter to live in the crappy looking building looking at the nice buildings rather than the reverse" Also me: *lives in an old brick mill where nothing quite works, service charge is insane, and brick dust clogs up everything, looking out at a brand new apartment block with dedicated concierge* In my defense they do have a nice fountain.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

Newer building material are too smooth and featureless, it looks like you are looking at a video game with a outdated graphics engine. Also patternless Glass balconies only look good in sunny beach side places.

[@bobdinitto]

Clearly aesthetics has taken a back seat to maximizing density in contemporary architecture. This condition has arisen from economic necessity but hopefully technological innovation in designing economical replicas of natural material can bridge the gap between good looking and utilitarian.

[@j.s.7335]

This is such a great video. I definitely remember a new condo tower going up a few years ago in my city and being very pleased that it was being made of brick, and thinking how nice it looks. Especially compared to so much other new construction.

[@kawaiidere1023]

I don’t care about material as long it has a nice street side? Maybe a storefront setup that looks like something out of SMT Nine/4a or Persona 5, with tile and concrete? I’d probably vote against cement and stuff too if that was the extent of information, out of fear it wouldn’t respect architecture as an art

[@snafu0o0o]

Oh man, havin flashbacks of some of the wild NIMBY comments in the Denver Fugly groups 😂 I mean, folks will seriously put an exact copy of a traditional home built now up onto a gold plated pedestal and worship that little guy. I went to school for architecture and work in the construction project management for a city government so it’s pretty fun to read / listen to so many negative comments occasionally tossed around about projects I’ve been involved in. I do wish for this housing crisis to stop spiraling into oblivion so, I really need to be as open minded as I keep saying others should be… point taken

[@PaigeMTL]

Well, if you can find a nice medium density crowd pleaser, I think we can worry about architectural innovation once vacancy rates are over 3%.

[@PokerStaples]

Banger after banger. Great video Paige 👍

[@JEE-uo3ox]

In the architecture field we hate those condo towers just as much, the reason why they're so ugly is because their design is heavily driven by economics. Still don't know why this look of aluminum volumes randomly protruding out is so attractive to developers. What we like and hate will shift over time but today there's a genuine concern about the quality of our current building stock and the sort of "legacy" of cheap towers with no cultural sensibilities we're leaving behind for future generations.

[@PaigeMTL]

What company do you work for? Can you DM me? Follow up: JI is an architecture student, appreciate being able to verify these sorts of comments. Developers general don’t want to add a bunch of boxes (costs) to a building and weight in on designs. They want the cheapest fastest easiest design to build and sell. I’d be interested to know how you feel once you’ve been in the industry for a few years.

[@ouicertes9764]

true, there is a clear divide between "developer architecture" and architecture. Developers like "architectural objects" that have a recognizable look, while being generic, so they can both have an identity on a brochure and appeal to a wide variety of consumers. Fitting in with the rest of the urban fabric is secondary for developers, it's all about creating a product to market. It's not how architecture and urbanism used to be done, the visual identity of a city was important, and without rules it's getting more and more generic, according to economic interests.

[@trainglen22]

As far as I am concerned. Classic is always good and it does blend in well in Montreal.

[@gduteaud]

Hey Paige. I work in architecture in this city and while this is certainly an interesting video I think you should further investigate the role of the regulatory framework and particularly that of CCUs in the shitty-fication of the built environment. More aesthetic review of new projects has not made contemporary architecture any better - quite the opposite. Also, aside from your own (not quite scientific) survey, there’s plenty of evidence that attempting to placate NIMBYs is a dangerous road to go down. It’s not about cladding materials, it’s about resistance to change. As for density bonusing, we should definitely do it (not necessarily in response to cladding choice though) as it’s such an easy way for the city to get more housing built at 0 cost, but our progressive administration isn’t even considering that because, again, resistance to change. Finally, on a semi-related note, have you read Shane Philips’ book on housing affordability? Cheers!

[@PaigeMTL]

Oh hi! You should drop me an email or DM. The CCUs in Montreal are on screen when I talk about architects being on aesthetic review boards. I actually went through quite a few of them and found the bulk of their members to be architecture and urban planning professionals. I think they push group think popular with insiders but not citizen preference, specifically contrasting architecture at this point of time. I don’t think the solution that I’m building towards in these videos will reduce housing built, but it won’t pretend that there’s nothing we can do about NIMBYS other than hope they don’t show up and tank a project or steamroll them.

[@canadagood]

With cities deciding every detail of aesthetic design - such as declaring a preference for clay versus concrete brick - often what you end up with is a modern concrete or wood frame building with a pastiche cladding pasted on the outside. While it is a pastiche that sort of blends in with the neighbours and placates the NIMBYs but it is still a pastiche.

[@user-vv6vu1xj7t]

I think the developer should present a really aesthetically unpopular design at first, and the 'adapt' the building to a more popular design to make NIMBYs feel like they've achieved something without them watering down the density of the proposed development.

[@unknownhours]

Is all vinyl siding ugly, or do I only notice the ugly ones? I have vinyl floors that I think look great, but I think they are great because they do a pretty convincing impression of wood.

[@Jean-Poule_II]

My parents actually have a white vinyl exterior on their 1979 house that looks pretty neat, especially with the dark green rooftop and the clay brick chimney. It's a pretty well built house with really nice big windows, fake deep green shutters to match the rooftop, and some really nice woodwork on the inside. It's surrounded by woodland though and I'm not sure it would work quite as well if the house was right in the middle of the Mile End or in the McGill ghetto.

[@rokulus7910]

I'd say that architects are rarely vindicated in the long run. The Eiffel Tower is an exception. Most buildings considered modern are just as disliked today as they were 50 years ago. Most people still hate brutalism. The disconnect between what architects like and what the general public likes is a real problem. Their embrace of modernism in the 20th century was an attempt to free themselves of the rigid design philosophy of the past, but they ended up creating new rules that are every bit as rigid as the ones they abandoned. And these rules give us wildly unpopular buildings. Architects and designers have been trying to convince the public that they should prefer their favoured styles and materials for a century, but public preferences haven't budged. What architects fail to understand is that architecture is fundamentally about joe citizen, not design snobs. If most of the buildings produced since the 1950s are disliked by most of the population, there's a problem.

[@shortugae]

i think the statement "most buildings produced since the 1950s are disliked by most of the population" is a wild and false assumption.

[@rokulus7910]

@@shortugae My statement isn't wild, or false, or even an assumption. It's based on research revealing that public preferences are remarkably consistent and one-sided in favour of traditional styles. Comments with links don't seem to show up, but you can easily find these studies with quotes like "Traditional architecture scores significantly higher than contemporary architecture" or "Overall, classical won out over modern by 72% to 28%".

[@jellybeansi]

Glass fucking sucks. Floor to ceiling glass windows absorb and trap so much heat.

[@maxbardsley2076]

A very interesting video on a subject close to my heart. Hope you get more views!

[@smarkwick7814]

I see this on my college campus (wpi) most of the school is older clay brick with some concrete and it looks nice and there are some more modern buildings/extension with more concrete and vinal but still heavily features brick and they fit in and feel nice then the newest building on campus has a near complete glass facade on the most approached sides and it's ugly and sticks out yet if it was with more glass buildings I would probably think marginally better about it ( it's still space inefficient design)

[@proposmontreal]

Me : Why do I feel like I've seen this video before Also me : Oh yea, I voted for these eons ago.

[@kongkongball1]

you put in so much work into this!

[@pianoman47]

Hi Paige! I would love it if you did a video on the health care system in Québec. I've lived in a few provinces and have been in QC for about 8 months. Even aside from the pandemic, it's uniquely hard to get access to a family doctor or even a walk-in clinic.

[@PaigeMTL]

I wrote something on this many years ago, could videoify it

[@jenashleigh1166]

Great video! I guess I'm in the minority of people who likes the juxtaposition of traditional architecture with more contemporary designs-I think of it as the architectural equivalent of eclectic style in interior design. Although I agree that architects need to carefully consider the materials and colour palettes that they use in their designs. I'll take almost anything over brutalism though, haha.

[@m.p.baldnessdyslexic88]

keep up this wonderful content :)

[@Desmaad]

Clay brick can be pretty ugly if you use it wrong, see many apartment blocks in Moncton.

[@weareorigin]

Particle board and vinyl plastic brick exteriors for everyone ! It is cheap,.... I mean modern. You have no choice, just take it.

[@fraviodmr]

This is something that traditional architects (opposite from modernist architects) have known all the time; modernists took over the universities and most public projects. Check out INTBAU in Europe or New Urbanism in USA. Congrats

[@frafraplanner9277]

This is what I've been saying for months!!!

[@donnastonecipher5222]

Thanks for the great video! I would posit that the two brick corner apt. buildings didn't stick in the minds of those you asked because they are dull and unmemorable. People might not mind them, but they're likely not excited by them, either.

[@BikeHelmetMk2]

Oh man... you are going to have one crazy city if every building needs to be "exciting" and "memorable". Sometimes architecture should stand out, and sometimes it really shouldn't - the stuff going on nearby should be the focus.

[@rh7163]

People buy condos for different reasons, most are for investment purposes, whereas they live part time in their holiday retreat and rent them out and hope they go up in price by the time they sell them. Canada's politicians haven't the sense to look at what other countries do and apply the same restrictions when it comes to buying land, houses or properties. Try buying anything in China, Thailand aside from a condo. Housing prices might not be so high if politicians had enough sense to consider what they do or lack the sense to think before they never get around to doing it.

[@robbrown7617]

Should have 10x subs

[@jeremie1577]

Très bon vidéo !

[@BikeHelmetMk2]

11:19 Ooh, that one is nice looking. Fabulous videos! Still getting through them all, but I really hope to see even more in the future!

[@ra9004]

To be honest all those modern buildings are not so bad.. actually some of them are really good looking

[@bow-tiedengineer4453]

I'm fine with the occasional weird bold building, but we need a dozen traditionally pretty buildings for each bold one.

[@zoellazayce6796]

I'm probably the only one that like the architect's buildings

[@jiffyb333]

Thanks for this

[@jimmyjohn8008]

Build more housing...

[@walidkaouah1659]

Nice video.

[@matthewmcree1992]

That example of "deconstructivist balcony patterning" is absolutely awesome looking. I'm NOT an architect, but I guess my tastes are just completely different to that of the average person. I really love modernist glass buildings, actually really like exposed concrete and/or concrete bricks, and actively like many buildings that standout from the rest of the neighborhood - AS LONG AS THE BUILDING ISN'T OVERTLY UGLY/GAUDY. I love beautiful traditionally designed buildings like those of the Beaux Arts period, Neoclassical and various forms of "Revival architecture" (as in Greek Revival, etc.), but good design is good design. If a modern building is well-designed, it should be worthy of being constructed - and there is nothing wrong with neighborhoods that consist of architecture from differing periods and styles. Is Paris beautiful BECAUSE of its uniformity? Yes, but another city that millions and millions of people think is beautiful is San Francisco, and SF has everything from Victorian-era rowhouses painted teal and pink colors to San Francisco City Hall (an example of the Beaux Arts style) to Art Deco skyscrapers to Brutalist public buildings to hypermodernist glass towers and everything in between. SF is beautiful in part BECAUSE of its architectural diversity and the quality of the buildings within each of those styles. Like most people, I'm not typically a huge fan of Brutalism, but the Washington DC Metro is famous for its Brutalist stations, which due to good design including effective use of light and space, many people (including myself) think that Washington DC has some of the most beautiful metro stations in the world. Like anything, there is good architecture and bad architecture within a given architectural style, and a building's context matters. For all the beauty of the stereotypical Parisian building, if it were placed in the most glass-building-covered areas of Vancouver, BC, it would look out of place and arguably just gaudy. Good architects understand context, thus even the most Second Empire-style-devoted, Opera Garnier-obsessed architect in the world would be unlikely to design and construct such a building in the context of a hypermodernist glass-covered neighborhood of high-rise buildings. Sometimes it isn't worth listening to what Joe Citizen says about architecture, because if every architect only designed what was acceptable to the average uninformed person from the Roman Empire onward, architecture would never have progressed and all major buildings in Western Europe and their colonies for the past 2000 years would look roughly like the Colosseum, Pantheon, and Roman villas for the rich - and nearly all the buildings once considered very modern but now beloved - like the Chrysler Building in NYC would have had no chance to exist.

[@BikeHelmetMk2]

I think you just made a point though. If you ask an architect to drop a skyscraper in Vancouver, they'll make it a super tall glass building. If you ask them to put it in Port Hardy, they'll make it a super tall glass building - even though something with Hardy board would probably be more fitting. If the neighbourhood is entirely Victorian, the architect will propose a modernist apartment building - no Victorian cladding or nice octal gazebos to sit in. Architects just love the new stuff in general, and where it works it works, and where it doesn't work they'll shove it in anyway. Some areas should be uniform and some areas should be diverse.

[@mysteriousfun4759]

God, our host is cute and handsome

[@MrAronymous]

Concrete bricks aren't the problem. The problem is taking textureless flat-faced concrete bricks without any colour variation. Duh, of course it's going to look bland. Same will be true if you use flat faced monocolour clay bricks. When it comes to materialisation the devil really is in the details. Metal, wood, plastic. They can all look fantastic, but it really depends on the (quality of) the application. That is where it often goes wrong. Thew newer condos aren't just eyesores because they're grey. They're even more eyesores because their colour pallette consists of 10 shades of grey and no "real colour".

[@nic12344]

Joe Citizens are just a mild version of Nimbys!

[@jaspersaba4635]

such a good video

[@laurentlasnier]

Loved the video! Only thing I would say is not every architect is good/talented, as harsh as it is. 😬 Considering all the new builds, there is to me a clear difference between them; on one hand you have the big and cheap developments that are modern but without any attention to architectural interest (aka all of Griffintown), it feels like they were just developped for the sake of selling them units and making $$$. On the other hand, you have new builds or renovation/extension, that truly are made out of love for architecture and design. I know any aesthetic thing is subjective, but to a trained eye it is way easier to see what will age well and is truly of interest VS what is made cheaply in all senses of the term and has little "design value".

[@shortugae]

There are definitely bad architects out there, no question. But i would argue that the true crap out there, particularly when its something like a multifamily building, its not really the result of a truly bad architect, but rather the result of a client (developer) that has anything even remotely resembling aesthetic quality on the absolute bottom of their list of financial priorities. Theres only so much an architect can do when the client has basically already made up in their mind what the building is going to look like based off of their knowledge of how to build something as cheaply as physically possible. Thats setting aside the fact that the current hyper capitalist model for development has resulted in the emergence of architecture firms that specialize in designing things as cheaply as physically possible, "aesthetics" be damned because theres a serious market for that sort of thing.

[@---jc7pi]

Could we do what you suggest? Yes. But I don't think that makes sense, you want a city to evolve. And within a pretty short while the city will just be a its own architectural laboratory and people will come to like that. Its long term the better outcome.

[@leadbird3666]

Le joe moyen a une appréciation pour l’architecture éclatée, en autant que celle-ci soit bien intégrée dans son environnement. On veut pas qu’une multitude d’architectes réfléchissent en silo à leur plus beau dessin de condo sur fond blanc mais plutôt que ceux-ci travaillent en écho à dessiner des quartiers créatifs. Les buildings AutoCAD imbibés des magasines d’architecture cheap, franchement ça ne donne pas beaucoup plus dans la profondeur que les envies d’un Joe Moyen. Et au delà de l’influence des contraintes des outils d’architecture, on est pris dans les constructions laides depuis plus longtemps que ma génération existe, alors clairement, on est dépassé le stade de la controverse éphémère. L’architecture actuelle du quotidien est plate à mourrir. La preuve c’est qu’elle est aussi très facile à répliquer. On sent qu’on veut non seulement économiser dans les matériaux, mais aussi dans la conception.

[@JapanoiseBreakfast]

Where's my Shou Sugi Ban siding fam at.

[@martyfill9690]

Brilliant page like the cheese cutter wishing you are speedy recovery marty nz

[@deniska0]

That’s not how proper architect would approach the project. He would do analysis of the site and it’s context. And findings from these analysis will help him to make decisions on the materials. Things like geography, topography, climate, history, possibly archaeology, ecology, environmental awareness or biodiversity research, should affect material choices along with project brief. You supposed study the area first, see what materials historically were used in the area. Most likely it was materials that were produced in the area. Materials of cladding should be true to structural materials, it shouldn’t be fake brick. Brick apart from its aesthetics is pretty useless material nowadays, it’s not structural material, the water can penetrate it, it doesn’t help to insulate the building and it adds pretty thick layer to the wall without giving anything back except it looks pretty. I mean adding extra layer of insulation instead would improve a lot its overall performance. Condos are ugly because of bad architects and clueless greedy developers. Any material would shine in the hands of good architects.

[@PaigeMTL]

No true Scotsman

[@mattmunn71]

Maybe its because I live in Asia but give me 30 stories plus with glass and metal balconies.

[@pascualabadmiralles7986]

New subscriber

[@robertruffo2134]

Ok I just realized you pretty much agree with me. Sorry for ranting

[@EricLight]

Lmao my favorite is the stuff the condos are made out of ;)

[@carfreeneoliberalgeorgisty5102]

I don't care what new housing is made out of along as its fine grained.

[@redakteur3613]

I’ve seen lots of soviet-era housing and many stuff you’re showing it’s like almost identical to it just with different wrap. Nothing interesting, just a box, if we developed so much that we can build boxes from 1920 Germany we’re fucked. People don’t like new, because it 99.9% of the times just garbage. There will be support if it was smth refreshing, yeah nimby hardly ever disappear but it will gain support. When the 100 year old factory look like a palace compared to modern housing - smth isn’t right

[@robertruffo2134]

Here s an example from another industry that is much less sociopathic in its way of making creative choices (maybe by necessity, but still). The film industry. You can't really say film is not art, but most films created by private industry are targeted toward what people actually want to see. They figure that out by asking people and by observing what people like. It's not rocket science. You yourself asked people what they like through a survey, and yet you're still defending architects doing things :Joe public" does NOT want. How is that not arrogant bullying?

[@parllax]

The thing with Modern architecture is it can go out of style & horrible age, become an eyesore for decades. People like things that look the same. Look at Paris all the same style.

[@Moses_VII]

So we should train architects less, so they don't get pretentious.

[@ruben4447]

What people are actually mad about are modernist buildings placed in traditional cities. I personally dont mind modernist architecture and quite love Tokyo and New York. As long as modernist architecture is built in only modernist cities im okay with it. Traditional cities should remain to their own style. They should never be mixed with modernism.

[@bobidou23]

FUCKING YES THIS IS EVERYTHING I WANTED TO SAY

[@roccobierman4985]

It's infuriating how architects who prefer the architecture that 90% of the population doesn't, looks down on us like we just "don't get it." Like we don't know what is pleasant to look at. Like we don't understand building materials and costs. Or availability of labor and workmanship. It's them trying to force cheaper, visually less beautiful materials on us and act like we don't know what's going on.

[@jayteegamble]

I guess i'm unique in that i generally don't like clay brick buildings. They look so dated and run down to my eye. I pretty much always liked your 'ugly' buildings.

[@spektree8448]

am i the only one who likes the typical condo colors over bricks and shit lmao

[@annaheritage931]

im commenting because I don't want to like the video and ruin the 669 likes

[@p0ison1vy]

Am I the only one who finds clay brick boring / kinda ugly? When it started becoming trendy to hate on modern architecture I was frequently confused by these horribly ugly new buildings people kept talking about. To this day I still don't understand why people find modern architecture so offensive.

[@robertruffo2134]

Oh boy, you also pout typical modernist architect justification. All the examples of buildings that were once controversial are pre WW2 There are NO examples of modernist buildings that were hated at the time but loved now. NOT ONE.

[@smplfi9859]

I dont really like canadian crudeness

[@sunnyzauberman9943]

Do you need to swear/use the f-word while talking about aesthetic?

[@PaigeMTL]

Yes. I like swearing. Big fan.

[@btfrost]

I think maybe you leaned too hard into caving to people who don’t like change. The world changes regardless of if they want it to or not; in the end the best they can hope for is delay.

[@PaigeMTL]

Caving into what? Political reality?

[@btfrost]

@@PaigeMTL Surveys on preferences don’t reflect politics as they’re two separate angles. I doubt many are willing to waste political capital on siding given the libertarians will throw a shit fit over restrictions on it. That and these types of restrictions often get co-opted as ways to keep “those people” out. I find it hard to support indirect segregation by income through mandating a more expensive material in a specific area.

[@robertruffo2134]

Again, architecture is something people are FORCED to live with in cities. It's not like art or music, where you can choose what you consume. Also, your and their condescension toward the general public is disgusting. You serve US, not your own pacifistic disorder. I have advanced degrees in architecture and I agree with what the public says.