Ugly buildings

Telus_3.jpgThose of you who live in downtown Ottawa, you may have noticed that there’s a new building going up at the corner of Slater and Bank. It’s going to be the new headquarters of Telus, and has been designed by Broccolini.

Looking at Broccolini’s project page for the building, we see some good stuff: there are LEED-certified contractors working on it, and it’s going to meet the Canadian Green Building Council’s Silver Certification level. Aesthetically, it’s a bit of a miss, however. According to the design photos, it’s going to be a generic-looking nine story metal and glass monstrosity, in a part of town that’s pretty much all brick, and, for the most part, lower than four stories.

Couldn’t Telus have done their homework, and come up with a design that would fit with Ottawa’s low-rise downtown? Couldn’t they have found space for more than a couple of token trees on the sidewalk? Couldn’t they have built something with some architectural detailing on the outside, so as to fit with the rest of the buildings on Bank? Couldn’t they have made space for stores on the ground floor?

Oh well, at least it should be energy efficient.

10 Responses to “Ugly buildings”

  1. Posted by MG
    2006.Jul.23 @ 20:53

    What makes an aesthetically attactive building?

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  • Posted by darrell
    2006.Jul.24 @ 11:23

    MG: It’s kinda like the whole art vs pornography thing, you’ll know it when you see it. :)

    I’m not sure how I feel about this building. I’ll have to wait and see how it looks when it’s done and placed amongst the other buildings. But I do wonder if they are going to have stores/restaurants/tim horton’s on the ground floor as a lot of office buildings downtown do have that sorta thing. And it looks like from those pictures the shops would fit in well.

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  • Posted by PatrickD
    2006.Jul.24 @ 11:49

    I would say this is pretty typical in Ottawa. 99% of the new buildings in this city are uninteresting. Think of the condos on the Daly site. Although in that case, you might argue that uninteresting is good, because it doesn’t detract from the other buildings around it.

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  • Posted by e
    2006.Jul.24 @ 14:56

    Yo MG,

    I can’t comment on what makes a building look nice, but I do think that a building should try and fit with its environment.

    Downtown Ottawa is pretty consistent with its buildings: they’re brick, low rise (four stories or less), and have a fair amount of detailing around the outside. A lot of the buildings have small stores at street level. The government tower across from the new Telus HQ gives a nod to the surrounding buildings: it’s brick, with ground level stores.

    e

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  • Posted by MG
    2006.Jul.24 @ 21:57

    I’d disagree with the fitting into it’s enviorment. Every building should stand on it’s own. Otherwise we end up with our urban core looking just as boring as our suburbs.

    As for this building. I’ve seen worse. The Daly condos are incredibly boring. Which would be fine if it weren’t for the prominate location.

    The problem with buildings is that interesting is expensive. And corparations are responsible to thier shareholders bottom line, not architectural merit.

    mg

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  • Posted by Jason Bo Green
    2006.Jul.30 @ 21:10

    I don’t *hate* it, but it’s certainly not great.

    I don’t think e is requesting it be identical to every other building on the street or in the city, MG. I like standout buildings as much as anyone – 1 King West, the Sapphire Tower, and the new Marilyn Monroes come to mind here in Toronto.

    However, much as I wildly love those buildings and love to see Toronto getting terrific and fun architecture, they would not fit into many neighbourhoods and would quickly become domineering eyesores. They are located in the right spots. I don’t know about Ottawa, but it doesn’t sound like this one is in the right spot. (Again, I don’t know Ottawa)

    e is right – some retail space downstairs would help it a lot.

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  • Posted by MG
    2006.Jul.31 @ 13:42

    JBG I’m not sure I would think of something like the Marilyn Monroe building as an eyesore. I think it would become a focal point and possibly a catalyst for more interesting developement in the comunity.

    Then again I could be wrong. Ottawa isn’t exactly know for it’s ground breaking architectural achivements. I can also imagine there being alot of backlash against something that departs too far from the status quo.

    But it would be nice to see someone try.

    MG

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  • Posted by JJ
    2007.Apr.24 @ 16:35

    Ottawa’s downtown core has only a 3% vacancy rate. So while 3 or 4 story buildings are consistent with the “Bank St.” theme per say…that takes “UP” alot of space that is not being used. The downtown core of any city is the central hub that promotes and represents prosperity, and quite frankly we are running out of room, so they have no choice but to go up! I would rather see a city going up in the downtown area.. instead of OUT and taking away the beautiful greenspace that surrounds our city. Besides, Without growth a city cannot flourish… do we want to become Cornwall? I agree that it doesn’t quite “fit” in at this point, but I believe this is the pinnacle turning point to our city continuing to develope more energy efficient buildings in the down town core. This is a good thing for all of us. My Humble opinion.
    JJ

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  • Posted by e
    2007.Apr.24 @ 23:57

    Hi JJ,

    Thanks for stopping in. I agree that vacancy rates in Ottawa are 100, but I don’t think that means we should start building ugly buildings willy-nilly. It’s quite possible to build reasonably sized condo/apartments that are profitable and (relatively) attractive. The Opus condo tour new the Museum of Natural history is a good example: its “only” 8 stories, each floor is progressively set back, so it doesn’t overwhelm pedestrians, and the building material (faux stone, and II-RC some brick) is pretty attractive.

    I don’t think that development has to be an either/or. We can have attractive, functional, profitable, and possibly even environmentally friendly construction. The only thing preventing that from happening is a lack of vision in City Hall, and developers without imagination.

    e

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  • Posted by Matthew
    2008.Feb.13 @ 13:45

    This building is really nice looking, l find it has a very nice contrast with the older buildings on Bank Street, and l like that it does not over shadow the older buildings as well.

    I love the look of it to tell you the truth, l think Ottawa needs more buildings like this.

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