Kitchener DTK Condos | ?m | 39s | IN8 Developments | srm Architects

I'm not quite sure if ABA architects and SRM hang out together, or buy their aluminum siding from the same outlet: whatever the case, it's hard to imagine the developers employing them eyeing each other's renderings and saying "This multi-striped aluminum bonanza is everything we hoped for - Get Me That!".
Nonetheless! - the three tallest condos that have just gone up in Kitchener at its traditional heart of downtown all look too identical for it to be a coincidence. I mean, the style seems to be "Maximum LuCliff Place " - a fate worse than demolition.

It's one thing to try and break up a façade and make it interesting by mixing and matching materials and setbacks - but architects are supposed to do it well. Especially when it's from scratch. This tower is, uh, passable from a distance. Up close, the wretched handling of the base just induces fatigue - there's nothing pleasing about it to rest your eye on. The above-ground parking garage that dominates the entire base should be a must-see for student architects as a cautionary warning. It's south side is a street killer, and the pre-cast concrete panels they've clad it with in a pattern of stripes is deadening and cheerless.

The little parkette across from it (Vogelsang Park) is unlikely to see a single self-respecting bird sing in it. Stark and graceless, devoid of shade, intricacy, delight, meaning or necessity (or a place for a bird to rest), it's what happens when industrial minimalism goes bad - or cheap. Black-painted rectilinear steel-beam frames sit heavily on the dully planned bits of grass and swaths of flat concrete that tries to pass as a park plaza. Facing a side wall and a parking lot, it has no reason for pedestrian traffic flow through it, and it doesn't even allow for a diagonal path to be made across the corner. Kitchener needs to do better.

I have some pics of this tower on the way. I'll post them as soon as I can. You can glimpse a bit of it on the left of the picture immediately below.
In the meantime, here are two pics of the moribund park:

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The condo itself, viewed from downtown King St. West:
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Yes, that is the final cladding.
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They really are throwing everything but the lovely at this thing, hoping to bring some sense of coherence, variety and, one surmises, interest. It's spandrel-ific! It's drab-tastic! One's eye runs to and fro over it seeking some pleasant resting spot where it might find a bit of relief from the cheap and jumbled array of badly deployed exterior finishes, but nay.
Here's a shot of the Frederick Street side of the mammoth above-ground parking lot.
I suppose they're trying attain some kind of cheer. Well, the lights aren't terrible by any shot, but there's nothing around them to correspond to. They'd look great around a new movie theatre or entertainment venue...here, they face a square in front of a giant courthouse complex, the corner of a deadened former mall's parking lot and a cenotaph memorial.

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It's condos like this that give fodder for NIMBYs, especially in mid-size cities that feel threatened by the prospect of more development.

The condo is drab and bulky and looks straight out of 2003.
 
mjl08 said:
It's condos like this that give fodder for NIMBYs, especially in mid-size cities that feel threatened by the prospect of more development.

The condo is drab and bulky and looks straight out of 2003.
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For sure it does, looks like the brought back a design from the past. Is so meh…
 
The "architecture" of most of the highrises in KW is pretty devastating. Especially in a place that has a fantastic architecture school and is so close to a lot of talented firms in Toronto. It's sad to think that the quality of architecture drops off that dramatically within a 90 minute drive or train trip from Canada's biggest city.
 
There is definitely some good work in the city. A lot of projects in the downtown area of Kitchener are decent for a smaller market.

The University area is a total disaster though.
 
.dwg said:
The "architecture" of most of the highrises in KW is pretty devastating. Especially in a place that has a fantastic architecture school and is so close to a lot of talented firms in Toronto. It's sad to think that the quality of architecture drops off that dramatically within a 90 minute drive or train trip from Canada's biggest city.
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Kitchener’s new builds are about what I’d expect. Not great, but not offensive either. Some gems downtown, too. Its lower margins likely keeping higher quality TO firms away.

Cambridge is surprisingly nice. I explored a week ago, and I was expecting Brantford 2.0. Instead I found a quaint, self-respecting city that has very high quality new builds. Oozing with culture.

Waterloo throws it all in the shitter. Even if one accepts that student housing will always be cheap, it does not need to look like that. Speaking from lived -in experience. The worst part is the city & university give a lot of hot air to urban design, planning, etc. Uptown is passable but something feels distinctly suburban about every new build. King St is fairly nice here, but that’s entirely because of its heritage structures.
 
sunnyside said:
Kitchener’s new builds are about what I’d expect. Not great, but not offensive either. Some gems downtown, too. Its lower margins likely keeping higher quality TO firms away.

Cambridge is surprisingly nice. I explored a week ago, and I was expecting Brantford 2.0. Instead I found a quaint, self-respecting city that has very high quality new builds. Oozing with culture.

Waterloo throws it all in the shitter. Even if one accepts that student housing will always be cheap, it does not need to look like that. Speaking from lived -in experience. The worst part is the city & university give a lot of hot air to urban design, planning, etc. Uptown is passable but something feels distinctly suburban about every new build. King St is fairly nice here, but that’s entirely because of its heritage structures.
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I agree. While Waterloo is technically more dense, it does not feel like a city (except for uptown).

I think the problem has less to do with the buildings, and more to do with the streetscapes. The roads are very wide, and the building setbacks with front lawns are huge. It feels like there's no community whatsoever in Waterloo (except uptown) and instead it's a sprawling suburb, despite the technically higher density than Kitchener. They should get rid of the setbacks, get rid of the front lawns, reduce the street widths and turn University Ave into another "uptown". It's so uninviting to pedestrians.

Overall, I prefer DTK much more to Waterloo, and think DTK has the best approach to urban design in the area. Now, they just need the population to come out and enjoy the streetscapes so that it doesn't seem so desolate on weekends.
 
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