Toronto The Ivy | 110.33m | 34s | Tricon | Graziani + Corazza

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I mean, it's a gray snowy, day in the middle of March...Not sure what you want out of it?
The buildings to the left are abandoned, and the living buildings aren't any less dilapidated. The road below is shabby and the new condos above are banal. The gray sky and snow do amplify it, but they dont have much to work with.
 
Unfortunately it looks drab in any weather. The rebuild and hopefully better associated road maintenance can't come soon enough.
 
Honestly that picture just made me think we should close Yonge from Bloor instead of College. (Unless that is already the plan.)
 
Same reason the majority of cars are black, gray, or silver. Resale. The prevailing belief is that folks won't want to buy into 'the red building' or 'the colourful building'. So we get this dreary, monochromatic, world. It sucks, but that's why.
 
I mean I'd just be happy with natural tones of brick, stone, masonry etc; not necessarily unnaturally bright tones. Those are pretty timeless finishes that add colour and texture. In addition to resale beliefs, I have to wonder if grey finishes are just cheaper to produce due to fewer pigments needed, or something along those lines. Entirely speculation, but I would certainly believe that to be a factor.

edit. I should add, I'm not wholly against monochromatic buildings. Quite the contrary, I love the pop of bright white buildings or jet black. It's the endless shades of grey that are dreary and depressing.
 
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The buildings to the left are abandoned, and the living buildings aren't any less dilapidated. The road below is shabby and the new condos above are banal. The gray sky and snow do amplify it, but they dont have much to work with.

Precisely. We can't do anything about the weather but we don't do ourselves any favours when every inch we've built is dilapidated, drab, cluttered, dreary, colourless, banal, unrefined, sterile, primitive, cheap, and/or poorly designed. That 85% of the width of Yonge Street is devoted to asphalt doesn't help one iota. In climates like ours, good thoughtful design is crucial yet on many streets it's impossible to find one square inch that looks good. Blaming climate is a cop out because the built environment is 100% in our control.

You'd never guess in a million years that this was 1 block from the most high end supposedly glamorous shopping district in the country.
 
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