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Baronjutter posted:What's the alternative? Even worse soulless suburbia? Earthships for how ever million people the earth can fit at that lifestyle? Also, the ragging on engineered wood/structural composites for building earlier on in the thread was rather excessive IMO - I've never heard of Richard Florida, but I have worked for and with a few Scandinavian construction and civil engineering groups who've done some reasonably large projects using engineered wood and they're all pretty positive about its capabilities and potential. LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 14:12
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melon cat posted:This neighbourhood lies just outside of downtown Toronto, and its surrounding area has exploded in high-rise development. As a result, the streetcar line servicing the area has been rammed during rush hour, and people from Liberty Village can't even step onto the streetcars. To add to this, the King West streetcar servicing Liberty Village moves more people every day (50,000) than the Sheppard subway line. I can actually walk to work along King faster than the streetcar runs when it's rainy. Once those condos start falling apart it's going to turn into quite the ghetto.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:06
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Decoy Badger posted:To add to this, the King West streetcar servicing Liberty Village moves more people every day (50,000) than the Sheppard subway line. I can actually walk to work along King faster than the streetcar runs when it's rainy. Once those condos start falling apart it's going to turn into quite the ghetto. No, by then everyone will be taking SmartTrack(TM) to workahaahha ahaha hahaaa LemonDrizzle posted:Also, the ragging on engineered wood/structural composites for building earlier on in the thread was rather excessive IMO - I've never heard of Richard Florida, but I have worked for and with a few Scandinavian construction and civil engineering groups who've done some reasonably large projects using engineered wood and they're all pretty positive about its capabilities and potential. I was just assuming that nobody here is a structural engineer and that people were just talking out of their asses as usual. I don't know anything about the topic either but I would wager that just about everything in your standard glass shitbox condo of the last 20 years is going to fail before the concrete/steel frame itself, so building them with wood beams would make little difference.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:13
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Buskas posted:It's not just this - there's a growing body of research showing highly urbanized environments are bad for humans. Seemingly innocuous things like minor but constant light and noise pollution can have negative physical and mental health effects, and lots of urban "communities" lack any sense of community at all. As we busy ourselves with career and competition we forget how important it is to have a meaningful support network, and, sometimes, to just slow the gently caress down. Big cities encourage constant activity, which people were not designed for. Depending on the city, I suppose. But I live 5 KM from the downtown core. Most people would consider that I live "downtown". But because of where I live, I can live without a car (just sold it), and live a more local, simple lifestyle. My days off work, as a single person, consist of getting groceries, going to the gym, cooking good meals, and reading books when I'm feeling productive - watching an hour of TV at night if I'm feeling like a shitheel. My transportation is always done by bike. Twice a week I play soccer and dodgeball, always within biking distance. My point is, you can slow the gently caress down even in an urban environment. If I lived in suburbia, I wouldn't slow down because I'd be depressed about my living environment and I'd have to fill the voids with constant soulless activities.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:07
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LemonDrizzle posted:Suburbia have to be soulless or designed around cars, and I don't see that it's intrinsically worse than high density urban building. This might be the craziest statement I've ever read in this thread, and there's plenty of competition. In all the history of types of human settlement, it's automobile-centric suburban living that stands out as a singularly-grotesque anomaly. edit: ^ Rick Rickshaw gets it.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:28
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Lexicon posted:This might be the craziest statement I've ever read in this thread, and there's plenty of competition. Oops, I missed a rather important word there - I meant to say "Suburbia doesn't have to be soulless or designed around cars..." I agree that the American automobile-centric suburban model is a bit of a disaster, but that's not the only way to build a suburb.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:57
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Lexicon posted:In all the history of types of human settlement, it's automobile-centric suburban living that stands out as a singularly-grotesque anomaly. Suburban living as it's done today is pretty lovely, but it doesn't have to be that way. I live in the inner suburbs of Toronto, for example. Sure it's the city and unquestionably urban, but for all intents and purposes a tree lined street with parks nearby and walking distance to what is arguably world class transit. I can be in the core in 10-15 minutes, faster on my bike. I own a car but it's a luxury only and at 4 years old has 40,000km on it. We only use it to leave the city. I can walk to markets, grocers, banks, hospital, etc all in 10 minutes or so. Suburbs could be built differently. They could be denser, with reasonably sized houses instead of the current huge house on tiny lot thing they do a lot, amenities within walking/biking distance and good transit into the core. They could be built for people and not for cars. They just don't do it. I think suburbs can work, but not the current iteration. What I see around the GTA is super depressing and not sustainable at all. They do them pretty well in places like Denmark. The only thing missing from this picture is more trees in the green space, otherwise it looks loving great to me. 
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Oct 31, 2014 17:03
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Uh, how is that any better than a standard North American suburb?
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Oct 31, 2014 17:20
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Especially with all that wasted space between the "circles" just being filled with regular lawn grass. Which might I add is another frustrating aspect of suburban living is all the wasted water on stupid grass.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:46
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Saltin posted:Suburban living as it's done today is pretty lovely, but it doesn't have to be that way. I live in the inner suburbs of Toronto, for example. Sure it's the city and unquestionably urban, but for all intents and purposes a tree lined street with parks nearby and walking distance to what is arguably world class transit. I can be in the core in 10-15 minutes, faster on my bike. I own a car but it's a luxury only and at 4 years old has 40,000km on it. We only use it to leave the city. I can walk to markets, grocers, banks, hospital, etc all in 10 minutes or so. If you can walk everywhere and have transit nearby, you manifestly don't live in the 'suburbs' as is typically envisioned. You're not describing suburbs - you're describing the ideal sort of place on the planet to live - a beautiful city street with many amenities nearby and which doesn't require vast fleets of vehicles and the infrastructure thereof to exist. I'm guessing you're referring to The Annex or similar – which I would not in a million years term 'the suburbs'. Saltin posted:Suburbs could be built differently. They could be denser, with reasonably sized houses instead of the current huge house on tiny lot thing they do a lot, amenities within walking/biking distance and good transit into the core. They could be built for people and not for cars. They just don't do it. I get that not everyone can afford to or wants to live 'in the city'. But we could easily have had little Swiss villages dotting the North American landscape, instead of the monstrosities we have now. Saltin posted:I think suburbs can work, but not the current iteration. What I see around the GTA is super depressing and not sustainable at all. They do them pretty well in places like Denmark. The only thing missing from this picture is more trees in the green space, otherwise it looks loving great to me.  This is truly horrendous. Hell, it's an insult to Euclidean geometry, let alone urbanism.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:55
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I think the example I posted is pretty well designed. It totally de-emphasizes the car while still allowing them. I did note the greenspace needed more trees and proper, natural coverage. I wouldn't say the greenspace is totally wasted though, I am sure people use it for things people use parks for, and you can see soccer pitches dotted here and there. I like how the houses face greenspace and cars are tucked away. Definitely needs improvement but is fuckloads better than what I see in the GTA sprawl. Lexicon, you are right about where I live, in general, and I also admitted it is completely urban, but it's only urban by proximity to the core of the city - otherwise it's a model for what suburbs could be. They are even called the "inner suburbs" in Toronto, and when the city was first built, they were actual suburbs, full stop. Good transit, things built around walking/biking/proximity, and not cars. That's what I'm getting at. Proximity to the city becomes less relevant with good transit. Lexicon posted:If you can walk everywhere and have transit nearby, you manifestly don't live in the 'suburbs' as is typically envisioned. This is exactly my point. As typically envisioned. Saltin fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 19:10
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your own little insular circular pleasantville
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Oct 31, 2014 19:11
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eXXon posted:
Some Wood construction is very good, and they are currently working on a new style for the high Arctic that would last way better then concrete/steel would. However, no structural engineer would say going over 8 stories (about the historically limit to a wooden building) is a good idea.
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Oct 31, 2014 19:14
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Saltin posted:It totally de-emphasizes the car while still allowing them. I did note the greenspace needed more trees and proper, natural coverage. That design looks like a walking/biking hell. Other than an efficient parking regime, how does that deemphaize the car? A car would be unquestionably required.
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Oct 31, 2014 19:23
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As if every other objection listed weren't enough, it's an actual panopticon, for Christ's sake!
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Oct 31, 2014 19:36
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Edmonton developers are considering taking the plunge to six storey wood frames: http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/1199442/city-of-edmonton-would-consider-six-storey-wood-frame-construction-officials quote:Edmonton developers are welcome to apply for permits to build six-storey structures out of wood, said city officials after Calgary moved to promote more “innovative” housing options. I'm in a 4 storey wood frame condo right now in Edmonton: I will never again buy a unit within a wood frame condo. It loving sucks, especially when you live on the ground floor. The noise from neighbours is unbearable at times, and there's nothing you can do to reduce it, short of being a terrible neighbour back to them in the hopes of getting them to move out. A lot of times it isn't even reasonably their fault, due to the nature of the wood framed building being like a big drum.
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Oct 31, 2014 19:47
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Zalmun posted:Edmonton developers are considering taking the plunge to six storey wood frames: On the bright side at least the overpriced wood condos will be easy to burn down in credit meltdown post-apocalyptic Canada. burn baby burn I'm glad I live in concrete apartment complex that was built back in the day, much lower lower noise overall for things such as street noise or between unit noise.
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Oct 31, 2014 23:04
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Agreed, wood frame condos are awful. It's like the worst possible solution they could've come up with. "Hey, housing is too expensive. What should we do about that?" "...well, what if we built some apartment buildings in a really half-assed, low-quality way?" "YEAH!"
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Nov 1, 2014 00:02
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PT6A posted:Agreed, wood frame condos are awful. It's like the worst possible solution they could've come up with. at least you can tell yourself it's sustainable housing while you hear you neighbor moaning to porn 5 units down.
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Nov 1, 2014 00:16
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PT6A posted:Agreed, wood frame condos are awful. It's like the worst possible solution they could've come up with. What's the expected percentage of contemporary Canadian real estate cost that can be apportioned to materials/construction cost? I know gently caress all about construction, but my understanding is that it's relatively low, and mostly a [artificial - i.e. through zoning, etc] land cost story. So why all this hand wringing about cheaper materials?
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Nov 1, 2014 00:18
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Lexicon posted:What's the expected percentage of contemporary Canadian real estate cost that can be apportioned to materials/construction cost? I know gently caress all about construction, but my understanding is that it's relatively low, and mostly a [artificial - i.e. through zoning, etc] land cost story. So why all this hand wringing about cheaper materials? labor is more the driving factor but in a bubble type solution material cost also does creep up over time for obvious reasons. On a side note this a fun article on how glass wall condos will be maintenance nightmares after a short period of time: https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/older-condos-plagued-by-high-maintenance-costs-2014-06-12 basically even though material like plumbing are more reliable, the complex glass wall design is pretty much will have lots of expensive exterior repairs in the near future. etalian fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Nov 1, 2014 00:24
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Lexicon posted:What's the expected percentage of contemporary Canadian real estate cost that can be apportioned to materials/construction cost? I know gently caress all about construction, but my understanding is that it's relatively low, and mostly a [artificial - i.e. through zoning, etc] land cost story. So why all this hand wringing about cheaper materials? Material costs are literally peanuts in the grand scheme of things. 10% of NEW build costs for large projects, maybe 20-30% for smaller ones. The proportion of total property value depends on market but for somewhere like vancouver or toronto the building might be 20% of a property value meaning material costs are 2%-6% of the total thing. Wood frame also requires less labour than concrete so there's some savings there but generally, it's a hilariously stupid argument to say that this will provide for materially cheaper housing.
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Nov 1, 2014 00:53
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It's hilarious since the whole TED talk is a classic example of head in the sky exuberance overlooking basic problems like how horribly noisy those buildings tend to be. IMO most places I've seen using cheap wood frame condos is basically a sign that the area is in a bubble since cheap and fast are important things when you are trying to milk a bubble economy.
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Nov 1, 2014 01:14
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Kalenn Istarion posted:Material costs are literally peanuts in the grand scheme of things. 10% of NEW build costs for large projects, maybe 20-30% for smaller ones. The proportion of total property value depends on market but for somewhere like vancouver or toronto the building might be 20% of a property value meaning material costs are 2%-6% of the total thing. Wood frame also requires less labour than concrete so there's some savings there but generally, it's a hilariously stupid argument to say that this will provide for materially cheaper housing. That's what I thought. Thanks.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:20
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As an example: I live in a big old edwardian 3-story on Victoria Drive, about 104 years old roughly, and my landlord bought it for around $900k in 2013. The house accounts for $20k of that valuation.  There's a tax assessment tool kicking around where you can punch in any address and see the valuation breakdown on the property. I don't think I've seen a house, except maybe a mansion out in Point Grey, that broke the $150k mark.
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Nov 1, 2014 03:31
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Rime posted:There's a tax assessment tool kicking around where you can punch in any address and see the valuation breakdown on the property. I don't think I've seen a house, except maybe a mansion out in Point Grey, that broke the $150k mark. Literally the first property I searched -- the house/improvements were 1.8m, and it's just some random house in Kits... so... no.
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Nov 1, 2014 03:53
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Just popping in to defend my 4 story wood construction apartment. The sound proofing in here is great. If someone is stomping around (quite literally) above me I can sort of hear it if I'm not doing anything. General noise pollution though? If I hadn't met my neighbors, and /or heard them through their windows in the parking lot, I would assume the building were deserted. It was built the same year I was born though, so maybe that is an explanation. We're also two doors down from a fire station so I'm not all that worried about burning to death 
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Nov 1, 2014 05:19
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If you build them properly its perfectly possible to reduce or nearly eliminate sound penetrating through walls and floors in a wooden structure. The problem is they most never build them properly and on top of that tend to take shortcuts during construction on these large condo projects. Particularly during a bubbley construction boom where they're in a hurry and quality is cut even more than 'normal'. I'd expect any 4+ story wooden structure to be falling apart within 30 yr given the crap I regularly saw, and still sometimes see, pulled during construction booms. That might actually be optimistic given how nasty the climate can get in Canada vs. southern CA or even many part of the northwest US.
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Nov 1, 2014 05:33
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Rick Rickshaw posted:Depending on the city, I suppose. But I live 5 KM from the downtown core. Most people would consider that I live "downtown". But because of where I live, I can live without a car (just sold it), and live a more local, simple lifestyle. Yeah, and I think your point shows that urbanization can be done in healthier ways, and I think it will as we learn more. Everyone's knocking suburbia, though, as if the stereotype is the only alternative, and really the stereotype is almost as bad as the hyperbusy big city lifestyle. Lots of suburbs also have no sense of community. There are lots of alternatives, to say nothing of a rural life. I cant think of any Canadian city with a 5km radius downtown except maybe Toronto. Where do you live? Certainly not Vancouver, Calgary or Edmonton. Buskas fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Nov 1, 2014 07:35
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:If you build them properly its perfectly possible to reduce or nearly eliminate sound penetrating through walls and floors in a wooden structure. The problem is they most never build them properly and on top of that tend to take shortcuts during construction on these large condo projects. It's another reason why rushing off to buy a pre-sale condo is a really hilarious concept to me.
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Nov 2, 2014 01:27
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Pixelboy posted:Literally the first property I searched -- the house/improvements were 1.8m, and it's just some random house in Kits... so... no. I spent some time browsing it, and there were certainly houses worth as much as half the total value of the property, but all of those were McMansions built in the past 15-20 years. I reckon you could plot age of property vs value and see a nice exponential drop off.
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Nov 2, 2014 01:48
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Lead out in cuffs posted:I spent some time browsing it, and there were certainly houses worth as much as half the total value of the property, but all of those were McMansions built in the past 15-20 years. I reckon you could plot age of property vs value and see a nice exponential drop off. What do you qualify as McMansions, though? That has a connotation of low quality and size over build quality or architecture. My buddy recently built a new house, and it probably ended up being significantly more expensive than a McMansion and not very large (although slightly larger than the existing houses in the area). It's very well designed, too. I don't reckon that ought to be put in the same category as a bunch of low-quality spec houses built in the middle of nowhere.
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Nov 2, 2014 03:13
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Buskas posted:Yeah, and I think your point shows that urbanization can be done in healthier ways, and I think it will as we learn more. Everyone's knocking suburbia, though, as if the stereotype is the only alternative, and really the stereotype is almost as bad as the hyperbusy big city lifestyle. Lots of suburbs also have no sense of community. There are lots of alternatives, to say nothing of a rural life. Oh, well, I guess I really should have said in the "city". I'm in the North End of Peninsular Halifax. Fairly urbanised compared to the sprawling, car dependent suburban communities. You're right though....not downtown in the real sense. Us East Coasters often find a way to use the wrong words to describe things though. This is the type of evil suburb we're all talking about, right? http://goo.gl/maps/Zi5Gp Rick Rickshaw fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Nov 2, 2014 |
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Nov 2, 2014 03:30
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Rick Rickshaw posted:Oh, well, I guess I really should have said in the "city". I'm in the North End of Peninsular Halifax. Fairly urbanised compared to the sprawling, car dependent suburban communities. You're right though....not downtown in the real sense. Us East Coasters often find a way to use the wrong words to describe things though. It's been a long time since I lived there, but I never remembered the drive to Bedford as suburbia (I was also young, though). But you'd know better than I. An excellent example is Edmonton's Rutherford neighbourhood. Nice windy streets of McMansions all congregating at the village Save On Foods, where deep community bonds are forged. A great place to raise a family - your nanny will have a nice man-made "lake" to entertain the kids at (later, they'll drink and so drugs there while you're away on business trips) for the 12 hours a day you're not home, because your downtown commute is 90 minutes each way for 60% of the year (only 60 mins in summer!). You will be miles from any sort of cultural centre but worry not, you have an entertainment room in the basement. And don't forget - your SUV puts you 10 minutes away from the fine dining establishments of Cactus Club, Boston Pizza and The Keg! Maybe I'm being overly cynical and these neighbourhoods will mature into some of the older ones nearer the cities' cores - the ones that still have community hall parties and family doctors' offices and children that look up to their parents. But it didn't happen in the states and I don't see it happening here.
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Nov 2, 2014 04:09
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PT6A posted:What do you qualify as McMansions, though? That has a connotation of low quality and size over build quality or architecture. My buddy recently built a new house, and it probably ended up being significantly more expensive than a McMansion and not very large (although slightly larger than the existing houses in the area). It's very well designed, too. I don't reckon that ought to be put in the same category as a bunch of low-quality spec houses built in the middle of nowhere. I'd say any cookie-cutter design which takes up more than 3/4 of the lot size, personally. I mean, that's what the term was originally coined for wasn't it?
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Nov 2, 2014 04:21
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Rime posted:I'd say any cookie-cutter design which takes up more than 3/4 of the lot size, personally. I mean, that's what the term was originally coined for wasn't it? Well, I suppose so, but I'm increasingly seeing (especially in "desirable" neighbourhoods instead of new suburbs) some really, really poo poo hot, (nicely) custom-designed houses which aren't particularly huge, but are certainly more expensive and architecturally distinct from the original houses in the area. According to the Wikipedia definition of McMansions, those could qualify, but I don't think it's really comparable to the giant cookie-cutter houses.
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Nov 2, 2014 04:47
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PT6A posted:What do you qualify as McMansions, though? That has a connotation of low quality and size over build quality or architecture. My buddy recently built a new house, and it probably ended up being significantly more expensive than a McMansion and not very large (although slightly larger than the existing houses in the area). It's very well designed, too. I don't reckon that ought to be put in the same category as a bunch of low-quality spec houses built in the middle of nowhere. Something like this? https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2489979,-123.1201808,3a,71.8y,169.8h,89.89t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sbhwrE08xtR3drUvP8Mdnwg!2e0 https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2487402,-123.1203723,3a,75y,88.84h,89.67t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sQ9UPIkihrXB-oGxbqLI2kw!2e0 I looked that one up, way back when. The house is valued at $1.6M, about the same as the land. It's probably not terrible quality, but it's obviously trying very hard to be the mansion that it is not. You can look up and down the street for lesser examples (the more standard giant front door surrounded by two-story towers McMansion abounds). The fact that all Vancouver houses, even the fancy ones built 10 years ago, drop exponentially in value over time suggests that none of them were built particularly well to begin with, even if they were built for a million dollars or more. Fake edit: Also what Rime said. And what he's described is a lot of new builds in Vancouver over the
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Nov 2, 2014 04:48
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Rick Rickshaw posted:Oh, well, I guess I really should have said in the "city". I'm in the North End of Peninsular Halifax. Fairly urbanised compared to the sprawling, car dependent suburban communities. You're right though....not downtown in the real sense. Us East Coasters often find a way to use the wrong words to describe things though. Milton Keynes is a classic example: https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Milton+Keynes,+UK/@52.0112383,-0.784731,1977m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x48764cf882238685:0x161a9df74cb97e14 That grid of main roads were meant to be well-interconnected commercial high streets, but instead the plans got changed last minute to turn them into freeways (this was a town designed and built from scratch in the 60s). Now all the amenities are in the downtown area, while most of the people are living in suburbs chopped up by freeway. Despite being less than 8km across, the town has one of the highest car mode shares in Britain, and the downtown is about 50% parking lot (the rest being mall).
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Nov 2, 2014 05:00
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Something like this? https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2489979,-123.1201808,3a,71.8y,169.8h,89.89t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sbhwrE08xtR3drUvP8Mdnwg!2e0 First link: Eh, so it's a poorly done rip-off of the Queen Anne style, it's not that ba... Second link: That is a loving atrocity against the very term architecture, and rife with so many obvious design flaws that I don't understand how any self respecting contractor would ever agree to construct it.  Edit: I just realized I've ridden past that house before and ridiculed it with my friends. The owner gave me dirty looks out of his window.
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Nov 2, 2014 05:12
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Rime posted:First link: Eh, so it's a poorly done rip-off of the Queen Anne style, it's not that ba... The best is that I've seen it up for sale at least twice -- once when it was built, and again maybe a year or so later. I don't think anyone's ever lived in it (though they rented out the laneway house).
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Nov 2, 2014 05:20
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