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Architectural Comparisons - Edmonton and other cities

Bingo.

Edmonton MUST make the Downtown more attractive to employers, employees and investors.

Seems like projects like the new Ice District fan area with all that rec space and potential programming opportunities, the public skating rink now open and getting busier and warehouse park will help to establish some momentum - hopefully.
The Parks condo, Falcon and Stationlands will get some more residents dt, too.
A few more projects would really be a nice extra boost.
 
Maybe I missed something, but who compared this building to Brookfield Place? It is probably true there are a lot more proposals for nice buildings in Toronto and back to the point it is a much bigger city, with ... um ... more buildings and of course more big buildings.

However, I also think there is a good point about cities not having to be the biggest to have nice buildings. I went to Montreal a while ago and loved it there. In my opinion better than the bigger TO. Older cities have more variety and were built at a time when more attention was paid to style and character and when things had to be designed on a more human scale. So Edmonton can not be the same as Halifax or Oslo in that regard, but it would really help if we stopped tearing down the few older character buildings here that remain.
I didn't say anyone was comparing Stantec to Brookfield. I said it's regarded as if it's as nice as Brookfield. However, the two were being compared as they were being built around the same time.

The Toronto comparison is because of the exact reason you said: bigger = more buildings. Thus, Edmonton isn't an actual big city.

On the topic of smaller cities, Winnipeg's infill development is of a much higher calibre than Edmonton. From new high-rises to small-scale apartments and townhouses, there's a level of quality there in terms of design you don't see here. Of course, there's still ugly buildings that have been built here and there in the central city, but on the whole it's nowhere near as prevalent as here. I have no doubt that having an architecture school plus a long legacy of great architecture has helped Winnipeg a lot in this regard, even though its urban planning and policy overall is significantly worse than Edmonton's.

I would argue that The Parks and the Winspear Centre Expansion are projects that are under construction currently which could be considered examples of solid architecture.View attachment 442500View attachment 442504

I'm not suggesting there aren't nice buildings being built in Edmonton. There are, but the level of quality in aggregate is still lower than you see in peer cities like Calgary or Ottawa, or even smaller ones like Winnipeg. This city is not a very design conscious one, despite improvements over the past 15 years. We're still letting Langham butcher downtown's best street with buildings that look like they belong on the outskirts of Regina. We still let big box style development happen in Oliver. Our new central library is the laughing stock of the country. Etc. Sure, other cities also have mediocre buildings and not every structure needs to be a gold star, but there should be a base level of decent design on the whole, and that's something this city lacks because it's a city of value engineering. One or two nice buildings doesn't change that. Also, the Winspear Centre expansion is absolutely gold star architecture, I'll agree there, but I'd say the Parks would barely make anyone notice in Vancouver or Toronto. It's not bad architecture, and it'll stand out in Edmonton, but it's not exactly amazing either.
 
Lots of up and coming African cities and a bunch in south east Asia have almost no "high quality" architecture but nevertheless seriously impress you with their presence, pace, etc.

Edmonton has more in common with these boomtowns in some respects.

I still think we're properly in the league of major midsized and moving towards larger global city based on where the population is going. This is a separate question from architectural quality.

On architecture quality, I want Edmonton to develop more of its own unique style, and not just look to Toronto or Vancouver or what's trendy in uber-expensive cities around the world.

Edmonton has 1.5 million people, little significant corporate presence, and an economy based on a (slowly) dying industry. I don't think Edmonton's necessarily going to stall, but I'm not sure the high-growth we've seen for much of the last half century plus will hold up for the next half century. But who knows, right? The only factor I could see changing this is if the climate crisis produces a lot of migrants and Canada is willing to accept them, as cities such as Edmonton will be well suited to that kind of relocation.

I also don't know if you're realizing how far Edmonton would have to go to become a truly big city of >5 million. Toronto took 50 years to go from 1.2 million in 1951 to 5 million in 2001. And that's with it being one of the main national valves for immigration for the entirety of that period. Toronto grew very fast, and continues to grow very fast, but gaining that much population generally takes a while. New York's metro area similarly took 50 years to go from 1 million in 1850 to 5 million in 1900. And by the time Edmonton hypothetically reached 5 million, Toronto would have 15. In that kind of world, the goalpost for what is considered big likely would've moved upwards, with more and more large centres, much like in 1850, New York with less people than Edmonton today was a bona fide big city for its era because there wasn't much bigger. I don't see Edmonton jumping ahead in tiers like it did in the late 20th century. And regardless, 50 years is hardly quick in human timescales; it's the majority of our avg lifespans, so I can't really agree that Edmonton's "moving towards" being a "larger global city."

Another thing is 50 years from now, in the 2070s, you're looking at global population growth slowing, after likely peaking in the 2040s-2050s. This trend will have already begun in rich, Global North countries such as Canada. By the end of the century, the population of humanity is predicted to start dropping. Now, obviously predicting that far out is a bit of a gamble, but this is something I've followed for about 15 years now and the tune hasn't changed among top demographers. There is a long range trend across the world towards having fewer children. The only reason Canada is still able to grow as much as it does is because of immigration, and if the pools of places from which we get immigrants from isn't even producing many kids, while their living conditions (hopefully) improve, there's going to be less people moving to Canada, barring some large-scale climate refugee relocation.

So I doubt Edmonton will hit today's minimum threshold for a big city, of about 5 million. Maybe Edmonton will have 3 million people in 50 years - that seems more plausible and still involves a doubling in population. That's significantly bigger and will allow the city to command more resources and amenities. But it'll just be where Denver and Tampa are today. Nobody considers these big cities on the global stage. Edmonton will have continued prominence domestically, but its size relative to others probably won't change much in the ensuing decades. It'll still be dancing around Ottawa and Calgary. Edmonton may have 3 million, but Toronto would have 9, Montreal 6, and Vancouver 4. Winnipeg and Quebec City would have over a million by then, the same size as Edmonton is right now, when it's already considered an important, larger Canadian centre. The bar is low in Canada because there isn't that many cities like in the country next door, but a city like Toronto clearly embodies the look, feel, and ethos of a big city that I doubt Edmonton ever will. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing, either. People love Victoria and Amsterdam and Macau.
 
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I didn't say anyone was comparing Stantec to Brookfield. I said it's regarded as if it's as nice as Brookfield. However, the two were being compared as they were being built around the same time.

The Toronto comparison is because of the exact reason you said: bigger = more buildings. Thus, Edmonton isn't an actual big city.

On the topic of smaller cities, Winnipeg's infill development is of a much higher calibre than Edmonton. From new high-rises to small-scale apartments and townhouses, there's a level of quality there in terms of design you don't see here. Of course, there's still ugly buildings that have been built here and there in the central city, but on the whole it's nowhere near as prevalent as here. I have no doubt that having an architecture school plus a long legacy of great architecture has helped Winnipeg a lot in this regard, even though its urban planning and policy overall is significantly worse than Edmonton's.



I'm not suggesting there aren't nice buildings being built in Edmonton. There are, but the level of quality in aggregate is still lower than you see in peer cities like Calgary or Ottawa, or even smaller ones like Winnipeg. This city is not a very design conscious one, despite improvements over the past 15 years. We're still letting Langham butcher downtown's best street with buildings that look like they belong on the outskirts of Regina. We still let big box style development happen in Oliver. Our new central library is the laughing stock of the country. Etc. Sure, other cities also have mediocre buildings and not every structure needs to be a gold star, but there should be a base level of decent design on the whole, and that's something this city lacks because it's a city of value engineering. One or two nice buildings doesn't change that. Also, the Winspear Centre expansion is absolutely gold star architecture, I'll agree there, but I'd say the Parks would barely make anyone notice in Vancouver or Toronto. It's not bad architecture, and it'll stand out in Edmonton, but it's not exactly amazing either.
So just to be clear - nobody compared it to Brookfield place. Someone just implied that.
 
Another great episode of About Here.

Canada is only country in world requiring two staircases for two storey multi unit housing (versus 3, 4, 5 or more storeys elsewhere in world as example) which restricts kinds of units that can be built as well as style of building. It's part of the reason 74% of all rental units in metro Van are bachelor or one bedroom units.

Didn't realize BC allows 12 storey wood frame buildings now, too.

 
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