Thursday, April 23, 2009

Design Not for the community

apr-23-2009-006

These three houses just below Annette St, near Jane Ave. seem to struggle and fight with  one another, with the older dark brick house losing. The two houses indicated by the red arrows were smaller houses "up-scaled" by some entity, while the smaller brick - very interesting brick - the older of the three is in near original exterior built state.

Closer up the house with the green second story when viewed from the sidewalk clearly shows many signs of it's former self completely giving it no composure at all.  The question that can be asked here is -  is it  necessary to deconstruct the community built form just to get a large house, or could each of these conversions have been adaptable to the community milieu created by the built stock.

4 comments:

  1. It's entirely possible, but people are not aware of these issues when they desire to make changes and property ownership gives a satisfying sense of freedom. Yet there is community responsible in terms of design, which isn't obvious to many.

    Awareness of such issues is key before the Victorian (or in this case Craftsman) next door is covered in stucco and cheap trim.

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  2. Are you not the most incredibly self righteous person on the face of the planet to critique, on a public forum no less, someone else's personal decision in renovating their house?

    Some people in this neighbourhood never cease to amaze me. Incredible.

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  3. Personal choice?, if each of us made choices that were simply to fulfill our own needs in how we relate to the what's around us, no one could be sure of what would happen around them. In this case you may want to consider the houses around these two that have not been "upped" which have been affected by reduced light and changed sight lines. Probably they also have shadow issues where they used to have sunlight too. So it's also there choice to affect others around them at will.

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  4. It's that attitude of doing whatever one wants with property that makes for an ugly city. How many heritage buildings have been ruined with ugly renovations, or lovely neighbourhoods ruined with monster homes! There is an aesthetic and architectural responsibility to the greater community which is shared by all property owners and every aspect of the streetscape is open to critique.

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