digitalfunkster

Hey Cataclaw,

I think I might be one of the only people who thinks that what you are saying makes a lot of sense.

As someone who works in the sciences I can feel your pain. You are the only person here who is actually qualified to make a case, yet people who know nothing on these matters, who have not read the research, who have not run simulations, feel they know better. The world is often a shitty place because people go on their "gut feelings" rather than on rational, peer-reviewed research.

Unless you are in favour of urban sprawl you might want to be listening to what Cataclaw has to say and being open to learn from someone, rather than spewing utter nonsense.

My rant of the day.

I really hate this enormous boulevard. it is so wide and uninviting. It feels like an american downtown street. Same with boul. rene levesque.

Pas d'eclairage dimanche soir. Alors, je ne pense pas!

Makes me kind of nostalgic to see the golf course torn a part and lost forever. I worked on the golf course maintenance team for 3 or 4 years during university. Was good times.

Aren't Michelin stars only given in Europe? Also, Wilensky's is so overrated. I love the way the restaurant looks and the idea of the place...but their balogna sandwich is not one of the best in the world.

I live very close by and drive past it on Christophe Colomb every day. I think it is a pretty ugly building, especially the backside as seen in Steve_36's 3rd photo. The backside has like 5 diffferent ideas going on at the same time...not good. It's not a very pretty building, then again I don't think there are any nice buildings along the 40, so it will fit right in!

I don't live far from these buildings so I've seen the reno's evole. It looks cleaner now for sure, but I find it still to be really ugly. I would never recommend anyone live in these buildings.

I kind of like the big white cube that is the Hall building. I agree the school of business building was terrible, but there is something interesting about the Hall building. I think the Hall building is way nicer than the library building across the street!

My company recently was awarded a contract where they will be involved in works to extend the blue and yellow line. I don't have details because I do not work for the department doing this work.

You do not think the multi-couloured facade of Palais des congres is beautiful? Wow, you are the first person I have ever seen think it was ugly. Everyone I know thinks it is one of the neatest things in the city.

Great architecture. It's unfortunate to see it wasted on a suburban office park, but good design nevertheless.

Hey cataclaw, I am curious about one thing. I see you invoke the term suburb a lot. What constitutes the suburbs to you? I just get the feeling that you see downtown and the plateau to be "city" and the rest is suburbs. Please correct me if I am wrong. I ask because I have friends who lives downtown and they have this warped idea of what the suburbs are. A friend of mine see's Villeray as "way out there in the suburbs". this blows my mind. I'm just making sure I am not the one who is nuts.

Oui, c'est un tas de merde. Probablement le building que j'aime le moins a Mtl

I agree with Gilbert on this one. This message board is oddly obsessed with tall buildings. I don't know why everyone thinks that taller = better? Like Gilbert says, almost no buildings even take advantage of the maximum height designated to their lot...so what does raising the limits do. There are plenty of properties to develop before we need to even think of raising the building heights. Tall buildings are cool, but we shouldn't have this inferiority complex because other cities have taller buildings. Let's work on having nicer, more interesting architecture. Also, if I had to make a list of interesting architecture in Montreal I would probably think of way more buildings under 20 storeys before I'd add one of our 30+ storey buildings to the list. Just sayin'...

Really, if the Concordia area is "ghetto" then you have the highest standards I have ever seen. The area around Concordia really is kind of nice. I admit, things get a little less nice towards Atwater, but even then I would not consider it to be "ghetto". Have you been to other cities in North America? Montreal doesn't have ghettos....not compared to what else is out there!

Cyrus,

I suppose 40 years from now they will re-evaluate if more lanes are needed. At the end of the day it costs A LOT of money to build these roads. I imagine it is hard to justify over designing a road by 2 or 3 times to anticipate traffic 40 years down the road. Not only does it cost a lot more to way overdesign a road, it costs a lot more on an annual basis to maintain it all. I understand what you are saying, but I am just trying to be rational about this.

Cyrus,

You want potentially up to 10 lanes? Wow, talk about overkill! I have crossed the bridge maybe 10 or 15 times now for work-related reasons and every time I cross I am amazed how I am the only person on that stretch of road on the 25. Seriously! Last week I crossed the bridge at around 9am and there was hardly anyone on the road! I myself was even surprised when I saw during the construction phase that they were only going to built a 4 lane highway (2 lanes each way). Now that I have driven across multiple times I think it is fairly obvious that 2 lanes was all that was needed (obviously due to the tolls).

Yeah, you can make the bridge 100 lanes wide but it will jam the second you cross the bridge because the lanes will be reduced. Going to the south shore the highway goes down to 2 lanes not far off the bridge.

Ce message n'etait pas sur place au paravant...c'est tres recent

I think the design is awesome. I think it is one of the most unique buildings in Montreal in a long time. Very space-age-retro looking. Suits the area

Once again, this website's obession with height makes me laugh and scratch my head. You guys are trashing a building and practically saying it isn't worth being built because it is only 10 storeys? That is so incredibly weird to me.

Every time I pass by I'm always amazed at the number of condo towers located next to the mall,there must be over 20 buildings all about 15 floors all the same style, too bad they didn't build them at 30-40 storeys that would have an interesting sight to look at

haha Once again I am baffled by this message boards blind obsession with height. The last thing I would want is that awful area of buildings to be taller. All it would do is make awful looking buildings be even more noticeably awful. I wish that area of the city would implode. It's everything that is wrong with the world in a tight little package.

When I first looked at the report I said to myself "wow, this looks like the same format as the reports I write for work!". Then it ocured to me that my company probably had something to do with the report!

0%.

It doesn't even occur to me to evaluate a building in terms of how tall it is.

The 2-22 Ste-Catherine building looks really cool to me based on the renderings. Does it lose points because it is only 6 or 8 floors tall? That doesn't make sense to me.

I think this is one of the most interesting buildings (along with the new planetarium) under development in Montreal right now.

Lindberg, it is fine to say you don't like the design, but too often I hear people simply say something to the effect of "if it were only 10 storeys taller it would be nicer!". That is such bullshit. A building is either well designed or not, and adding 10 or 50 floors does not save a bad design, all it does is make the bad design more noticeable!

To prove my point that height does not enhance design, just think of all the buildings in montreal that you think are architecturally very interesting. Now how many of those are one of the 20+ story buildings of the downtown core? Probably not that many.

I am not against height by any means. There are many beautiful tall buildings, however I am just trying to restore some balance to this messageboard!