Developer modern, McUrbanism, blandmarks

Patrick Sisson takes up a question that often pops up here when a new-construction apartment project proposal comes along: Why do modern urban apartment buildings all pretty much have the same style? You know -- flat windows, the fiber cement board paneling, the blocks of color. [Curbed]

Earlier: What's a recent building that you like? (2014)

Comments

Fascinating!

I have a four-letter word for you:
SNOB

SNOB my foot! As I motor around the Capitol District, I notice these 3-4 storied rental building/condos/whatchamacallits and the color schemes on all of them are usually a pasty cream/green siding or other rather mundane colors which is an insult to the landscape. Be it Latham, Rotterdam, Clifton Park this newest rendition of this kind of people storage is very unappealing.

There is a good example of this type of construction commencing in Troy right now on King Street next to the German bar (lovely old brick building) called "King's Landing" - yeah, original, right? Wonder if there will be any turrets or a portcullis... When the developer argues cost, one must remember that creativity is not costly and imagination can work on a budget. Further, the rents the units ultimately get do not support such lean construction budgets as the payoff comes much quicker for the developer than they would have you believe. Too much utilitarian architecture has a way of dimming a city's vibrancy.

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