"Filler" buildings
What does the word mean to you? It sure isn't "infill" lol :rolleyes:
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^ I don't think filler buildings are necessarily terrible, it's just that they don't stand out. It means different things in different contexts... for instance, in Winnipeg you might see a filler office tower (say, a plain jane 12 storey 70s thing that no one can identify by name because they don't even notice it), a filler condo building (a nondescript lowrise that just blends into the architectural background) or a filler local building (a three storey walkup on a block with plenty of businesses).
Even great cities like Paris have their share of buildings that will never be featured in a magazine... they're just sort of there. Winnipeg filler, office version: http://www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/w...roadway_sm.jpg winnipegarchitecture.ca Condo: http://villagejunction.ca/wp-content...g_02_08_14.jpg villagejunction.ca |
First of all let me start out by stating, this is a ridiculous idea for a thread, and dlueng is basically getting his troll balls off here.
Answer the question. Filler is not a bad word, we not excusing anything or taking any merit from any particular building, it just happens that in the case if larger cities like Toronto, any tower that goes up will have a harder and harder time standing out. There is no problem with that, because as long as the building is a solid quality, materials , design and meets the street well, its a net positive for the community. Of course not all buildings will meet said criteria and that is when you have a fail. Let me explain In the suburban areas around the GTA you have endless rows upon rows of slab apartment blocks, so if something of average quality and height goes up in the suburbs you have a landmark tower - ie. - Eau Du Soliel, Lago, Hullmark Center or Emerald Park Condo. If those same towers go up in downtown Toronto surrounded by 150-m-200-m-250m towers they will not stand out in anyway and will become filler, not because they are not quality designs just because they are so many towers downtown and they are so tall to have a true landmark the tower has to be a) large footprint over 250 meters and/or b) groundbreaking or landmark design. No one will ever call the CN Tower, Financial District Towers, Aura and One Bloor East filler. They are massive and dominate their surroundings. True Landmark Towers, Not filler Another Example In Vancouver, you have Shangri-la and Trump Vancouver, which are between 180 and 197 meters tall. In Vancouver these towers are "landmark towers" primarily because of their height, if those towers were 100 meters tall, they would not be landmarks, just filler. Or if you took those towers and dropped them into Toronto they would disappear and become some kind of a background noise. Same thing. |
^^^ this. But I will also say that it is good that most buildings are filler - if every building is trying hard to standout then you just get a mismatched mess of a skyline. London (UK) is becoming like this.
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I think it is a fair question.
Also I find it interesting that Caltrane associates the term with height alone. I suspected this would become the case. Some of the tallest buildings in a city can be "filler" (non descriptive structures IMO). Hong Kong and various other Asian cities are good examples of this. At the same time, short / stout structures can be centerpieces. Many of Vancouver's most beautiful buildings are well under 100 meters (which would place them as "filler" for some it seems). i also notice that filler is also used on this forum at times to simply justify the poor design of a building. |
Visit Ottawa. The whole city CBD is filler.
There can be good quality filler or bad quality filler, but whatever the quality it's not a landmark. It just sort of blends in. Basically to me filler is a building with a conservative design ethos. Landmarks can be good or bad too though, and an ugly landmark is worse than ugly filler. |
This is by far my favorite of filler projects that I know of going on right now. Calgary's 124 meter 707 Fifth Avenue...
http://www.707fifth.com/_/_images/_g...exterior-4.jpg http://www.707fifth.com/_/_images/_g...exterior-1.jpg http://www.707fifth.com/_/_images/_g...interior-3.jpg http://www.707fifth.com/building/gallery/ |
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The Rooms = Ugly landmark. An ugly filler probably doesn't even have a widely-known name. Filler is just average for that city. It does no harm, often has excellent street interaction, but it's just unremarkable in design. It's urban background noise. It's the Civic on the highway. Contributes to the overall feel the way infill does, but nothing more. It's definitely a positive, unless it occupies a place that would've been perfect for a landmark building. But it's better than a parking lot or a break in urbanity. |
For us...
Typical filler, the key factor being that it's unremarkable: http://i.imgur.com/xtOxbL9.jpg?1 Good (by our standards) infill: http://i.imgur.com/WD6CGXs.png?1 |
707 5th Avenue looks too distinctive to be filler... the oval shape stands out. Filler buildings are the plain jane ones that are hard to remember.
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Fair question, although I do love Cal's initial line.
To me filler is a building of reasonable height, but not significant height, that adds to the bulk and density of the skyline but doesn't stand out as a key feature. |
filler is the skyline version of Miller Lite. Tastes great (not), less filling.
:rolleyes: |
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It's a different type of filler. Goes by the name of Wooty Filler, or Can-do filler.
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