The new suburban aesthetic (?)

[Hali87]

Didn't really anticipate a lot of the reactions here, I realize some people are possibly being a bit hyperbolic but it seems clear that many are genuinely appalled by the examples I posted. I'll admit I didn't see that coming, and personally consider the "new" aesthetic more appealing than the old, within the context of new construction in suburban areas in metro Halifax, and to a lesser extent Eastern cities in general. I should add that I was mostly talking about the overall architectural aesthetic itself, not the landscaping or other such details external to the building designs.

I don't get a ton of opportunities to travel and when I do, I don't tend to spend any time in brand-new tract housing, so it's been interesting to see that the style is relatively common across Canada and has been for decades in some cities. This is something I did not know and was hoping to learn more about via this thread.

I honestly don't consider this ugly at all; maybe not "gorgeous" or even "pretty" but certainly visually interesting in a positive way:

Maybe it's just the novelty and my frame of reference. I'd consider them an order of magnitude more appealing (to me, if I were forced to live in a new starter home in the suburbs) than something like this or this, which are the realistic alternatives here as far as recent builds go, and very much the typical standard look for post-1990 Halifax suburban housing. For what it's worth all of the examples I posted are in the Clayton Park and Spryfield areas, which are respectively considered "bland but ok" and "probably the least desirable neighbourhood in Halifax". Housing prices in these areas range from slightly above to slightly below average for the region, with relatively narrow lots, and the examples I posted would generally be considered "starter homes". There are more expensive areas with maybe slightly "nicer" houses (sometimes but not always using slightly higher-quality materials) but generally these are nicer versions of the "old" style which I find bland and overdone. I'm also looking mostly at modest tract housing here, not expensive custom jobs or McMansions (although again these often turn out looking worse than the examples I posted earlier, IMO).

I think Someone123's point WRT Vancouver vs. Halifax is that most people in the Halifax area who care about what their house looks like will choose a property in the inner city, while the suburbs are mostly populated by people who consider that a secondary concern at best - as a result there isn't a ton of effort put into making the suburbs here look "gorgeous" by any means. People who genuinely care what their house/neighbourhood looks like tend to live in areas like this or this or this or this, rather than in the suburbs. In this way we're much more like St. John's, and I would guess Montreal and Quebec City as well. Vancouver has comparatively fewer areas like these and so more people who care about aesthetics (and want to live in a house) tend to live in the suburbs, so the suburbs need to be nicer looking in order to appeal to these people. The parts of Richmond and Tsawwassen that I've seen for example look a lot nicer than their equivalents in Halifax (the landscaping does help IMO) and seem to make up a proportionately larger part of Metro Vancouver. Conversely, I have friends in Vancouver who gush about the Strathcona area (and in Calgary, Kensington, and in Edmonton, Strathcona/Whyte Ave) while I find these areas just look and feel like a "normal" Halifax neighbourhood and don't seem very exceptional from an Eastern perspective. It makes sense that a lot of the parts of inner-city Vancouver that might have resembled inner-city Halifax in the past have been redeveloped and no longer look like that, but the resulting dynamic is different - people who want to live in a house and genuinely care about the aesthetics of their house and neighbourhood seem more likely to live in the suburbs, whereas in Halifax they are more likely to live in the inner city. (Conversely, people who prioritize a nice view have comparatively more options in downtown Vancouver than they do in downtown Halifax, because highrises are less prevalent here)

Anyway, I guess what I'm wondering now is whether people have any examples of recent suburban developments they do consider visually appealing, or at least more visually appealing than the average suburb, or the suburbs their city was building 10 years ago, or the examples I posted. (I get that a lot of people just hate the suburban form, period, that wasn't really my point)

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Toronto has what is becoming known as the "Toronto Special". En masse across the city small time developers are buying up small houses and replacing them with new mansions in popular areas - specifically in the inner suburbs where lots are a bit larger and that have good transit access. Often times this also involves severing a large 50ft+ wide lot into two, smaller lots with more reasonable size homes on them.

From what I've heard, the former is also quite common in Edmonton right now while the latter is common in Calgary.

There is also a fair amount of newer modernist stuff too, but the stuff above is far, far more common. I'd say that modernist infill is becoming more common though.. 5 years ago it was maybe 10% of this new stuff, now it's probably closer to 30%.

From what I've heard, suburban house construction has taken a sharp turn to modernist design in the past year or two. Apparently the market is shifting, and very quickly, to modernist stock. It's too recent of a trend to really pick up on Google Streetview though.

Interesting, this mirrors what has been going on in Halifax, with similar timelines.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

I can't get over all the over-head utility lines that are predominant in the new suburbs in older Eastern Canadian cities...

Anyway, This thread reminded me of the new innovations in building neighbourhoods that's developed in the West.

Solair, the $1 Billion entirely solar powered community that's to be built on Saskatoon's Southeast edge, and is by far the largest sustainable community to be built in the nation, also features water garden reservoirs instead of storm drains etc, & is expected to house 7,000 people.





https://constructionlinks.ca/news/de...t-three-years/

Most interesting response so far IMO, cool project. What's the affordability like compared to the Saskatoon average (if you know)? FWIW, I don't consider those multi-units particularly attractive or particularly hideous based on the renderings, would ultimately depend on materials I think. I definitely like them more than equivalent buildings that try to incorporate faux-historic elements.

I'm not sure why new developments here rarely bury their wires if that's what's common out west (to be totally honest I didn't notice while I was out there). Part of it might be the fact that Western cities tend to have ample soil to bury stuff in while in cities like Halifax/St. John's this would often involve breaking a lot of rock. It might also be a case of considering overhead power lines 100% normal here, very few Halifax-area neighbourhoods have buried power lines.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Hali87

From what I've heard, the former is also quite common in Edmonton right now while the latter is common in Calgary.



Interesting, this mirrors what has been going on in Halifax, with similar timelines.

you see it a lot in Vancouver, especially North Burnaby

Old house to the left - just look how much bigger the new one is to the right

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Didn't really anticipate a lot of the reactions here, I realize some people are possibly being a bit hyperbolic but it seems clear that many are genuinely appalled by the examples I posted. I'll admit I didn't see that coming, and personally consider the "new" aesthetic more appealing than the old

It's definitely a positive to see the mainstream suburban market once again embracing more contemporary styles (as was the case in the initial 50s-70s suburban boom) instead of the cheesy, regressive parodies of vaguely historic styles that have been the norm over the past few decades.

The problem is that these are all terrible interpretations of "modern" design - as if building the same old cheap, lazy, typical builder shit but with a flat roof and a few protruding boxes makes it modern. It's a pastiche of the archetypal "look" moreso than anything truly modern in intent. Unlike many of those mid-century suburban homes, most of this new stuff is not at all architecturally progressive - and built to a poor standard of quality on top of that.

[Doady]

I don't like to judge things aesthetically only as either terrible or great. There's lots of things in-between. Most things in suburbs are just "meh" to me. Not many risks being taken. If anything cities are more polarizing, more good but also more bad.

Great art is inherently more polarizing. The suburbs are the opposite of that. They are mass produced. They are conservative. They are safe. Nothing stands out or even tries to stand out.

Maybe the strong reactions in the thread are a sign that the suburbs are finally doing something worthwhile. They are finally breaking out their shell. Good for them.

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Most interesting response so far IMO, cool project. What's the affordability like compared to the Saskatoon average (if you know)? FWIW, I don't consider those multi-units particularly attractive or particularly hideous based on the renderings, would ultimately depend on materials I think. I definitely like them more than equivalent buildings that try to incorporate faux-historic elements.

I'm not sure why new developments here rarely bury their wires if that's what's common out west (to be totally honest I didn't notice while I was out there). Part of it might be the fact that Western cities tend to have ample soil to bury stuff in while in cities like Halifax/St. John's this would often involve breaking a lot of rock. It might also be a case of considering overhead power lines 100% normal here, very few Halifax-area neighbourhoods have buried power lines.

Average Single family home is set at $349,000 for the completely solar powered Solair neighbourhood in Saskatoon, this is in line with the five year average median for Saskatoon at $341,980 (June 2018). Excluding Toronto and Vancouver, the average Canadian home price is $383,000 (March 2018). There will likely be a whole value range of single & multi-unit options in Solair.

New neighbourhoods in Saskatchewan and the West in general started buried utility lines probably in the last half century, this maybe why power outages due to weather is a lot rarer than what Eastern Canada has to battle with each Winter . Older neighbourhoods in the West may still have overhead lines, but mostly in back alleys. The one thing I noticed when visiting Halifax is the utility lines that predominate. The rocky landscape into town from the airport, instead of the red soil I was expecting it to be like, like in PEI, helped explain the reasoning in my mind.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
Toronto has what is becoming known as the "Toronto Special". En masse across the city small time developers are buying up small houses and replacing them with new mansions in popular areas - specifically in the inner suburbs where lots are a bit larger and that have good transit access. Often times this also involves severing a large 50ft+ wide lot into two, smaller lots with more reasonable size homes on them.

I'd imagine in-fill in most Canadian cities follows this same formula, split lot and make larger houses on the smaller half lots.


New duplex built on single lot in Saskatoon


New Single detached houses (left) built on the size of a regular size lot (right) in Saskatoon

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Doady

I don't like to judge things aesthetically only as either terrible or great. There's lots of things in-between. Most things in suburbs are just "meh" to me. Not many risks being taken. If anything cities are more polarizing, more good but also more bad.

Great art is inherently more polarizing. The suburbs are the opposite of that. They are mass produced. They are conservative. They are safe. Nothing stands out or even tries to stand out.

Maybe the strong reactions in the thread are a sign that the suburbs are finally doing something worthwhile. They are finally breaking out their shell. Good for them.

I dunno, I mean stuff like this has always been pretty reviled among urbanists and the aesthetically-inclined:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M...suburbs_id.jpg



Meanwhile, I don't think stuff like this is really setting anyone's heart racing one way or the other either:


40411051_2144665912521645_1532017553197498368_n by Hali87, on Flickr



It's being rightfully criticized because it's architecturally vapid and still represents the same old suburban form - but if anything, it's only a more blandly inoffensive version of it. There isn't much being built in the suburbs these days that would actually be polarizing the way something like this was 50 years ago:


http://paperweightblog.blogspot.com/...-da-rocha.html



To get those strong love-or-hate reactions, you have to do something new and different. And there's nothing particularly new or different about the current generation of mass-produced suburban design.

[TownGuy]

That first picture shows up in every thread about suburbs. Didn't someone find that neighbourhood on Google Maps showing what it looks like now? Trees have been planted and so on. I believe that picture is at the very tail end of the construction phase.

[Doady]

Urbanists would never judge the aesthetics of an old downtown neighbourhood based on a aerial photograph taken immediately after construction completed, let alone that same one aerial photograph over and over and over again. I think it is not too much to ask to avoid double standards.

[MonkeyRonin]

The purpose of the image is to illustrate "generic suburbia", not to be a literal critique of that particular neighbourhood. (which, for the record, even with small trees is still shit)

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I think Someone123's point WRT Vancouver vs. Halifax is that most people in the Halifax area who care about what their house looks like will choose a property in the inner city, while the suburbs are mostly populated by people who consider that a secondary concern at best - as a result there isn't a ton of effort put into making the suburbs here look "gorgeous" by any means.

Yes. It's striking how gentrification in Vancouver is pushing the sort of people who'd normally live in the city farther east out into semi-suburban and suburban locations. A lot of people who'd choose North End Halifax end up in places like New West or Port Moody in Vancouver. So we get craft breweries and trendy looking condos out in these areas. These people would generally rather live closer in but they have been priced out. This looks like suburbs being cooler from a naive urban enthusiast perspective but it is actually a symptom of a negative trend; real estate speculation combined with insufficient infill that does not satisfy demand for urban housing.

Vancouver has relatively few detached houses. Detached houses were only around 1/6 of metro Vancouver's housing starts in 2017, and their median price is higher than that of other housing types, and well north of $1M per unit. Rowhouses are around 1/7 of the total. When you talk about what detached houses look like in various cities, you're talking about 80% of the middle of the market in some and 17% of the top of the market in others. In other words you're talking about everyday average housing in some cases and luxury housing in others.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by someone123

Yes. It's striking how gentrification in Vancouver is pushing the sort of people who'd normally live in the city farther east out into semi-suburban and suburban locations. A lot of people who'd choose North End Halifax end up in places like New West or Port Moody in Vancouver. So we get craft breweries and trendy looking condos out in these areas. These people would generally rather live closer in but they have been priced out. This looks like suburbs being cooler from a naive urban enthusiast perspective but it is actually a symptom of a negative trend; real estate speculation combined with insufficient infill that does not satisfy demand for urban housing.

Vancouver has relatively few detached houses. Detached houses were only around 1/6 of metro Vancouver's housing starts in 2017, and their median price is higher than that of other housing types, and well north of $1M per unit. Rowhouses are around 1/7 of the total. When you talk about what detached houses look like in various cities, you're talking about 80% of the middle of the market in some and 17% of the top of the market in others. In other words you're talking about everyday average housing in some cases and luxury housing in others.

I would say you are seeing this in a similar manner in Toronto to a certian extent, specifically the northern end of the Junction Neighbourhood. This area is a sort of suburban/urban mix, with hipster breweries setting up shop in 1940's industrial buildings with large parking lots out front. The "furniture / Interior Design" district has largely shifted over the last 10 years from the Downtown East up to an extremely suburban industrial park near Caledonia and Eglinton. Run down industrial buildings are being redone into "hip" furniture stores more traditionally associated with urban areas.

A hip bar and pizza place set up beside a more traditional industrial use, with a parking lot out front:



A high design fireplace studio within a "W Burger Bar" beside it in a suburban industrial park:

[hipster duck]

^I wouldn't be against this, and I would consider it to be part of the natural order of things in a growing city, although the independent commercial tenants in these old industrial buildings really seem adamant about keeping parking space. It's very clear you're in an industrial setting where livability is an afterthought.

Although I find Geary Ave. interesting, it's not a substitute for Queen St.

[Drybrain]

^ The other thing about the above is that at least those Toronto areas are contiguous with the inner city. The Vancouver examples Someone123 mentioned would be more akin to these kinds of businesses leapfrogging the urban core entirely and setting up in Long Branch or Mimico or, at best, Weston or something.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by someone123

Yes. It's striking how gentrification in Vancouver is pushing the sort of people who'd normally live in the city farther east out into semi-suburban and suburban locations. A lot of people who'd choose North End Halifax end up in places like New West or Port Moody in Vancouver. So we get craft breweries and trendy looking condos out in these areas. These people would generally rather live closer in but they have been priced out. This looks like suburbs being cooler from a naive urban enthusiast perspective but it is actually a symptom of a negative trend; real estate speculation combined with insufficient infill that does not satisfy demand for urban housing.

So are Van hipsters embracing suburbia ironically or unironically?

[Doady]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The purpose of the image is to illustrate "generic suburbia", not to be a literal critique of that particular neighbourhood. (which, for the record, even with small trees is still shit)

What's really generic is the use of that picture over and over in almost every discussion involving suburbs. A vague aerial photograph that mostly just shows us the rooftops doesn't say much about the aesthetics of "generic suburbia". Are you going to use Google satellite imagery to argue that Brampton is just another Plano as well? Again, I've seen it all before.

To me, the epitome of ugly suburbia is Heartland Town Centre in Mississauga. If we start describing an average generic neighhourhood as "shit", it doesn't leave much room to criticize anything else.

[240glt]

We live in 60's style suburban Edmonton. It's pretty interesting as we found photos of the neighbourhood when it was first built, all the houses exactly the same, pastel colours as was the style of the time, no trees, etc. We're really in what would be considered the first wave of suburban development in this town, it's a desirable area and most of the houses here now look nothing like the strip of uniform ranch style bungalows in the photos. People have built additions, second stories, a few houses have been torn down and rebuilt, and we even have a few houses that were town down and the lot split into two narrow lots with somewhat gaudy looking soup-du-jour infill built in it's place.

We both have lived downtown, served the purpose at the time but now we would not, I like the relative peace and quiet, the space and lack of disorder and ugliness that is pervasive in the downtown area. I also don't like the new suburbs, they look a lot what my neighbourhood looked like 50+ years ago, but with much smaller lots. I feel like we're in a bit of a housing sweet spot, being central enough that the commute tow work is around 10 minutes but we don't have to live in the middle of it.