(via) Have you noticed how the designs for Vancouver’s modern, mid-rise residential buildings are trending towards the repetitive? It’s a little unnerving. Perhaps local low-bid architects are trying to match the uniformity of the city’s many same-same high rise residential shoeboxes (the designs of which all seem to have sprung from a single tortured mind). This lack of imagination is part of the reason why so many Vancouverites are knee-jerk resistant to new residential developments. This city is desperate for more housing, but does it always have to be so goddam ugly? What if our developments were something we could be proud of? If the nabobs mixed things up a bit – like their Australian counterparts have done with the new Spectrum apartment complex in Box Hill – maybe we’d be less inclined to throw so many eggs. The completed vision by KUD (Kavellaris Urban Design) sees stacked balconies – each painted one of seven colours – in angled positions jutting brightly from the facade. It’s hardly revolutionary, we know, but it’s definitely different, and that’s a start. Photos by Peter Clarke.

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