It seems like there is almost universal backlash (not just from urbanites but from most everyone it seems) to "bland infill", "cookie cutter" buildings, etc. The 4-7 story wood-frame-with-multiple-facades building is the classic example of this. Having read a few articles, it seems like the proliferation of that type is because architects are taking pre-made templates, tweaking them a bit, and then handing them over to builders to reduce cost of designing something brand new.

 

There is also dislike of very artistic buildings that sacrifice practicality for their design. My specific example for this is the Hunters Point Library in Queens. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/nyregion/long-island-city-library.html Another problem is starchitects over-promising and under-delivering. I don't have an image handy but it was a building in Toronto (a library I think) that had a gleaming unique metal siding design, and the end product looked very generic and cheap. Another anecdote I have is of Gates Hall at Cornell University, which was a $25 million project donated by the Gates Foundation, very fancy and steely and shiny, but plagued with roof leaks for the first several years of its use.

 

But surely someone somewhere made some good looking solid sturdy buildings in the past 20 years, right? 😄 What are your favorite examples? Any in Ohio?

Speaking of libraries, Calgary's new library is very nice. 

 

I personally think the Lumen is a fairly sturdy (if not particularly avant-garde) example of decent Ohio infill. Wood Companies in Columbus does great work too, and the Neighborhood Launch project downtown by Edwards is very well-built. 

Neighborhood Launch looks great. More of that please.

 

I think Lumen sort of looks great at some angles and awkward at other angles. The thing that is a bit jarring to me about it is the transition at street-level from the east. It is very modern, "secure looking", kind of monolithic at the street level, and to the east of it is an intersection and then the low-rise buildings and CSU. But that is something that can be improved by building up the surrounding area a bit more to incorporate the design.