Is it the architect? The developer? Or perhaps the city? The correct answer, it would seem, is whoever has the most followers on social media:

For the Norwegian branch of the social media movement Architectural Uprising, this revision was another feather in its cap. Founded in Sweden in 2014 as a public Facebook group, the Uprising is a collective of citizen design critics who object to what organizers call the “continued uglification” of developments in Nordic cities, and push for a return to classically informed design. With more than 100,000 social media followers across some 40 different branches, the group now serves as a significant platform for those who assert that the public, not just bureaucrats, architects, developers and property owners, ought to have a voice in the design of their built environments.

As a developer and person who studied architecture, I find this frustrating. Imagine you're a painter working in a busy public square. And every time somebody walks by and shouts a new criticism, you need to change your art. How would you feel about your work?

Now assume that your painting is an expensive commission. Your clients just re-mortgaged their home to pay for it and they specifically asked you for a painting that looks like something from Henri Matisse's "Blue Nudes" collection.

Unfortunately, the crowd in the public square wasn't a fan of the color blue or of abstract figures, and so you've instead rendered dozens of well-fed Renaissance figures sitting in a lively garden eating grapes. "Sorry, hope you like it. This is what the critics wanted."

Look, I may be stretching here. I fully appreciate that architecture is inherently a more public form of art than painting. I just think it's important to give entrepreneurs, artists, and other creatives the freedom to experiment.

If we force everyone to look toward the past, how will the misfits ever create the future?

P.S. I have no issue with voting on publicly-funded architecture. I actually think that's a good idea.

If you had to pick one, would you say that it's more important for new housing to be affordable or to be beautiful? Many of you are probably thinking that it should be both. And while it is true that good and thoughtful design doesn't always need to be more expensive, nice things do often cost money. And sometimes, doing as little as humanly possible costs even more money.

Let's consider two development scenarios. In scenario A, the developer has well-oiled machine that delivers relatively affordable, but identical rental housing all across the country. The buildings are functional and there's virtually no vacancy, but the architecture is undoubtedly bland and it certainly doesn't respond to its local context. Standardization and efficiency trumps all, including aesthetics.

In scenario B, the developer is similarly building new rental housing, but she instead invests heavily in custom designs. Each building is unique. And each building goes through a "design review panel", after which extensive changes are made in order to ensure that the design is truly beautiful and that it responds to its local context. As a result, there is a real price premium to these homes.

These are perhaps extreme examples. Usually, the goal is some sort of balance between affordability and beauty. But I do think it speaks to some of the tensions that our industry faces. So if you had to choose one, which one would it be? What kind of new homes do our cities really need more of? And if your answer is scenario B, does it change after a certain premium?

On Friday when I was driving up to Thornbury, I ended up taking a route that goes through Shelburne, Ontario. I’ve taken this route at some point before, but I don’t remember seeing so many wind turbines. I guess it must have been before this particular wind farm had been built out.

It turns out that these wind turbines belong to the Melancthon wind facility, which is the largest installation in Canada. The facility contains 133 wind turbines and has the capacity to generate 545,000 megawatt hours each year – enough renewable energy to power roughly 70,000 households. The facility is owned and operated by TransAlta and they’ve entered into a 20-year contract to supply renewable energy to the Ontario Power Authority.

But what I also happened to notice were the many signs posted around with wording like the title of this post: “Bad neighbors build wind turbines.” And after speaking about it with people over the course of this weekend, I very quickly learned that there was fierce community opposition to this project.

The concern with wind turbines is typically twofold. People don’t like the way they look and they worry about the noise that they will generate. There’s even an alleged condition called “Wind Turbine Syndrome.”

I personally think they look quite beautiful. They seem so symbolic of the future and progress. But I am intrigued by the noise concern and so I decided to do a bit of research. I found this video from the UK. The big takeaways are that living beside a main road is generally much louder than living beside a wind turbine, and that a wind turbine isn’t usually that much louder than a quiet suburb, until you get fairly close to it. So I wonder if it’s really as bad as people are making it out to be.

Either way, the issue at hand is incredibly important. We’re talking about renewable energy. And while you may not like the look of wind turbines scattered across the horizon as much as I do, I strongly believe that we need to figure out ways to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. It’s for this reason that I’m a big supporter of both wind and solar power.

So perhaps the counter to those signs scattered around Shelburne is the following: Responsible communities build wind turbines.

Image: Wikipedia