Photo by phirleh from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Bad Buildings needs an award. Merely shaking the trees hasn't brought any accolades raining down on our heads so we're just going to make one up. An award that really has nothing to do with our core competency, nor even with the product that we're trying to sell. We're going to accept this award just so that we can call this column "award-winning." Therefore, we graciously accept the award for Best in Show. Best in what show? It doesn't really matter. What matters is that now we can call ourselves award-winning.

Some builders don't seem to understand the distinction between good awards and meaningless awards. How else to explain why Freed Developments is touting the numerous awards its new condo/hotel at Wellington and Bathurst—still barely more than an open pit—has already won?

Huge six-foot-tall signs emblazoned on the hoardings around the construction site trumpet the five awards the building has already won from the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association. This building must be pretty special indeed to have won so many awards before even being built. That must be one rock-solid foundation being poured into an extremely spiffy hole in the ground. Or so it would seem, until you inch closer and read what the awards are. Best Brochure. Best Magazine Ad. Best Website. Best Marketing Campaign. And the somewhat nebulous Project of the Year. Curiously, none of these awards serves as any indication of a superior building in design, fit, or finish; they only proclaim that Freed is really good at marketing condos.

It's somewhat telling that the GTHBA annual awards are dominated by advertising, with 39 of the 44 categories awarded (PDF) this year having to do with marketing and sales. These include such prestigious awards as Best Direct Mail and Best Project Logo. In fact, only five of the categories awarded by the GTHBA are readily identified as having anything to do with quality of construction or the exterior design of the building, and even those are for amorphous, touchy-feely things like Best Building Design and Green Builder of the Year.

The GTHBA's own Call for Submissions (PDF) states that the Project of the Year will be judged on "the best overall advertising and promotion, on-site presentation and architectural design." Well, we're glad that design is in there somewhere. Even the Home Builder of the Year award—surely a prize that indicates to the general public a company's pride of workmanship and superior product—is bestowed upon "the builder who sets the standard for the rest of the industry by their leadership in improving the overall image of the industry."

You'd think that a Home Builders' Association would hand out prizes for, say, well-built homes. An award for Project Least Likely To Have A Leaky Roof, or even Most Accurate Maintenance Fee Estimate would mean a lot more to the people who will eventually live in these buildings than that really cool magazine ad from four years ago. But the GTHBA gives no awards for high-quality construction.

Of course, the GTHBA can't really take a position that any of its members' buildings and "communities" are anything less than great, and the awards are nothing more than marketing tools. It really shouldn't be surprising that they focus on soft categories rather than rankings that would be useful or meaningful to consumers.

None of this is to say that any project or company recognized (or not) by the GTHBA is either good or bad. What it does point out is skewed priorities. If the awards handed out by their own organization focus on marketing, it's safe to say that the builders focus on marketing too. The signs are all around us. Selling condos and new homes is about selling a façade of a lifestyle, one that all too many are happy to buy.

With condo prices in many Toronto buildings now approaching or exceeding $400 per square foot, maybe it's time to consider scaling back on the excesses of luxurious model suites and enormous sales centres designed by celebrity architects.

If you cut out the glitzy welcome centres, the designer model suites, the fabulous launch parties, and the Flash-y web sites (which always feature incredibly annoying music), you just may be left with a reasonably priced home. But then, you wouldn't want to live in a building that didn't have an award-winning logo, would you? Didn't think so.

Second photo by Val Dodge.

Val Dodge is filling in this week while Bad Buildings is getting some much-needed rest.