This is a good infill addition. It develops another piece of empty inner city land, and it's a perfect size for fitting in with the rest of the neighborhood.
Do developers and investors sit there and say "Hey let's pick the ugliest design and material"? It's hard to imagine how designs like this can still happen.
Looks better than Edmonton's library. At least with a smaller building you can get away with this kind of material, but given the size of Edmonton's library, it looks god awful.