[urbandreamer]

Bay Dundas Centre - tower 5

 

[urbandreamer]

Rob Ford Square is my world crass solution to solve Toronto's affordable housing crisis: delete the tax payer waste at Nathan Phillips Square insert

Insert 15,000 Syrian refugees who may vote for me some day

Oh yes and there will be a new City Hall in the podium as well as retail, daycare, ESL schools, low cost food and shopping options, and hopefully a souk that may or may not sell crack pipes.

NimbyTect for Mayor 2018: souks for city souls!

 

[urbandreamer]

So while I was recalling QA's earlier proposal for this site, I decided to put on my studio nimbytect hat and quickly sketch out a reply: Bay Bloor Blah at 60 Bloor Street West

85 storeys of sculptured precast to answer the '74 classic across the street

add some decorative perforated aluminum balcony railings (not exactly as illustrated)

look up

and suddenly recall memories of Studio Gang

but realize it's still a nimbytect original

without a podium to stand on

the grid facade can be reimagined a million different ways!

 

[urbandreamer]

Hope youse can handle the colour at 66 Bloor Street West ... c.Never gonna happen?

 

[44 North]

Was playing around with a concept the other night. Generally supposed to be an office building, somewhere in the east downtown waterfront. I guess it's a timid approach to high-tech architecture / structural expressionism, mixed with contemporary boring glass box. And if anyone can point me to a freeware program or sketchup add-on that can render it clean and shiny like urbandreamer's great images, it'd be appreciated. If such a thing exists. My computer probably couldn't handle it tho.

 

[urbandreamer]

I like thea render obviously ha.

Bay + Yorkville is my attempt at knocking off the aA and Lamb Dev Corp aesthetic.

44 storeys of residential on an 8 storey commercial office podium with a rooftop pool etc

 

[urbandreamer]

Oops something went wrong last post.

Anyway, I use Thea because I like its basic settings and don't have to waste time setting up a scene. Best free rendering plugin for Sketchup (free edition.) When I go Pro I'll probably upgrade.

Bay + Yorkville is inspired by the architects Alliance/Lamb Development Corp aesthetic:
44 storeys of residential on an 8 storey office podium with retail at grade and a 2 storey rooftop pool/amenity space. 6-8 units per floor less for PH level. Located across the street from the Four Season Hotel, replacing this rubbish

with

I'm building out another nimbytect neighbourhood in the Yorkville area

I miss my streetscapes and renderppl of old ...

 

[urbandreamer]

I've come to the conclusion that 1 Front West should be a mix of office and condo/hotel to maximize its potential ... still working on an iconic design for this site. Maybe something crazy could shake up the Dominion?

I'm still perfecting my 8000 sq ft Toronto condo tower model, currently focusing on making the floorplates realistic:

but I want to move away from this stale aesthetic

into something more like

I think it would look nice at Bloor Street West and Balmuto where the Scotiabank is today. 60 storeys.
Someday I will work on my below grade architecture.

 

[44 North]

Thanks a lot for letting me know about Thea Render. When I saw that watermark on your images I originally thought it was the name of your company. Installed it this afternoon, but never actually got to finish a rendering process. Maybe my comp is too slow to handle it.
*

So with this one I got the idea last night after seeing the proposal for a Toronto tree-covered highrise and a comment about bonsai. Figured why a highrise covered with trees when we could have a highrise shaped like a tree... but also covered with some trees. Basically it's an octagonal tower, with units jutting out its sides. Each is counterbalanced to the one opposite, but staggered/offset to have a 'natural' look. There are two unit sizes - four wider/longer and six narrower/shorter (these at the top and bottom). Not all that high-density, but a different take on condo living.

Would prefer to have these tree-towers grouped a bit tighter, and without the bisecting network of streets between. Effectively a throwback to tower-in-the-park. Good for student housing on campuses, or maybe military bases.

 

[44 North]

K I've become obsessed with this concept of a tree-shaped tower. Think it's very unique, but believe there's a lot of benefit. Name any other development or proposal or concept that has a footprint so small? Could be the future right here. This a 150ft tower, with ten 2-storey units, on a tiny octagonal base. Would work great for campuses, or showcase opportunities like World Fairs, or developments on environmentally-significant/important areas. A roche moutonee island in Georgian Bay that is desired to be developed? Plonk one of these on. The units can be assembled offsite, then hoisted into place.

So these new renders are just an experiment with a new rendering program. Dropped Thea...can't have watermarks on my images unless they're mine. Now using Twilight. Hadn't realized there's so much to rendering. With my latest attempts the windows came out screwy. First was all opaque, then tweaked things but still don't like the result.

With this rendition the towers have been grouped a lot tighter. Wanted to put them along the Shipping Channel in the Port Lands across from Hearn. Certain that Sketchup used to load Google Maps satellite imagery, but now it's some garbage map. Looked it up and apparently Google has dropped all affiliation with Sketchup. I get a Habitat 67 vibe with the tight grouping. But since this is tree-themed, it's Arbourtat. If it's near water maybe Harbourtat.

 

[urbandreamer]

^Interesting. I installed Twilight but still prefer Thea. Will play with it some more though.
Church on Bloor is a design concept for the parking lot north of Grace Hospital at Church and Bloor Street East.

#hashtag #balcony #tower is the first balcony tower to feature the hashtag as its signature design feature ... how #tacky

 

[44 North]

Love the highrises, but particularly your rendering. Sorry if I'm nicking the "hashtag" thing. A few days back had a vision for a diagonal midrise. Then saw your hashtag post and figured why not a midrise shaped like a hashtag. If viewed along its side you can make out the # shape. Didn't come out as futuristic as I wanted. Now getting a Hugh Garner CoOp vibe, which is still okay imo. Cladding is wood and metal but having a tough time rendering these materials how I want em to look.

 

[steveve]

Put this together over the past few nights, based heavily off the floating designs for 50 Bloor - but taken up a notch. Office / hotel in the shorter tower (187 m), rental / residential in the taller one (230 m), and a massive retail complex below. Dubbed 'HR Centre':

 

[44 North]

I like the detailed style of your images, ditto for urbandreamer showing floor/unit blueprints. Looking at them I've now reconsidered and value engineered my Tree Tower idea. I think the idea can still work, but the base is wider/deformed to accommodate stairs, hallways, one elevator (a normal one that doesn't magically spin to access each unit lol). Maybe I'll work on it in a few mths when I'm bored.

But what's the deal with round buildings, why don't we see them often? Recently caught a glimpse of 50 Alexander St and was thinking, 'hey, never realized how unique that is'. I sort of copied its basics: ~15m diameter tower that is actually a hexadecagon (16 sides). Tried to make it a bit more colourful and modern, but with some throwback to older styles (particularly with concrete and its crown). I love rectilinear, but doesn't mean I'm averse to interesting geometric shapes.

 

[steveve]

Created a fantasy master-plan for Yorkville Square, including my earlier concept of HR Centre with a large park adjoining: