As much as I admire the architecture and execution of this project, I am a bit sad that the ground floor is being converted to office use, especially given John Street's imminent reconstruction. This space functioned quite well as retail (I bought my first bike from Urbane Cyclist when they occupied this space), and despite the extra foot traffic from office workers moving in here, I think John Street will be worse off with the retail gone.
 
180 John Street Building - Now Open

The SPACES co-working space at 180 John Street is now open, with the first client move-ins taking place earlier today. The ground floor retail area, a coffee shop, is still under construction, and is to open later.

The Allied / Gensler renovation has produced a great looking building.
 
The upward expansion of this building just turned out great:

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They copied it perfectly. This means that the capability exists to re-construct lost heritage buildings...
 
This isn’t a very ornate building. Replicating it wouldn’t be that difficult. The Board of Trade Building would be a different story.
 
I don't think that would be tremendously difficult either- it would likely be a thoroughly modern building in its inner workings and structure, with essentially a stone and brick veneer on the outside facades. Floor spaces would likely be rationalized to modern standards and floor heights regularized.

The carvings and decorations would likely be simplified, and could very much be potentially CNC-ed as smaller segments to be assembled on site.

The roof would be likely uneconomical as-is restored, but could be 'recreated' as a different form to give it some use (could hold a glassed-in event space, or maybe the building would form a part of a larger development).

This would essentially be the process that's happening in Europe like in Dresden or the Berliner Stadtschloss- or even what happened at the Bay Adelaide Centre/ EY Tower reconstructions. What's lacking here though, is the will to do so (economic & cultural), or the historical context that making the restoration of the building an imperative.
 
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jje1000 said:
I don't think that would be tremendously difficult either- it would likely be a thoroughly modern building in its inner workings and structure, with essentially a stone and brick veneer on the outside facades. Floor spaces would likely be rationalized to modern standards and floor heights regularized.

The carvings and decorations would likely be simplified, and could very much be potentially CNC-ed as smaller segments to be assembled on site.

The roof would be likely uneconomical as-is restored, but could be 'recreated' as a different form to give it some use (could hold a glassed-in event space, or maybe the building would form a part of a larger development).

This would essentially be the process that's happening in Europe like in Dresden or the Berliner Stadtschloss- or even what happened at the Bay Adelaide Centre/ EY Tower reconstructions. What's lacking here though, is the will to do so (economic & cultural), or the historical context that making the restoration of the building an imperative.
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Simplifying the carvings and other decorative elements would result in a building that isn’t indentical to its original design, though; which is the point I was trying to make. It would be very hard to recreate an exact copy of said building; even more so if the building was Old City Hall or University College at U of T. Any remakes would probably come as well as a McMansion tries to mimic older housing styles.

As for the building pertaining to the thread title: the attention to detail is exquisite, but I find the double cornice awkward. It might look better to remove the lower, original one; but I assume it was left in place to distinguish between the old and the new.
 
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