Interesting article by Alex Bozikovic in the Saturday, July 9, 2022 Globe & Mail on the Allies and Morrison master plan and overall redevelopment of the 2150 Lake Shore Boulevard West site. (It may be behind a paywall for non-subscribers).

www.theglobeandmail.com

Expansive plan for new Humber-area development is a recipe for a new city: dense, colourful and messy

Designs for the project are all about the small stuff and suggests that if you focus on how a place will feel at ground level – and execute the design with dogged persistence – the rest will take care of itself
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com
 
Last edited:
AHK said:
Article by Alex Bozikovic in the Saturday, July 9, 2022 Globe & Mail on the Allies and Morrison master plan and overall redevelopment of the 2150 Lake Shore Boulevard West site. (It may be behind a paywall for non-subscribers).

www.theglobeandmail.com

Expansive plan for new Humber-area development is a recipe for a new city: dense, colourful and messy

Designs for the project are all about the small stuff and suggests that if you focus on how a place will feel at ground level – and execute the design with dogged persistence – the rest will take care of itself
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com
Click to expand...

Excellent article by @AlexBozikovic.

Equally important the very good news that Allies and Morrison have been retained as design architects for the phase of actual buildings to go up here.

It will take years, if not decades of commitment to make this community unfold as it should, but it's off to a very good start.

When reading the words of Alfredo Caraballo, the responsible partner at Allies for this project I get the same feeling I do from Claude Cormier. It's not merely ambition; nor simple competence........it's a sense of
caring, of passion for the work, of sweating the details, and wanting to be genuinely proud of the finished product.

Regrettably, I'm not convinced that's something you can teach. There are lots of firms that could use a brush-up on their skills/knowledge, and that always helps; but that drive to reflect on every choice and how each choice interacts w/the next; that inner desire to do great things is something some people have and others often lack.

I'll encourage others to read Alex's entire piece, but I do want to share some words from Mr. Carabello:

"that the visual experience of a place is crucial, and that irregular things are beautiful."

“The block is not just a diagram you impose on the site,” he says. “The shape of the city is shaped by the experience of a person moving through it.”

The above 2 quotes I think exemplify the design philosophy discussed in respect of this community. It's one with a ringing endorsement from me!

He goes on to note that they don't want the community to be an architectural monolith (my word); that they want to avoid endless sameness......... to that end:

1657467366767.png


****

Alex ends on an interesting note............that one might call hopeful.........

1657467452003.png


I might tweak at this just as bit and say this instead......." The Urban Planning handbook should be treated as what it is; a theoretical guide on how to avoid the worst disasters, not an instruction manual on how to achieve greatness."

I don't know that you can rewrite many of the guidelines to somehow read as though breaking them is sometimes good/necessary, though perhaps they can be made a bit more flexible in spots, and address some elements that have been consistently delivered poorly.

What I would take from this example more than the need to modify guidelines is the need for developers to hire ambitious, caring designers, planners and architects, and provide them flexibility and resources so that they can come up with a compelling vision that can bend Toronto Planning and its guidelines as needed, because everyone is buying in to the idea at play.

Guidelines are meant to limit the damage a Kirkor or T-F might create without rules; not limit what an Allies and Morrison can accomplish within them.
 
Last edited:
Great news about Allies and Morrison and this project. I checked out their website, nice renders of the 2150 Lake Shore Blvd W project.

There is also this:

www.alliesandmorrison.com

Yorkville

This is a proposal for a major new mixed-use project in Toronto. Conceived as a pluralistic icon, the towers shine in the light of dusk and are a contemporary iteration of the golden age of skyscrapers in North America.
www.alliesandmorrison.com www.alliesandmorrison.com

Can anyone shed some light on this? Is this a stale proposal? Apologies for the off-topic post, I'm not here at UT as often as I used to be..
 
yyzer said:
There is also this:

www.alliesandmorrison.com

Yorkville

This is a proposal for a major new mixed-use project in Toronto. Conceived as a pluralistic icon, the towers shine in the light of dusk and are a contemporary iteration of the golden age of skyscrapers in North America.
www.alliesandmorrison.com www.alliesandmorrison.com

Can anyone shed some light on this? Is this a stale proposal? Apologies for the off-topic post, I'm not here at UT as often as I used to be..
Click to expand...

Yes, that one is stale. A redevelopment of the Cumberland Terrace site is hopefully going forward, we have a thread for that; but Holt's is staying for the foreseeable future.

Cumberland Square | 253.89m | 75s | KingSett Capital | Giannone Petricone

Has anybody heard of a proposed 2 Bloor Street West revamping? I don't know if this is new news or if it's old stuff, but I couldn't find it in any search here, and I was wondering if it was just me who's heard of it. From my understanding, the existing tower at the north-west corner of...
urbantoronto.ca urbantoronto.ca
 
Ottawan said:
I had not noticed before, but the "Christie's" logo has been painted over on the water tower:

View attachment 420615
Click to expand...

Yes when Pembertin came on-board one of the first things they did, presumably to raise ca$h, was sell naming rights for the Mr. Christie water-tower.

Seems awfully early in the process but since this appears to be happening, I guess it's ok to reveal the purchaser of said naming rights (see below). I think the colour scheme/logo is a good fit for the water-tower's original palette...


1573366604650

Link​

Yes fake news again. Stop already.
 
3Dementia said:
Yes when Pembertin came on-board one of the first things they did, presumably to raise ca$h, was sell naming rights for the Mr. Christie water-tower.

Seems awfully early in the process but since this appears to be happening, I guess it's ok to reveal the purchaser of said naming rights (see below). I think the colour scheme/logo is a good fit for the water-tower's original palette...


1573366604650

Link​

Yes fake news again. Stop already.
Click to expand...

eww

way to ruin the logo of Electronic Arts. It's the only thing the company has produced of any quality.
 
For a big development like this, I wonder if it would be realistic to just bury all car infrastructure underground. Something like one big parking garage below grade with access to all the buildings and lanes for local traffic / deliveries / emergency vehicles instead of open air roads. Then all the space between the towers could be park / pedestrian / cycle. Would it even be that much more expensive than traditional roads and individual parking garages for each tower? It seems to me that it could be a lot more efficient traffic-wise and a lot more pleasant for residents. While something like this may not be feasible in a neighborhood which already has streets, in this case there is a opportunity to build from scratch.
 
GrayLake said:
For a big development like this, I wonder if it would be realistic to just bury all car infrastructure underground. Something like one big parking garage below grade with access to all the buildings and lanes for local traffic / deliveries / emergency vehicles instead of open air roads. Then all the space between the towers could be park / pedestrian / cycle. Would it even be that much more expensive than traditional roads and individual parking garages for each tower? It seems to me that it could be a lot more efficient traffic-wise and a lot more pleasant for residents. While something like this may not be feasible in a neighborhood which already has streets, in this case there is a opportunity to build from scratch.
Click to expand...
Cost would be a major factor with the bulk of it dealing with digging that deep near the lake and providing enough height on the major level roads for trucks ramps etc. Definitely doable but a lot of cost. Also, the city wouldn't accept any of that underground as city streets, which some of those buildings would have to have access to a city street address. Lots of little things that would add up.

At East Harbour, just having the loading underground and travelling between buildings was a headache (Old design when I worked on it in 2018).
 
GrayLake said:
For a big development like this, I wonder if it would be realistic to just bury all car infrastructure underground. Something like one big parking garage below grade with access to all the buildings and lanes for local traffic / deliveries / emergency vehicles instead of open air roads. Then all the space between the towers could be park / pedestrian / cycle. Would it even be that much more expensive than traditional roads and individual parking garages for each tower? It seems to me that it could be a lot more efficient traffic-wise and a lot more pleasant for residents. While something like this may not be feasible in a neighborhood which already has streets, in this case there is a opportunity to build from scratch.
Click to expand...
I mean that's basically what they are doing. There are only a handful of parking ramps for the entire development, and internal grid car traffic will be pretty limited.
 
Will the proposed 67 story tower be the tallest in the area, including among current buildings?
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top