Sept 15, 2021

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For me, this image of Red Mars' (and the others from the post above) makes for a perfect example of how awful mullions are compared to mullion-less design.

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Red Mars

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They should get rid of those two eye sore buildings next door and build a nice 10 storey glass artruim parkette. That houses some form of food and leisure output for the entertainment district. Lord knows we need some green space here! As seen in the photos up above.
 
ProjectEnd said:
Calii gets no Love from me, but I'd throw myself in front of a bus for 365 King. In a better world, that's the way this city should have developed. 0 side setbacks, 5-10 storeys, commercial / retail or residential on every level. Everywhere.
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Yep, I can appreciate elements of organic and less conformist urbanism. It creates interesting, varied built form and streetscape textures. I also find that contributes to why neighbourhoods in New York City like LES, East Village, SoHo, Tribeca, lots of places in Brooklyn and the other boroughs, etc etc, are so fascinating. Along with plenty of other cities in the world.
 
AlbertC said:
Yep, I can appreciate elements of organic and less conformist urbanism. It creates interesting, varied built form and streetscape textures. I also find that contributes to why neighbourhoods in New York City like LES, East Village, SoHo, Tribeca, lots of places in Brooklyn and the other boroughs, etc etc, are so fascinating. Along with plenty of other cities in the world.
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London is a great example of this, for me; one of my favourite things about it is that it's all sort of higgledy piggledy -- it's varied and layered and interesting and weird. I'm obviously far from the first person to observe that about that city, but I have noticed that the next part of that discussion often leads to "well, that's what you get when a city is built across 400 years!", which I think is partly true but also misses the point.

Tokyo is itself a strong counterpoint to that notion, in that while the city itself is of course very old, nearly everything you see in it today has been built since the Second World War. Its predominant built form is just as new as that of contemporary non-European western cities (and to a degree European cities that were similarly bombed to smithereens), but is super interesting and layered in a different form than London is but to no lesser degree of impact or intrigue.

One of my least favourite things about Toronto's urban form -- and certainly its more recent urban design -- is its boringness and monotony; save for a few features, it's more or less Anywheresville, North America. And contemporary Planning policies are actually creating a much greater degree of homogeneity than the city is already characterized by. I'd love to see that change, but it will only come from private proponents (the Christie's proposal is one of the few masterplans that I can think of that proposes to make a real step in this direction) dragging Planning and Urban Design along more or less kicking and screaming.
 
penlasdle said:
Do you mean comparing 357 King to King Blue behind it? Or just the windows on 357 with mullions and those without?
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I mean comparing the two sections of spandrel panel on the west wall of 357.

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ADRM said:
London is a great example of this, for me; one of my favourite things about it is that it's all sort of higgledy piggledy -- it's varied and layered and interesting and weird. I'm obviously far from the first person to observe that about that city, but I have noticed that the next part of that discussion often leads to "well, that's what you get when a city is built across 400 years!", which I think is partly true but also misses the point.
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Worth saying, there are some very prescriptively built versions of London, where certain built forms are quite dominant. What you're saying is entirely true; but I think it's important not to gloss over things in other Cities.
There is often a tendency, not unique to Toronto, which we can call 'The grass is greener' syndrome in which we see only the best elements of others places, not their shortcomings.

ADRM said:
Tokyo is itself a strong counterpoint to that notion, in that while the city itself is of course very old, nearly everything you see in it today has been built since the Second World War. Its predominant built form is just as new as that of contemporary non-European western cities (and to a degree European cities that were similarly bombed to smithereens), but is super interesting and layered in a different form than London is but to no lesser degree of impact or intrigue.
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I'm always fascinated by some people's love of Tokyo...............while it certainly has some wonderful pockets........overall, I find it a very unattractive city. On balance, I would take Toronto over it any day.

ADRM said:
One of my least favourite things about Toronto's urban form -- and certainly its more recent urban design -- is its boringness and monotony; save for a few features, it's more or less Anywheresville, North America
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While it's certainly true that many of our recent towers over the last 20 years have ranged from dull to simply repetitive (ie. blue/green glass)........
There really aren't any other North American Cities that look like Toronto on the whole. There just isn't comparable tower building at Toronto's scale, anywhere.
So I'm not sure how mistakable are architecture is for 'anywhereesville'........in as much as, if you see a forest of towers over 40-storeys, all post 2000............your choices of where that might be are quite limited.

ADRM said:
. And contemporary Planning policies are actually creating a much greater degree of homogeneity than the city is already characterized by. I'd love to see that change, but it will only come from private proponents (the Christie's proposal is one of the few masterplans that I can think of that proposes to make a real step in this direction) dragging Planning and Urban Design along more or less kicking and screaming.
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I agree with this...........though it needs to be said............what makes the Christie site stand out is that hiring of top tier planners/architects, persuasively laying out an aesthetically pleasing and responsible built form.
That has been comparatively rare in Toronto.

The challenge is this..............the 'rules' are truly meant for the G+Cs, Kirkors, and IBIs and the clients who hire them..........trying to limit the damage they can do.........
That those rules then hamstring more conscientious and responsible developers and architects is an unfortunate if predictable side effect.

There are different ways to 'loosen' the rules.............We can all agree on modifying some that are overtly problematic (parking minimums)

But when it comes to defining responsible transitions, context sensitivity, and shadowing/skyview it becomes more complicated.

You can replace high degrees of prescription (thou shalt do this); with (thou shalt give consideration to the need for this).......allow some fuzziness.
Of course, fuzziness can be abused, both be developers and by Planning.

Seeing as most view the OMB/LPAT/OLT as anything other than a rubber stamp for developers..............you need an alternative......

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A different way to create variety is to be more prescriptive........hire Allies and Morrison to prescriptively dictate an area on behalf of the City. That tends to offend North American free-market sensibilities, but it is very
reflective of Haussmann's Paris that so many revere.

But there, to make it work, you need statutory authority from the province down to material palate specification.

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In the end, I completely agree with the need for reform and greater flexibility; the challenge is how to get there........
 
Look how close this development is to the neighboring condos as seen in the photos up above ! What are we in Hong Kong ! You can see inside people's condos HaHa!
 
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