30 June 2013: Memories of W'burg...

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The design actually looks nice I dont like the colour though.Too bad they couldnt have windows on the side wall but more than likely it get blocked if the next door owners decide to develop their property.
 
ducati0000 said:
The design actually looks nice I dont like the colour though.Too bad they couldnt have windows on the side wall but more than likely it get blocked if the next door owners decide to develop their property.
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It's a building code issue. If you're less than 3' from the property line, you get 0 windows. This is generally why you see gigantic blank facades on the sides of buildings, but lots of windows at the front + back.
 
guitarchitect said:
It's a building code issue. If you're less than 3' from the property line, you get 0 windows. This is generally why you see gigantic blank facades on the sides of buildings, but lots of windows at the front + back.
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Yes I realize its a building code issue just imagine your on the top floor and have a wrap around windows of little italy in your living room...still dont understand the hate for this design..it look nice.
 
Does anyone recall what is up with the building / Christo installation next door? I seem to recall hearing about it at some point, either in a Blog or on UrbanToronto, but I'm drawing a blank :(
 
I think you can have windows less than 3 feet from the property line but you need those closers that look pretty ugly. And probably need to be maintained.
ducati0000 said:
Yes I realize its a building code issue just imagine your on the top floor and have a wrap around windows of little italy in your living room...still dont understand the hate for this design..it look nice.
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I'm surprised this won at TUDA.
The exterior didn't come out nearly as nice as it was originally planned. The penthouse units are well designed and the finishes are very nice.
 
investican said:
I'm surprised this won at TUDA.
The exterior didn't come out nearly as nice as it was originally planned. The penthouse units are well designed and the finishes are very nice.
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Yeah, I think the main reason it won is because it's different.

Luckily for those involved, the awards are almost exclusively design-based. The project is poorly detailed on the construction side of things (lots of terrible thermal bridges), and few people have seen a worse construction-managed project in their careers - it's a 6-7 storey building and it took something like 6 years to build, and it still isn't finished. I guess since the residential units are partially occupied it can be labelled as complete... but go by it today and the retail units are still a complete mess (they could at least clean up a bit) and in the evenings I'm not sure that I've ever seen more than one unit occupied, if that.
 
What's the state of this building at this point ? Still waiting to be finished ?
 
I'm all for design and pushing the envelope but what many people don't realize is that depending on what consideration you are talking about there is, in my real world observation, little correlation between "good design" as determined by architectural magazines and building performance.

In my own experience ugly buildings can perform better financially than pretty ones. Buildings with no purposeful environmental design measures can have lower real world energy consumption or better performance than those where these considerations are emphasized. People can feel more at home and comfortable in spaces that arise accidentally as those designed expressely for this purpose.

My point is admire those buildings championed in design competitions or in awards for the message they send, their symbolic meaning about how we should strive to improve our built environment. Measuring their actual performance can be disappointing.
 
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