- Thread starter AlbertC
- Start date
TheKingEast
Senior Member
Looking good so far.
modernizt
Senior Member
There seems to be agreement among people to go easy on this one and say it looks good, which is disappointing to me because this is nothing more than bargain-basement design. The original parti of the building was simple enough with the zig-zagging balconies but CentreCourt is too cheap to do even that. The cladding isn't fooling anyone; they wouldn't even give up a little bit of floorplate perimeter area to give the tower some articulation.
A grid motif is my favourite type of facade for a project but I won't even pretend to like this one. There is absolutely no relief on it; just tacked-on window wall posing as something it's not.
A grid motif is my favourite type of facade for a project but I won't even pretend to like this one. There is absolutely no relief on it; just tacked-on window wall posing as something it's not.
Yegger
Active Member
I like it. Though it is busier than it needs to be due to the window wall, at least it’s coherent and the color scheme is more striking and less bland/blue than most of what is going up.
Koops65
Senior Member
My pic from Saturday:
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Agreed that the darker areas could really have used an inset. Otherwise it looks good, not great.
ShonTron
Moderator
It, like many of the condos in the area, is marketed to people who will never spend one night in it.
cd concept
Senior Member
Yeah! And we have to look at its blandness from afar !
LUVIT!
Senior Member
This will stand out visually for certain. Plus it will create a mini canyon on Jarvis. I'm very surprised at the height of this actually.
I don't feel I'm going easy on this one by liking it. Others are not required to agree with me about the aesthetic effect, but we are getting a higher quality window wall here than 90% of the rest of the window wall going up elsewhere—this one is not a million mullion mess; we get lots of full height windows here—and we're getting actual contrast on this exterior: white and black instead of the near ubiquitous gray we're always complaining about. That's two serious pluses if you ask me.
In regard to balconies and/or insets: the OMB basically eliminated those by the sizable floor plate reduction they ordered (which I don't disagree with), and as this building is very specifically an investor box for Ryerson students—the highest-rise dorm in the city if you would—those suites are already the shoebox size that university students get everywhere, and I don't see any need to make them smaller.
When I compare this with the Knightstone travesty that was completed on College at Spadina last year (pretty much the same thing: private student dorm, just one investor instead of hundreds), this is sheer elegance in comparison.
Anyway, like I said, while I don't need others to change their minds about the design here to feel validated, do not tell me I'm going easy on this for no reason: I have reasons that I'm quite comfortable with.
42
modernizt
Senior Member
What I'm getting at is a broader discussion about architectural intent and design. You're certainly entitled to your opinion or reasons for liking a project vs. not, I just had to express that features like full-height windows are so little to ask for in the scheme of a project this large that I'm disappointed to see it given credit.
I can't believe I'm defending anything about it because I strongly dislike it, but while the massing on the College St. Nightmare is brutal, but the materials and the arrangement of lounge spaces up and down each elevation still hangs on to some architectural intent that the Grid tower just doesn't have. The Grid tower's intent was based around its balcony design; once they were stripped away, the "Grid" became nothing more than a gimmick.
In any case, changes to the building code coming down the pipeline before long will broaden the discussion away from evaluating buildings by their "quality of window wall" and buildings like this one won't be possible. Instead of window wall pretending to be a solid wall with punched windows, we'll get wall assemblies detailed by architects with punched windows from manufacturers.
I can't believe I'm defending anything about it because I strongly dislike it, but while the massing on the College St. Nightmare is brutal, but the materials and the arrangement of lounge spaces up and down each elevation still hangs on to some architectural intent that the Grid tower just doesn't have. The Grid tower's intent was based around its balcony design; once they were stripped away, the "Grid" became nothing more than a gimmick.
In any case, changes to the building code coming down the pipeline before long will broaden the discussion away from evaluating buildings by their "quality of window wall" and buildings like this one won't be possible. Instead of window wall pretending to be a solid wall with punched windows, we'll get wall assemblies detailed by architects with punched windows from manufacturers.
I wish that it took more than full length windows to put a smile on my face, but when this city is saddled with waist height mullions splitting upper and lower windows and upper and lower spandrel panels, ad messing up building elevations seemingly everywhere… when we get relief from that, I cannot hold back my grin!
42
innsertnamehere
Superstar
