I agree with someone above-- thank God for the lack of point tower... I love this chunky massing. And the courtyard is great-- always a good idea. European residential construction does that very well and I quite admire it.

I am not against point towers-- but I like this stuff too! ;)
 
Do European residences feature tiny units fronting onto 17 storey courtyards? Seems a bit Kowloonish to me, and that's not good.
 
We're pretty far from being Kowloon in Toronto. To say the least.
 
SP!RE said:
We're pretty far from being Kowloon in Toronto. To say the least.
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It's quite clear I said nothing about Toronto and was referring just to this building.

The interior units of this building promise to be slightly miserable - perhaps they'll have very cheap rents.
 
cdr108 said:
Do you have the floorplans available for viewing?
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Do you really expect many (or any) of the mostly ~500sq.ft, 1 bedroom units to have windows on both sides of the building? It'd have to be a super thin building with tons of superfluous elevators, which is highly unlikely.

ProjectEnd said:
Actually they do and a short internet search should yield you many results.
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To prevent a dozen unnecessary posts, note that I'm not questioning whether or not more than zero examples exist, but whether or not seemingly small 13-17 storey light wells are the norm. It's hard to build a glorious courtyard when it only gets 20 minutes of sun a day (and maybe no sun at all in the winter).
 
Any natural light is a good thing though. It's not going to get lots of sun, no. But natural light, yes.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
To prevent a dozen unnecessary posts, note that I'm not questioning whether or not more than zero examples exist, but whether or not seemingly small 13-17 storey light wells are the norm. It's hard to build a glorious courtyard when it only gets 20 minutes of sun a day (and maybe no sun at all in the winter).
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True, and forgive me if my post came off as terse. Though a 17 story courtyard is probably not the most common occurrence, often the 5-8 story courtyards which connect buildings in Paris, London, Rome, etc. are much smaller, giving the same 'well-like' impression. Regardless of their size, they still provide windows for cross-breezes (handy when A/C is a luxury - as it should be) and a private venue for air-drying clothes.

As a bonus, light does come in, if only for a couple of minutes...
 
I lived at such a building--aka, inner courtyard, in Vancouver: the Ivanhoe. I got enough light, and remember, some ppl, (like me), hate it when it's too bright and sunny outside!

Why be so anal about light when this is an attractive building filling in another bleakscape in Toronto?
 
scarberiankhatru said:
Do you really expect many (or any) of the mostly ~500sq.ft, 1 bedroom units to have windows on both sides of the building? It'd have to be a super thin building with tons of superfluous elevators, which is highly unlikely.
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i think your impression may be based on what you think is the layout of the building.


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from looking at the images, i think there will be 2 buildings for this rental project. in the form of 2 intersecting L's (ie. L7), each with their own set of elevators at the apex, with hallways extending each wing.

that could mean units would be wide and shallow vs. the typical condo of narrow and deep.
 
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ProjectEnd said:
True, and forgive me if my post came off as terse. Though a 17 story courtyard is probably not the most common occurrence, often the 5-8 story courtyards which connect buildings in Paris, London, Rome, etc. are much smaller, giving the same 'well-like' impression. Regardless of their size, they still provide windows for cross-breezes (handy when A/C is a luxury - as it should be) and a private venue for air-drying clothes.

As a bonus, light does come in, if only for a couple of minutes...
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It didn't come off as terse, it came off as not comparable to the building in question.

urbandreamer said:
Why be so anal about light when this is an attractive building filling in another bleakscape in Toronto?
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Because the building is not that attractive, in either appearance or living conditions.

cdr108 said:
i think your impression may be based on what you think is the layout of the building.

from looking at the images, i think there will be 2 buildings for this rental project. in the form of 2 intersecting L's (ie. L7), each with their own set of elevators at the apex, with hallways extending each wing.

that could mean units would be wide and shallow vs. the typical condo of narrow and deep.
Click to expand...

Unless the renderings are wrong, two Ls still make a 13-17 storey square with about 1/3 of the units (some only 350 sq.ft) fronting onto a potentially cruel, narrow alley, not a gorgeous European courtyard. In the street level rendering, the sunlight is practically emerging upwards from the ground. Some cheap rental units are always needed and the European courtyard complexes ProjectEnd described would be wonderful if they replaced hundreds of blocks of crappy suburban houses all over the city, including the ones I'm looking out at right now (through a window that receives actual sunlight), but this project is a fair bit of blech.
 
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