The notion of "First- Class Cities in the World" is a matter of pure conjecture, as is the laundry list of things which supposedly make a city first class. Height alone doesn't a first class city make, even if skyscraper fans forever prefer to think otherwise. The only sweepstakes going on here exists solely in the minds of supertall fans. There is zero correlation between quality of life in a city and the height of its tallest buildings.

I like skyscrapers. I just don't think they make a difference in what makes a city really work.

In any case, we'll get more tall buildings. I just sense it will never satisfy a certain niche in here. Stuff just won't happen quickly enough and the buildings won't be tall enough and then there will be a down cycle because there always is.

I just enjoy how rapidly Toronto is changing now and hope the trend continues for awhile longer. It's an exciting time to watch this city evolve, because the pace is so fast and dramatic.
 
Great post of Lenser.

A taller building alone will never automatically enhance the city. It's the quality of design and contributions to the streetscape that really matters. I could honestly care less if the final proposal is 30s or 60s. Although the height precedent has been set high by Aura, a reduction compromise may be necessary to satisfy all parties involved in the planning process. What matters here the most is having a well designed and engaging podium that will improve this section of Yonge.
 
Lenser said:
There is zero correlation between quality of life in a city and the height of its tallest buildings.
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Not entirely true. Yes, in general, but in the case of Toronto tall buildings add a) increased vibrancy because of the added people and, b) exciting architecture.
 
Taller buildings do sometimes make for more exciting architecture but they can also be poorly designed monstrosities.... I'm just saying that the narrow concerns of supertall fans mean little to city planners and to immigrants seeking to come to any particular city to make a new life. Taller skylines definitely hold a romantic appeal for many, yes. And I think all of us who live in big cities agree that vibrancy is a good thing. And yeah, Toronto has a lot of taller residential towers going up. It's merely that taller residential towers do not directly translate to a greater happiness index of the city's inhabitants. The fixation on height makes for a lot of distorted expectations regarding what makes a city liveable, that's all.

By way of example: most people in Toronto are not even aware of how tall and imposing Aura will become. When it does get up there, most people will again remain entirely unconcerned that it falls short of the supertall status coveted by the eager few.
 
Well said and true. As much as I'd like to see a super tall in toronto I'm affraid anything that's to big and beautiful will look so good that the cn tower would end up looking horrible in comparison. Toronto just ain't right if cn tower appears ugly in comparison or short wich is really hard to imagin but could one dAy in the future happen.. Couldn't it? Sorry babbling now. I'll stop. But thanks for your point here lenser. If that were to happen I suggest a real nice makeover for the stem of cn tower not the pods.
 
ptbotrmpfn said:
Well said and true. As much as I'd like to see a super tall in toronto I'm affraid anything that's to big and beautiful will look so good that the cn tower would end up looking horrible in comparison. Toronto just ain't right if cn tower appears ugly in comparison or short wich is really hard to imagin but could one dAy in the future happen.. Couldn't it? Sorry babbling now. I'll stop. But thanks for your point here lenser. If that were to happen I suggest a real nice makeover for the stem of cn tower not the pods.
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But a supertall near Bloor and Yonge or further north wouldn't really be out of place, and wouldn't take away from the CN Tower... and would likely make no difference to the picture postcard view from the lake. But a supertall would certainly stand out like curvy buildings in Mississauga from all sorts of directions.
 
I missed the first two working group meetings, but I sat in on the third one tonight. The architect presented some revisions to the podium design, ostensibly based on community feedback at the last meeting. This would probably be a lot more interesting with pictures of the renderings, but here are some highlights:
  • The Yonge St sidewalk would be widened to 6m, the same as in front of the hotel to the south, with room for street trees (as it should have been from the very beginning).
  • Retail frontage would be extended around 3 sides of the building, with stores facing onto Alexander and Maitland streets, and extending partway down Maitland Terrace where it faces the Cosmopolitan condo. The main residential entrance would be off Alexander St, with a secondary entrance for the north tower off Maitland Terrace.
  • The facade would be visually split into two distinct sections, with the north section intended to be vaguely respectful of the older Yonge St streetscape, and the south section transitioning to the taller buildings to the south.
  • For the north section, the facade would be made up of tall square brick arches to a height of 3 storeys -- about the height of the old Victorian buildings across the street -- with a shallow retail display / signage area in front of the parking on the 2nd and 3rd floors. Above that, the podium would be set back slightly, with residential units facing Yonge and Maitland on the 4th and 5th floors, and more parking at the back of the site.
  • At the south end, parking would fill the 2nd-5th floors of the podium, and the facade would go straight up to the top of the podium with no setbacks. Most of the presentation focused on the (much nicer) north end of the podium, with little detail on what the south end would look like.

I thought the changes to the north end of the podium were a definite step in the right direction, but it certainly seemed like the architect was performing some sleight of hand, presenting a pretty respectable podium with nice materials and setbacks and street-facing active use for half the building, and hoping we wouldn’t notice that the other half was still, as ever, a shitty 5-storey monolithic parking garage looming over Yonge St. The key problem with this building (IMHO) is the sheer bulk of above-ground parking, and the proposed revisions didn’t really address that, they just moved it around a little.
 
Thanks for the update Loozrboy, this whole thing is a nightmare.
 
Loozrboy said:
... it certainly seemed like the architect was performing some sleight of hand, presenting a pretty respectable podium with nice materials and setbacks and street-facing active use for half the building, and hoping we wouldn’t notice that the other half was still, as ever, a shitty 5-storey monolithic parking garage looming over Yonge St.
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Some lipstick. Some pig.
 
Ha sounds like someone at aA has been spying on NimbyTect's solution.:D

Let me guess:

nimbytect28april2012501.png


(Very Vancouver-style only with aA lines.)
 
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urbandreamer said:
Ha sounds like someone at aA has been spying on NimbyTect's solution.:D
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That's actually a pretty reasonable approximation of what we were shown, except that the south block of the podium (visible only in the background of one rendering as I recall) appeared to be windowless white textured concrete or something. Like, patterns of lines running every which way. The architect described it as a "3D façade" and said something about it being about 1 metre deep. I got the impression it was little more than a vague concept at this stage; certainly nothing more than a vague concept was presented, anyway.
 
Well, I'll go out on a limb and say that I don't mind the project. The street facade is too overbearing and clunky, and I'm not wild about walking past a glorified parking garage, especially on Yonge, a street which basically just is about storefronts. But I like the idea of building residential on Yonge, and I do like the height here.
 
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