khris
Senior Member
I don't get the height issue. Mixed heights are great. There's nothing wrong with this at all. People are so strange.
- Thread starter ProjectEnd
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alklay
Senior Member
Fouronsix, diitto. And thats a fine first post.
marcus_a_j
Senior Member
I agree, great post fouronesix. Excellant point about the lot sizes on King W vs. Wellington with regard to the bulkiness of buildings on these streets. Good reference to M5V having already set a precedent.
While the park out front is great, i would prefer the building to have a podium that provides a continuous streetwall along King. The impact on King would be subdued by this by providing a break in the verticality from the street. More people are going to take note of the effect of 45 storeys going straight up as opposed to a 2-3 storey podium then a setback of the tower portion. If a park is really desired by Lamb, then there should be S.37 money going towards the public park across the street at Metro Hall (although that money would be better spent opening up the pond area around Roy Thompson Hall to the public and integrating it with open space around Metro Hall).
While the park out front is great, i would prefer the building to have a podium that provides a continuous streetwall along King. The impact on King would be subdued by this by providing a break in the verticality from the street. More people are going to take note of the effect of 45 storeys going straight up as opposed to a 2-3 storey podium then a setback of the tower portion. If a park is really desired by Lamb, then there should be S.37 money going towards the public park across the street at Metro Hall (although that money would be better spent opening up the pond area around Roy Thompson Hall to the public and integrating it with open space around Metro Hall).
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Second alklay's comments - great post fouronsix. If OMB uses M5V as a precedent - they are basically approving a project on the basis of a precedent they themselves have set, and at an unequal context at that. Funny how a body isn't tasked explictly with microscale planning ended up being the defacto force in changing the character of a block.
AoD
AoD
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Architecturefan
Active Member
As a general rule, no. In this instance yes. The whole heritage district were talking about is the four blocks bounded by king, simcoe, john and adelaide. Within this area basically everything that isn't a parking lot is designated/identified as heritage. If this proposal was talking about replacing an existing heritage building or even a non designated building that adds to the character of the neighbourhood, that would be different. We're talking about setting a precedent for a vacant lot on the periphery of an area already flanked by metro hall, festival tower, shangri-la, boutique and others. Which was Clewes' point. If another proposal came in asking to tear down a building with some architectural/contextual value then the circumstances would be different and the precedent they're worried about setting wouldn't apply. That new proposal would be evaluated based on its own planning merits (like architectural/contextual value).
I think the argument is moot anyways since the precedent has already been set. Like I said its a four block area flanked by high rises/permissions for further high rises. We can argue about whether or not this should have been done in the first place but the reality is what it is.
Architecturefan
Active Member
If it came down to precedent M5V wouldn't be the make or break argument. The main issue with M5V was adding height to the south side of King (and thereby shadowing the north and south sidewalks of the street), if I recall correctly. Festival Tower and Co. would be more relevant with respect to precedents for height.
Irishmonk
Senior Member
Something I haven't seen mentioned yet is the fact that this block is highly visible due to the large open space across the street. As such it offers a postcard view of one of Toronto's finest heritage blocks which happens to contain a famous and much photographed cultural jewel. The proposal sticks out of this charming and significant block like a raised middle finger, a kind of defiant f-you to the Prince Charles types of the world who would regret this arrogant new intrusion into a wonderfully intact and preserved piece of local history.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Though, if you're standing across the street in the middle of the block you've got several tall towers to the south, the Festival condo to the north west, M5V to go up to the west, and the University Avenue towers ( Shangri La included ) to the north east. So if this tower were to be built as designed it would also be seen as part of that context. As for the earlier comment about the height of the Ritz and RBC being mitigated by the horizontal heft of their podiums, larger lots and of the CBC building, well, you can create dynamic visual harmony with a contrast between a strongly horizontal row of low buildings and a slim tall one - that's what's happening with this proposal where the low horizontal block that includes the Royal Alex and the slim Theatre Park tower engage. Other dramatic tall/short contrasts exist all over the downtown - Campbell House with Canada Life, the National Club with Trump, the TD Centre banking podium with the TD Centre towers, etc.
3Dementia
Senior Member
While I applaud such a well-considered, thoughtful first post, I can't agree on a number of fronts. The point of having a public space here rather than continuing the streetwall... is the much-needed suprise of a public space . A public space in a high-traffic environment. There's not enough of this urban drama/suprise in Toronto. There's nothing this intimate and enticing in the neighbourhood. RTH and Metro Hall have a "space" but absolutely nothing to commend it beyond occasional lunch in the sun.
As for the so-called "massing" along Wellington, this isn't good massing at all. Dexia and Ritz aren't massed in a welcome manner... they are straight into the sky towers supplemented by huge podiums that hardly consider human scale... downright intimidating... and they have been built on a largely blank canvas (south side of Wellington) that has become little more than a super-block. Impressive but hardly welcoming. Add in CBC and you have some serious monoliths to navigate.
This theatre tower isn't on King Street anyway, it's really on Pearl and wouldn't overwhelm the neighbourhood at all. This notion that a pencil-thin 45 storey tower is too tall but an 18 storey slab tower is OK is just ridiculous... I suspect city planners, obsessed with the beloved pyramid built form of south-of-queen, have become so indoctrinated with the secret covenent, they don't think any more.
These same height-jailers fought Aura tooth and nail because it hugged Yonge Street rather than Bay Street (the place planners love to discard large projects because they've given up on the street altogether). Don't recall which street has a subway.
This theatre tower is down right polite in the manner it says "I'm here in the back but please feel free to have a chair and a coffee in my front yard" , and it will do nothing naughty to King Street in terms of wind, shadow. I really think littering the city with a few respectful, architecturally interesting point towers is a good trend... we've been "organized" to death veiled in "good planning".
As for the so-called "massing" along Wellington, this isn't good massing at all. Dexia and Ritz aren't massed in a welcome manner... they are straight into the sky towers supplemented by huge podiums that hardly consider human scale... downright intimidating... and they have been built on a largely blank canvas (south side of Wellington) that has become little more than a super-block. Impressive but hardly welcoming. Add in CBC and you have some serious monoliths to navigate.
This theatre tower isn't on King Street anyway, it's really on Pearl and wouldn't overwhelm the neighbourhood at all. This notion that a pencil-thin 45 storey tower is too tall but an 18 storey slab tower is OK is just ridiculous... I suspect city planners, obsessed with the beloved pyramid built form of south-of-queen, have become so indoctrinated with the secret covenent, they don't think any more.
These same height-jailers fought Aura tooth and nail because it hugged Yonge Street rather than Bay Street (the place planners love to discard large projects because they've given up on the street altogether). Don't recall which street has a subway.
This theatre tower is down right polite in the manner it says "I'm here in the back but please feel free to have a chair and a coffee in my front yard" , and it will do nothing naughty to King Street in terms of wind, shadow. I really think littering the city with a few respectful, architecturally interesting point towers is a good trend... we've been "organized" to death veiled in "good planning".
waterloowarrior
Senior Member
I think it would look a lot cooler in black than white (like Hancock in Chicago and more like the earlier render)
urbandreamer
recession proof
I am buying a house on High Park Avenue for $2 million. It's within 200m of all those highrise apartment and condo towers. I'm going to the OMB to approve a 45 storey aA-designed "jewel." I'm generous: I'm giving $2 million to the city to beautify HP Av. 
Nice building here, but really, aA is perfectly capable of designing a gorgeous 15 story building that would create a solid streetwall and have similar number of units.
Nice building here, but really, aA is perfectly capable of designing a gorgeous 15 story building that would create a solid streetwall and have similar number of units.
fouronesix
Active Member
Thanks for all the positive comments re: my first post - I like to come out swinging. And in that spirit there's a couple comments I want to respond to. At the risk of tilting at strawmen, I'm not going to use the quotes thing; it seems too accusatory to pull specific lines out of a thought and debate them. In any case...
@Urban Schocker,
While I would certainly acknowledge and agree with you that this tower should be seen in a wider context of surrounding towers, both under construction and proposed, there is also an immediate context, which I beleive should take precedent over the wider context. Or in other words, a building's design should first speak to its immediate neighbours, and second to the built form of the wider neighbourhood. By saying that a building's design should speak to its neighbours, I do not mean that it should merely be a crude imitation of design or builtform, but that a well designed building should acknwoledge its relationship to surrounding structures, especially in urban infill projects such as this one.
I would also agree with your statement that a dynamic visual harmony can be created with a contrast between a strongly horizontal row of buildings and a sllim tall one. But such a line of reasoning does not justify a tower as tall as 45 storeies in this instance. Returning to my earlier post, part of the reason I beleive the CBC building to be successful in mitigating the height of RBC/Ritz is not only because of its horizontal heft, but also that it is a unitary structure for the duration of that 'heft'. In other words, a long horizontal space with unity of style does more to mitigate height than a long horizontal space with a multiude of differently articulated styles, such as is the case on this seciton of king street with its relatively small properties.
While I assure you that I too am a huge fan of Mr. Clewes' point towers, I find that the height of this one relative to its neighbours is too jarring a transistion. Nevertheless, a 25 -30 storey tower, at a similar floorplate, would most likely still qualify as a point tower (although in the wider context of the neighbourhood this is debateable).
@3Dementia
Just to clarify, I wasn't passing judgement on the relative merits of massing on King vs Wellington, I was simply pointing out that they are different and therefore the built forms appropriate to one are different than those appropriate to the other. In fact, I would tend to agree with you that wellington is not a 'human-scaled' street. An ex-girlfriend used to live in the neighbourhood and I would take walks on Saturday afternoons on both streets just to get a sense of how well traveled by pedestrians the two streets were and ponder the differences in built form, etc. If my impassioned paragraphs have not yet indicted me as a true planning nerd, that statement surely will.
Lastly @Automation Gallery
If my first post had read something along the lines of 'tall towers suck, I don't like tall towers!" your reply could have been considered a thoughtfull counter-arguement. Maybe you've already debated tower heights in various other posts and have simply grown weary of repeating yourself adnauseam. Nonetheless, starting a post with 'whatever...' really reduces my opinion of your comment to 'whatever'.
@Urban Schocker,
While I would certainly acknowledge and agree with you that this tower should be seen in a wider context of surrounding towers, both under construction and proposed, there is also an immediate context, which I beleive should take precedent over the wider context. Or in other words, a building's design should first speak to its immediate neighbours, and second to the built form of the wider neighbourhood. By saying that a building's design should speak to its neighbours, I do not mean that it should merely be a crude imitation of design or builtform, but that a well designed building should acknwoledge its relationship to surrounding structures, especially in urban infill projects such as this one.
I would also agree with your statement that a dynamic visual harmony can be created with a contrast between a strongly horizontal row of buildings and a sllim tall one. But such a line of reasoning does not justify a tower as tall as 45 storeies in this instance. Returning to my earlier post, part of the reason I beleive the CBC building to be successful in mitigating the height of RBC/Ritz is not only because of its horizontal heft, but also that it is a unitary structure for the duration of that 'heft'. In other words, a long horizontal space with unity of style does more to mitigate height than a long horizontal space with a multiude of differently articulated styles, such as is the case on this seciton of king street with its relatively small properties.
While I assure you that I too am a huge fan of Mr. Clewes' point towers, I find that the height of this one relative to its neighbours is too jarring a transistion. Nevertheless, a 25 -30 storey tower, at a similar floorplate, would most likely still qualify as a point tower (although in the wider context of the neighbourhood this is debateable).
@3Dementia
Just to clarify, I wasn't passing judgement on the relative merits of massing on King vs Wellington, I was simply pointing out that they are different and therefore the built forms appropriate to one are different than those appropriate to the other. In fact, I would tend to agree with you that wellington is not a 'human-scaled' street. An ex-girlfriend used to live in the neighbourhood and I would take walks on Saturday afternoons on both streets just to get a sense of how well traveled by pedestrians the two streets were and ponder the differences in built form, etc. If my impassioned paragraphs have not yet indicted me as a true planning nerd, that statement surely will.
Lastly @Automation Gallery
If my first post had read something along the lines of 'tall towers suck, I don't like tall towers!" your reply could have been considered a thoughtfull counter-arguement. Maybe you've already debated tower heights in various other posts and have simply grown weary of repeating yourself adnauseam. Nonetheless, starting a post with 'whatever...' really reduces my opinion of your comment to 'whatever'.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
fouronesix: I think we only part ways in our evaluation of "immediate context". For me, as a pedestrian, the setback gives us a little park of a size that's in harmony with the lot sizes of the Royal Alex and other buildings along that stretch of King, with the wall of the building to the east being incorporated as an element in a park that will also be enjoyed by theatre patrons - much as Berczy Park is enjoyed at intermissions by patrons of the St. Lawrence Centre. In doing so, no fine old buildings were demolished, and I see it as a net gain. If this tower is built as designed, when seen from a distance the eye will make connections between it and other tall buildings nearbye ( Boutique condo, Shangri-La, FCP even ... ), but seen up close the distinctively different lower section of the tower is in scale with the smaller adjacent buildings and becomes part of the "multiude of differently articulated styles" you refer to. I believe this acknowledges its relationship to surrounding structures. Though the report creates a conundrum of what to do next - redesigning it as a shorter tower with a podium that reaches forward to the street being the obvious Market Wharf type solution - the tower as designed sets up the sort of tall/short and new/old contrast that's happening nicely elsewhere - at the Distillery, for instance, where Clewes has actually enhanced the "short" part of the equation with his podium buildings. If the City was happy to approve Gehry's pairing of the AGO's big blue-titanium-box with the historic old Grange, I can't see why The Great Man should be blocked from giving this part of town one of his distinctive point towers, which are heritage circa 2010 every bit as much as Lyle's Royal Alex is heritage from 1907.
3Dementia
Senior Member
Are you suggesting that a couple of new monoliths establish appropriate built form... so it's OK to continue the trend? (Cityplace). I'd love a break or two from the "appropiate" street wall that might actually engage folks that don't live at the Ritz (and can't afford to stay at the Ritz). Or this is another street that only contributes to the skyline.
fouronesix
Active Member
Urban Shocker, I do agree that the park created by the set back of the tower is an admirable feature of the design and that it could indeed function as a wonderful outdoor 'lobby' for theatre goers. And the different articulation of the first several stories of the facade of this tower does indeed pay heed to the height of neighbouring buildings. Perhaps it is merely a matter of divergent opinion as to what makes a visually coherent streetwall that seperates our positions. While the setback of the building from the property line and different lower section of the tower do mitigate the difference in height partially, the extreme difference in height between this tower and its neighbours I feel will be amplified by the lack of a step back between the lower levels and the upper 'tower' portion. If this tower featured a podium built out to the property line, roughly equal in hieght or even up to five stories taller than its neighbours, then a step back to the tower portion, I beleive the transition in height between properties would be much more successfully accomplished. As it stands now, despite the differently articulated facades, the lack of a physical seperation between podium and tower in terms of massing would present a sheer surface rising 45 storeies into the air, providing a somewhat jarring transition in the streetwall. Building out to the property line, including a stepback and maybe shortening the tower by at most 10 stories would, I think, provide exactly the tall/short, new/old contrast you allude too. In fact, part of what makes aA's Distillery projects so successful is the relatively large podium elements combined with the larger footprints of the existing structures. Which brings me back the a point a previously made with regards to differences in property sizes. Where surrounding structures have relatively larger footprints, the horizontal heft created counteracts sheer verticality of neighbouring structures - a contrast of typologies found in the distillery district and indeed in the King-Spadina area, just not in this particular block. While this may be a moot point in terms of this particular development, I do believe that the King-Spadina area (particularly along sections of Adelaide and Richmond), due to the existence of structures with larger footprints, would be ideal for taller towers, perhaps even a point tower by The Great Man Himself. It is with great relief that such a proposal avoids the presumptuous situation of me denying the Great Man His ability to grace Toronto with His contemporary heritage buildings.