kris
Senior Member
The article shows a height of 294m which seems wrong.
- Thread starter AlbertC
- Start date
Bogtrotter
Senior Member
" “Beauty is never part of the [planning] equation, but believe me it counts more than anything else,” Kuwabara said. “That’s never discussed; I think it’s important.” His presentation cited a series of examples—all of them American—to demonstrate the aesthetic value of the sort of proposed building. He compared the slim tower to Rafael Viñoly’s skyscraper at 432 Park Avenue in New York City and the intersection to “places in New York where you get Davenport, like Broadway, cutting through the grid."
I really like the sentiment. While it may not be the most important it does seem to take too far back a seat in the process. Not a fan of the 'salad bowl' however.
I really like the sentiment. While it may not be the most important it does seem to take too far back a seat in the process. Not a fan of the 'salad bowl' however.
ilikemilk
New Member
They shadow the park for less than an hour around 9am, in the summer. You don't need to guess, the entire application is online.
http://app.toronto.ca/DevelopmentAp...ion=init&folderRsn=3971005&isCofASearch=false
torontologist
Active Member
This proposal was hubris. There is a height peak descending from Yonge and Bloor, and this is significantly taller than 1 Yorkville. They proposed removing a First Nations commemorative plaque from the park without any sort of replacement, or acknowledgment in their new design for the park. I can't believe anyone got their hopes up about it.
Or maybe the developer proposed 229m knowing that it would get cut down to 150-175. In which case, great, hope it works out. I like the design.
Or maybe the developer proposed 229m knowing that it would get cut down to 150-175. In which case, great, hope it works out. I like the design.
Southcore
Active Member
I don't care how much height gets chopped as long as salad bowl is realized as per the renders
maestro
Senior Member
Design is important but, it shouldn't supersede sound planning either. Otherwise you end up making comparison based on a tall slim profile. 432 Park is built to half the density and the shadowing being projected by the as of right zoning is certainly facing its share of criticism. I don't think the planners would have thought it ever to be economical for 18 FSI to be stretched to over 400 metres.
Uptowner
Active Member
Yet again I feel compelled to register my displeasure over the approach to sculpting a skyline peak in some formulaic manner. Unless you are planning on constructing a giant ski run starting at the top of The One and running over top of every other building to this one, then I don't get the maniacal obsession with some gradual slope. There seems to be a contingent of people at city hall that think this approach almost necessarily yields objectively more aesthetic results.
I think many, like me, find it boring and stifling both for the collective imagination and results on the ground. We also realise it is objectively stultifying to developers' creative potential. All this for the mere sake of demanding they genuflect to a bureaucratic process teeming with individuals who, no doubt, could give you no good reason for defending the "Monotonically Declining Height Theory of City Building" than "it says it is good on the paper they gave me." If that is your mentality, then don't be surprised if walking around ten city blocks of your end product generates no more excitment than reading through 10 pages of ticked boxes.
As usual, I am not seeking to convince those who reflexively oppose intriguing projects, such as this one, if they fail to adhere to even one niggling detail promulgated through dictates from on high. Rather, I hope that developers and other citizens don't get dispirited by the kinds of reactions that seem to have been expressed at the meeting. I assure you, people who think that standing around chanting the words "salad bowl" in front of a crowd of strangers is a worthwhile way to spend an evening do not represent near a plurality of Torontonians.
Please keep fighting no matter how intransigently ungrateful some people may be toward your efforts to enhance Toronto. Many of us wish you luck at the inevitable OMB hearing.
I think many, like me, find it boring and stifling both for the collective imagination and results on the ground. We also realise it is objectively stultifying to developers' creative potential. All this for the mere sake of demanding they genuflect to a bureaucratic process teeming with individuals who, no doubt, could give you no good reason for defending the "Monotonically Declining Height Theory of City Building" than "it says it is good on the paper they gave me." If that is your mentality, then don't be surprised if walking around ten city blocks of your end product generates no more excitment than reading through 10 pages of ticked boxes.
As usual, I am not seeking to convince those who reflexively oppose intriguing projects, such as this one, if they fail to adhere to even one niggling detail promulgated through dictates from on high. Rather, I hope that developers and other citizens don't get dispirited by the kinds of reactions that seem to have been expressed at the meeting. I assure you, people who think that standing around chanting the words "salad bowl" in front of a crowd of strangers is a worthwhile way to spend an evening do not represent near a plurality of Torontonians.
Please keep fighting no matter how intransigently ungrateful some people may be toward your efforts to enhance Toronto. Many of us wish you luck at the inevitable OMB hearing.
buildup
Senior Member
I agree 100% with your sentiment. Planners are trying to codify what happens organically (commercially). King & Bay emerged, naturally as an area of density well before planners got involved. One spot became tallest because O&Y decided to go big replacing the previous tallest and shifting the peak a block or so. King & Bay is central, expensive, so more dense buildings went in. But no-one planned the N/W corner as the peak. And if Scotia had been 90 stories the peak would've shifted a block South & East.
Periodically other nodes emerge because the market deems them to be advantageous for whatever reason, so that new nodes (peaks) emerge, and that local peak will drift slightly as the area build. It's all highly fractal and organic. A series of nodes, the tallest tower becoming the new peak until it's replaced so the form always holds. It's highly unlikely anyone would place a 50 story tower in Rosedale, not beause planners would object, but because it wouldn't be economic. And when bureaucrats try to manipulating this evolution get things like Place Des Jardins in Montreal, a government attempt to shift the core east into francophone Montreal. Didnt work.
So ever taller towers maintain the form by shifting the proximate peak or by signaling that the market sees a new node emerging, a setting for another peak. Left to its own the result will be pleasing - a series of peaks, and perhaps the odd outlier, which also fine.
Of course planners are trying to codify what happens "organically". That's why we have planners. And the reason for tapering the skyline is not because they fetishize neatly sloping skylines nor to annoy those who fetishize irregular ones…
it's to have an orderly decrease in heights from dense areas down to less dense areas. Every high tower that pushes beyond areas zoned for them creates further headaches for Planning for the next applications.
I'm not saying that every application should follow current zoning, and in fact because our zoning is out-of-date, developers typically cannot, but the thoughts expressed above on skylines have nothing to do with the reasons that the height peaks and ridges have been established.
42
it's to have an orderly decrease in heights from dense areas down to less dense areas. Every high tower that pushes beyond areas zoned for them creates further headaches for Planning for the next applications.
I'm not saying that every application should follow current zoning, and in fact because our zoning is out-of-date, developers typically cannot, but the thoughts expressed above on skylines have nothing to do with the reasons that the height peaks and ridges have been established.
42
maestro
Senior Member
I think planning policy has more important things like balancing growth while maintaining livability than the aesthetic of a skyline. There are sound reasonings for planners to push for tapering. Should look them up. Toronto is hardly at the point of a skyline of cone shapes either. Certainly height can stymie creativity but, that goes in both directions. There's only so much creativity allowed at 38 FAR. Shifted floor plates is about the most you'll ever get. I can only conclude that this some sort of heighter fancy to want the OMB to approve this project. This project wouldn't be approved anywhere. In most cases, it would be tossed immediately and for good reason. It's not a very livable built form and only opens the door for other property owners in the area to ask even more for their plot of land pushing more potential developments in that range
Uptowner
Active Member
Thank you for your usual thoughtful response. The site is lucky to have you. As for the specifics of this development, I’m not going to shift grounds but merely set some of what I wrote aside for the moment.
What is important for me is that the fact that 18 Yorkville was proposed at a time before 14 of our tallest 15 residential buildings had been built. Times were very different back in 2006 in Toronto as surely almost all of us know. What was being proposed back then was relatively limited for various reasons. I see nothing obliging or to delight in by being manacled to the products of our less prosperous and ambitious antecedents. Embrace the good that endures in them, but recognize the constraints they faced and understand they had no malice aforethought to condemn us to mediocrity. The past not being able to go taller should not mean that we have to go smaller.
If you dislike the the design of 1 Scollard inherently, or for how it impacts its surroundings, then that is one matter. But surely it would be absurd to let the fact that a previous developer, making a proposal a decade ago, couldn’t attract enough capital to build taller, and make more money, hold us back now. I believe we believe we are better than that even if change is scary to some. (This is not meant to sound patronizing, and I don’t take it to be an accurate summary of the thoughtful reasons one might oppose the current form of this project. Finally, it obviously in no way could conceivably apply to you personally, i42. I very much appreciate your contributions.)
Synopsis: Whatever reason there may be to object to this project I hope, for the love of all that is good on this beautiful planet of ours, the fact that neighbouring 18 Yorkville is only 115m tall should not be a definitive argument against it.
Last edited:
Ramako
Moderator
I still don't understand why "an orderly decrease in heights from dense areas down to less dense areas" is an inherent planning virtue. Let's draw a boundary around what we define as "downtown" and say go as high as you want (subject to density, setback and shadowing rules) if you're within that boundary. If you're beyond that line, a different rule applies. Aside from the notion that there must be some kind of gradual build up in heights, I don't see why a tall tower isn't otherwise suitable at this location (leaving aside the issues of density, setbacks, etc.).
And inevitably these rules will be broken in the future as the city continues to grow and intensify, which will makes these height limits seem arbitrary in retrospect. You have Theatre Park being shaved from 165 metres to 157 metres because of a tapering policy, then suddenly two 300 metre towers get approved one block to the west, making that entire effort seem incredibly short sighted and pointless. And I know that Mirvish Gehry was a unique circumstance, but that's my point exactly - over time new circumstances arise and what was once considered the traditional height ridge will change over time. Why are we fighting it?
Parkdalian
Senior Member
Of course rules will be broken in the future. Does this mean we shouldn't set rules now? Just let people put a 200 m tower in the middle of a street of single family homes? That seems uglier, tbh. The cities that people love - Paris, NY and London - have been shaped enormously by planning regulations.
Rules will always seem plodding and pointless to the free-spirited types, but as Interchange says, we set rules so that it minimizes chaos. Will the rules change, be broken, be rendered pointless? Of course. But we still need to set them. At the very least, so that we have a benchmark to show what should be done, instead.
Rules will always seem plodding and pointless to the free-spirited types, but as Interchange says, we set rules so that it minimizes chaos. Will the rules change, be broken, be rendered pointless? Of course. But we still need to set them. At the very least, so that we have a benchmark to show what should be done, instead.
Ramako
Moderator
Read my post again. I never said that there shouldn't be rules. I was speaking specifically about height (not density or setback rules, which would still apply), and only within a defined "downtown" zone, not a suburban area full of single family homes.