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John Bentley Mays on Architectural Competition Runners-up

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AlvinofDiaspar

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From the Globe:

THE PERFECT HOUSE: ARCHITECTURE
A round of applause for the runners-up
Recent offerings for projects in Mississauga and Regent Park are worthy of kudos

JOHN BENTLEY MAYS

Along with a winner, an important architectural competition usually produces a short list of runner-up proposals that are worthy of notice, but rarely get much attention. This column is about a couple of eminent also-rans in two recent Toronto area contests for the perfect high-rise house: the Absolute tower competition in Mississauga, and last year's race for a tall building design to kick off the $1-billion overhaul of Regent Park.

As everyone who reads newspapers surely knows -- the competition was one of the most vigorously reported architectural events in Toronto history -- the victor in Mississauga last month was the curvaceous skyscraper by Chinese-American architect Yansong Ma. Mr. Ma's swervy project fully deserved the top prize. It was bold and delightful, and its styling reflects the most innovative contemporary thinking about the ways tall buildings can make strong marks on the urban skyline.

That said, I would have been just as happy to see the eccentric tower by Michel Rojkind, of rojkind arquitectos in Mexico City, rise over the suburban sprawl of Toronto's biggest urban neighbour. Mr. Rojkind's short-listed project featured an elegantly twisted frame draped by a net-like grid that camouflaged (rather than expressed) the regular pattern of condominium apartments inside.

Like Yansong Ma's design, but with even more punch and muscular drama, this project proclaimed open war on the right-angled Modernist condo slab, and strong determination to be an argumentative, intelligently pugnacious landmark in the twenty-first century cityscape. It's a tribute to the developer-led jury of this competition that such an assertive design got serious thought for the Absolute commission. And it's a testament to the value of such architectural contests that Toronto got to see and think about more than one attractive vision for a key urban spot.

What happened in Mississauga was a beauty pageant, with contestants competing on the basis of great looks, swimsuit profiles, runway oomph. Regent Park was an entirely different kind of thing. Sustainability and utility counted heavily, and pizzazz not much at all. The issue there was to make a significant start on a multi-use community development that will take many years to complete, and that will eventually provide a variety of housing options for Torontonians -- market-rate condominiums, seniors' residences, rentals geared to income and so on.

The winning design, by the well-known Toronto office architectsAlliance, met the high expectations of the site's developer (Toronto Community Housing Corp.). It also promised to do very well the job that was required: the provision of a sleek contemporary residential complex with social conscience, but without the appearance of twentieth-century social housing.

Among the proposals that did not make it across the finish line, the one by Kearns/Mancini and Montgomery/Sisam surely deserves honourable mention. This thoughtful scheme combined a 25-storey stack of senior citizens' apartments and a seven-storey, street-side building for family dwellings.

On every floor of the tower, the seniors' suites were arrayed along an internal "street," each ending in a spacious "porch" with plantings and a panoramic view of the city. (This system of streets and porches aloft was criticized by the jury, I understand, for its reminder of "streets in the sky" -- open-ended corridors in public projects that, along with much else, went wrong after a few years, and helped give idealistic post-war social housing projects their reputation for crime and violence.)

The visual effect of the podium for two-level family units and the little skyscraper would have made a pleasing trend-setter for the future development of Regent Park: a light, bright residence, with a clean-lined profile. What's most notable about this arrangement was not its exterior styling or interior arrangements, however, but its mindful environmentalism and high efficiency.

Energy for heating and cooling, for example, would come from a shrouded wind turbine atop the tower, and solar thermal panels on the lower building's roof. The result: elimination of wasteful industrial-age technologies such as furnaces and boilers, air conditioners and gas-powered climate mechanisms. Rainwater and "grey" waste water (from sinks and such) would be captured and put to work keeping the numerous plantings alive, and also serving to flush toilets.

The purpose of all these environmental refinements was to make the whole project less energy-greedy, less wasteful and less noisy than twentieth-century building schemes were. It's good to live in time when such goals are being celebrated and furthered, not merely by activists on the leading edges of culture, but by mainline architectural firms and their clients -- even if it can mean (as in the case of the Regent Park competition) a certain lack of high stylishness in the final proposals. But if it's high heels and snazzy dresses you want -- well, you can always go to Mississauga.

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