Planning at Distillery

[RJR123]

The point is that it's a mixed neighbourhood. There are single family homes a stone's throw from soaring towers, and it works out fine. The neighbourhood is extremely mixed in terms of density, and is one of the most viable (and premium priced) areas in town.

 

[alklay]

There are residential neighbourhoods just to the south but the Minto towers are not in the middle of the neighbourhood or in the middle of lowrises (as can be seen by this photo, thanks to caltrane74)

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[RJR123]

It's a mid- and high-rise district directly abutting a low rise/single-family home district. It's a mix of densities and it works.

 

[alklay]

No one is talking about abutting buildings blocks away. We are talking about tall buildings inside a lowrise district.

 

[RJR123]

Which is exactly how successful neighbourhoods such as Yonge/Eg evolved. Taller buildings being built amongst low-rise and single family housing (much to the chagrin of locals at the time, I'm sure) which breeds further density, and the rest follows.

 

[alklay]

Tall buildings along major avenues, blocks from residential neighbourhoods, is about 1000 times different than this situation. If you think that small residential homes directly on Yonge Street, beside Minto towers, is something that is desireable, or even sustainable (for the small residential homes anyway), then I cannot convince you of anything.

This is not even mentioning the historic nature of the distillery buildings and area.

And let me repeat this for the 8th time: tall buildings do not equal the only form (or even the best form) of density. The heart of Paris (or Florence, etc) is proof. And no one is arguing that the heart of Paris needs some good point towers for density sake.

 

[Jayomatic]

What everyone is saying though is that Yonge & Eglinton wasn't all these 2 story buildings and then someone decided to plunk the Yonge & Eg center directly on top of it. Yonge and Eglinton has variation and the density lowers the closer to the lower density you go. There is an evolution, unlike the distillery.

 

[RJR123]

The Distillery District is hardly some bucolic residential neighbourhood. There's a handful of pretty lame apartment buildings there, along with a commercial district that is alive on weekends only. I certainly don't think that some well-designed point towers bringing in some much-needed residents are going to lead to the downfall of the neighbourhood.

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

^Not too mention that until developers decided to enter the neighborhood and invest in it the district was an empty and rotting collection of buildings that no one else wanted anything to do with. Maybe the city never should have let it be turned into a shopping mall and instead preserved it wholesale as a historical district. But it doesn't matter now because that time has long since passed. It is the same as with the roundhouse. It sat waiting for something more for 15 years. Then when someone came along and wanted to put it too use people cried out against it. Just like the roundhouse, where those who wanted to see its primary use become a train museum should have gotten there act a long time ago, so too should those who would have rather seen this district free and clear of highrises in any form.

This is one case where I think the developer should have the right too go ahead. Without them having taken a risk and investing in the area in the first place this debate wouldn't even be taking place because the buildings would have more likely than not still be left rotting and empty. A few towers will not hurt the area. And given that the developer probably had the intention of building high profit high rises on available space when they first starting investing in the area it seems only fair they should be able to do so.

Maybe if those who have an interest in better preserving historical areas want to do so something productive, and not just reactive, they should look at other parts of the city that are all but abandoned and develop a workable plan for them now instead of fighting developers 10 or 15 years down the road.

 

[RJR123]

Exactly. As I stated on an earlier post, before these developers were there it was a derilect area. These developers took a complete risk and rescued it from further destruction and have every right to continue to exercise their rights to further develop the area. Thankfully they are producing high quality architecture, unlike the developments that were built there in the 90s.
Where was the city, the preservationists, and all the others who lament the changes that are happening in this area? Oh, that's right....doing nothing.

 

[Edward Skira]

What everyone is saying though is that Yonge & Eglinton wasn't all these 2 story buildings and then someone decided to plunk the Yonge & Eg center directly on top of it. Yonge and Eglinton has variation and the density lowers the closer to the lower density you go. There is an evolution, unlike the distillery.

Yonge and Eglinton was indeed all 2 storey buildings along Yonge and single family off of Yonge when the subway arrived. All those tall buildings then sprouted up within a decade or two. Towers in the park both north and south of Eglinton east of Yonge sit directly across from single family homes. And some single family homes that refused to sell still out still sit amongst those towers. Hasn't hurt the area one bit.

 

[CanadianNational]

The notion that because the market - or business - is useful in one area that it should have a unfettered hand in others, is ridiculous. It is not as if the people who manage the Distillery area are doing us a favour we have to repay by investing in the area - they did it - and are doing it - to make money.
It's their gamble - nothing I'm about to bow down before, nor be glad to see them go to outlandish ends to achieve.
That said, I'm glad they have done such a good job so far, and that so much has been carefully handled. However, now it seems they are quite likely undoing their own good work.
What made the Distillery Area worth salvaging and investing in was it's historical, integral uniqueness. There are many layers to this site - historical, formal, atmospheric, aesthetic, emotional...and although I am not against the intelligent and respectful insertion of modernism into the area, these new developments seem to intrude into the delicate visual and interpretive makeup of the area, and confuse it.
Modernism does not have to operate a such a gigantic scale to be well done, turn a profit, or provide an enjoyable counterpoint to the surrounding fabric.
It seems to me that we are on the verge of destroying the area in order to save it.
Partly, too, this thread seems to me to be suffused with the anxiety we all feel about a part of Toronto's nature we'd have like to be seen put to rest - the ongoing need this city seems to have to demolish, encroach on, or treat disrespectfully irreplacable and important historical buildings. With the historical board still unable to protect buildings that matter, and the modernist legacy of wholesale demolition of historical stock still just at our heels (The Concourse Building being a recent example), is it any wonder we're feeling some dismay about these towers going up where they are? "Why can't we just leave it alone?" seems to be a well-earned sentiment here - especially when we have a history of tearing down valuable architecture to build anew - even when the parking lots are right next door. Toronto has a practically neurotic need to impose the future on the past - however destructively - as part of our continuous war, first against nature, then other urban competitors. Like all neurosis, it's not rooted in reality. At least not anymore.
I'm all for juxtaposition, surprise, ye olde complexity and contradiction, and even things more bumptious.
But I'm not fond of bulk-store cash-grab architecture pushing aside other more ephemeral pleasures, with that desperate air it has of being a bulwark against some ever-present crisis. A spectre that I'm really tired of having held over our heads in this city.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Being a designer, though not an architect, I find the two new towers interesting from the point of view of aA's stylistic/aesthetic evolution. Given the occasional charge hereabouts that they're "only" producing "boxes", they nonetheless produce new towers that are different enough from their previous work to always be distinctive. These two new buildings are stylistic siblings, yet they're also different from the firstborn tower that is rising just to the east of them. As we see in aA's design for St.Michael's College, they roll their various visual themes over from one development to the next, leaving some ideas behind completely and adopting new elements, changing their expressive vocabulary as they go. It'll be interesting to see the degree to which elements of, or at least the spirit of, their new curvy condo tower in Holland are incorporated into the creative mix that yields future Toronto buildings by Clewes and di Castri.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

As for point towers, they are certainly more elegant and cast less of a shadow than fat monolithic stubs like those pseudo New York (a la Chrysler Building) monstrosities in North York.

They look monstrously good from the 401 and at night. Outside of this forum, I've only ever heard people (including residents and neighbours) compliment them. They'd look niftier if they were sleeker, but not every building can be an A+...nor should every building be an A+.

edit - One parallel between the condos going up there along Sheppard and down around the Distillery/West Don Lands is that the tall point towers get shoved off to sites adjacent to highways or rail corridors. There'll be nice 8 storey buildings along Sheppard or Front, creating nice streetwalls and it'll all be nice, but no matter how nice it may all be, it could look very silly with 20, 30, 40+ storey towers behind them, tucking the densest plots away somewhere that "respects their low-rise neighbours" or some other nonsense. As if people won't notice the evil tall buildings that way...

edit - WDL's point towers will be more than 3 times as high as the bulk of the neighbourhood and the Distillery towers will be, what, 15-20 times as high as the distillery itself next door? The height or the massing or the clash of modern vs old isn't really the issue since *anything* will be "out of character" unless it's a quaint <5 storey all-brick structure and the only "appropriate" option may be to build a fake addition with 12 expensive lofts up top and 3 chic galleries below all surrounded by red brick everything (at least that will improve its tourist attractiveness...condos will not). So that leaves the new condos themselves - they're actually quite decent...but I do find their placement rather suspect. Thousands upon thousands of people will soon be living within a few blocks, so the argument that the District needs to support itself with permanent residents in physically adjacent buildings essentially inside the historic site - or that the developers deserve to be entitled to build it there - is rubbish. It's frustrating that the only way to save the site is to sacrifice part of it. The city could prop up the Distillery businesses for a couple of years while the 10,000 or so residential units getting built a stone's throw away go up. At the end of the day, though, I'm kind of 10% mildly outraged, and 90% indifferent.

and another edit - hey if Leon's or a rail museum takes off in the Roundhouse, maybe Steamwhistle could relocate to a faux Distillery addition...

 

[Junglab]

The notion that because the market - or business - is useful in one area that it should have a unfettered hand in others, is ridiculous. It is not as if the people who manage the Distillery area are doing us a favour we have to repay by investing in the area - they did it - and are doing it - to make money.

Money talks... and we all know what the certain item which does the walking is. If it were not so, you yourself would be able to do all the things you aspire to. And what is more, the city could actually afford to hire some planners to clear up that ridiculous backlog they've got, and actually dictate context rather than merely respond to it.

That said, I'm glad they have done such a good job so far, and that so much has been carefully handled. However, now it seems they are quite likely undoing their own good work.

However, it is only now, AFTER they have put in the work and money which evelated the area from a no-man's-land to a trendy destination that it even registers on anyone's radar. It is ever thus - someone else (or the city, if it ever has the cash) puts in the work, while armchair critics imagine what they would do, if money were no object. And yet, it is.