Hamilton 325 James Street North | 45.7m | 12s | Core Urban Inc. | Lintack Architects

innsertnamehere said:
The city exempts most new development downtown from daylight triangles, especially on a street intersection like this one which is highly urban with low vehicle speeds and volumes.
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Yeah I was thinking the low speed traffic on this one might be the reasoning for that.

Also yeah I do love the Loblaws design - the CN tower in the back is really what gives toronto its identity - we still need an identity -defining thing for our downtown. Best we've come up so far is a tower proposal on the pier that looks like a giant dirty smokestack.. I mean sure it defines hamilton.. but not in a positive way..
 
innsertnamehere said:
The city exempts most new development downtown from daylight triangles, especially on a street intersection like this one which is highly urban with low vehicle speeds and volumes.
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That's interesting to me, since while this street is typically slower because of it's design, both roads are technically 50km/h roads. I'd like to see the intersection tightened up, and truthfully I'd like to see no right turn onto James St N from Barton St W, or at least no right on red.

I'd also like to see the southwest corner sidewalk expanded. It's tiny.
 
Today:
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They're gonna have to work reallly carefully to remove that final part that's almost right up to that other house to avoid structural damage to it..

just finished watching the video.. I am surprised everyone mentioned the west area of the tower and the offset but not the north.. although there was mention of "slimming" the tower portion so perhaps that was a reference to that as well..

To summarize for those who don't wish to watch the whole thing, no daylight triangle comments although they did mention that the corner felt "tight" - lots of references to angular plane and wind studies.. and how the base felt too almost "grandiose" and tall for this area, not keeping into character with the existing area- they also wanted to keep the hotel or incorporate it in some way, although naturally we have seen this is not the case. They also wanted them to return once they had a more concrete feeling - there was also a desire for more storefronts , less lobby taking up big chunks of the interior space, covered parking space in the back, rooftop amenities as well as more individual storefronts for future adaptive reuse to keep the feeling of the heritage small stores feel of the streetscape.

All valid points to consider - you're basically plopping a core urban design into an area where there is no transition to this type of design - augusta and king had more grandiose buildings around it but this whole strip is mainly 3-4 story rowhouse type understated designs. Now it IS a corner lot which can give some leeway for a "signature" look but I think they have to be really careful about making a mistake like acclamation did with theirs, where the resulting look feels jarring with the rest of the streetscape.
 
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Chronamut said:
They're gonna have to work reallly carefully to remove that final part that's almost right up to that other house to avoid structural damage to it..

just finished watching the video.. I am surprised everyone mentioned the west area of the tower and the offset but not the north.. although there was mention of "slimming" the tower portion so perhaps that was a reference to that as well..

To summarize for those who don't wish to watch the whole thing, no daylight triangle comments although they did mention that the corner felt "tight" - lots of references to angular plane and wind studies.. and how the base felt too almost "grandiose" and tall for this area, not keeping into character with the existing area- they also wanted to keep the hotel or incorporate it in some way, although naturally we have seen this is not the case. They also wanted them to return once they had a more concrete feeling - there was also a desire for more storefronts , less lobby taking up big chunks of the interior space, covered parking space in the back, rooftop amenities as well as more individual storefronts for future adaptive reuse to keep the feeling of the heritage small stores feel of the streetscape.

All valid points to consider - you're basically plopping a core urban design into an area where there is no transition to this type of design - augusta and king had more grandiose buildings around it but this whole strip is mainly 3-4 story rowhouse type understated designs. Now it IS a corner lot which can give some leeway for a "signature" look but I think they have to be really careful about making a mistake like acclamation did with theirs, where the resulting look feels jarring with the rest of the streetscape.
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That first picture I posed was a guy carefully removing the brickwork almost attached to the house nextdoor.
 
Chris R. said:
That first picture I posed was a guy carefully removing the brickwork almost attached to the house nextdoor.
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Yeah that's why I commented - I could tell they left that part so that it could be done by hand.

Wish we had the updated render of this to show what the current design will be..
 
Chronamut said:
Yeah that's why I commented - I could tell they left that part so that it could be done by hand.

Wish we had the updated render of this to show what the current design will be..
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They may still be working on final design specs. If anything it will take up less space, so they don't really need to ask for an "permissions" since the larger current design is already approved.

I can't imagine the shoring and foundation work would be significantly different either.
 
Chris R. said:
They may still be working on final design specs. If anything it will take up less space, so they don't really need to ask for an "permissions" since the larger current design is already approved.

I can't imagine the shoring and foundation work would be significantly different either.
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I am just wondering how significantly they are changing the design. Esp. the podium. You could feel it in the design panel, and some even outright said it: "you have a history of great designs.. this one however.. neeeds a bit of work." I felt the exact same when I saw their design.

and of course I am secretly hoping they make the entire thing more symmetrical of course :p

also hoping if they do keep that podium design that they make the pez crenellations a bit more fancy hehe..
 
Chronamut said:
I am just wondering how significantly they are changing the design. Esp. the podium. You could feel it in the design panel, and some even outright said it: "you have a history of great designs.. this one however.. neeeds a bit of work." I felt the exact same when I saw their design.

and of course I am secretly hoping they make the entire thing more symmetrical of course :p

also hoping if they do keep that podium design that they make the pez crenellations a bit more fancy hehe..
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I have no idea of course, but it sounded from my chat with Steve about it that they wanted to add a bit more flourish to the brick work on the podium.

The design is similar to their Hughson/Augusta design with older style on bottom and more modern on top.

I don't think the podium will be changed substantially but I do think the top might be made more symmetric. I'm not personally concerned about the symmetry and think it looks largely okay, but I do think the upper portion could be made a bit more sleek and modern. I even think the podium could go up one more floor on the James/Barton corner to give a more similar look to the one on Hughson St.
 
Chris R. said:
I have no idea of course, but it sounded from my chat with Steve about it that they wanted to add a bit more flourish to the brick work on the podium.

The design is similar to their Hughson/Augusta design with older style on bottom and more modern on top.

I don't think the podium will be changed substantially but I do think the top might be made more symmetric. I'm not personally concerned about the symmetry and think it looks largely okay, but I do think the upper portion could be made a bit more sleek and modern. I even think the podium could go up one more floor on the James/Barton corner to give a more similar look to the one on Hughson St.
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I agree. I'd love to see some of those diamond stone patterns added too like the olympia club had. They'll probably use the same colour brick as both the augusta first one they built and the olympia club. Brick flourishing is great but I would also love to see them start to get a BIT more adventurous with their stone designs - still a lot of basic geometric shapes, it feels like they're trying to play it safe and not go "too" traditional. The cornice on their first augusta one seems to be the most adventurous theyve gone so far as far as say cornices go - and the arches on the one facing james as far as main floors go.

Of course, they're just getting started, and we all sorta wanna watch them "flex" their muscles a bit and show us what they've got :)

Older style on bottom with modern on top IS the way to go - pretty much every one that's been done this way has looked beautiful and it satisfies EVERYBODY as tall tower obsessed people just want tall glass towers they can see from far away and traditionalists like me are more concerned with the 3-6 story levels they see from street level - the experiment with modern on bottom and traditional on top.. left something to be desired.. like that one building close to the capitol theatre on king.. it's just kinda ehhhhhh.. I don't think they did that one, that was one of the old burlesque clubs.. I think it's convention space on the first floor now and studios on top..
 
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