Toronto Cube Lofts | ?m | 6s | Neilas | RAW Design

Andrew, yes, there are actually several buildings like this. Someone has already mentioned Moose Factory, and I will throw in the Gardiner Museum and 48 Heathdale Road as well. It's not so much that it is "new", but that it is beautiful. It is really "new" only in the sense that it is being applied to a lowrise commercial block.
 
The residents will be able to look across at 816a College, to where Babel and his art school friends rented a large second floor space above White Rose Billiards and subdivided it into living spaces in the early 1970's. As more of us moved into the commune the rent fell - we were paying about $40 a month each at one point. In those days there were no trendy bistros or bars in that part of town - just stores for working class Italian immigrants and a few hangouts such as the Sicilian Ice Cream Parlour where we rested to regain our composure between laughing gas parties.
 
Do I spy with my little eye a driveway off College to the right of the blown up rendering? Somewhat nasty surprise, that...oh well.
 
andreapalladio,

I think densification is still an appropriate term even if the number of suites does not change dramatically in this instance. I would assume perhaps two or so new units are being added. However, this is a predominantly low-rise neighbourhood so traditionally larger living spaces would otherwise need to displace land horizontally. The fact they are stacked is a form of densification because the alternative would see only 3 or so town homes built.

Incidentally this is one of the few places in the city where i have seen building owners add storeys to existing main street buildings. A hideous fourth storey addition of residential units was added to a building on the same stretch last year.
 
Though on side streets people have been creating monster homes that way, all over the city, for years.
 
Nice!

This is a very exciting project. I hope that the "Toronto style" evolves into something that more closely resembles this; it has more flair without pandering to ornamentation.

Kind of reminds me of favelas:

favela.jpg


Of course, in our case, the beehive-like densification is architecturally designed, and not the organic work of thousands of rural migrants.
 
The overhang might be rather alarming for the people living in the house next door.
 
The comparison with Habitat is interesting - the windows in N-Blox are so much bigger. And the extent to which this nominally spare and minimalist building can be transformed into a "decorative" one will depend entirely on the willingness of the residents to invite views into their homes, and the decor they choose. These people will be on stage, on show, as surely as the students in the National Ballet School are. As a peaceloving democracy - not a warlike culture under siege - I think Torontonians who buy in this building can carry this thing off with panache - without having their blinds drawn shut most of the time in a defensive posture. Buildings like this demand compliance: furniture blocking the windows would ruin the effect. Only those who have totally bought into the Wallpaper* lifestyle need live here.
 
On that note, I noticed this morning that some poor slob on the 2d floor of Spire has a cheap-o wooden futon/sofa, one of those carpeted cat scratcher pole things, and a speaker for a surround sound system. Oy.
 
If it were a faux "artists' loft" building he could claw back those clutter demerit points by setting up an easel and canvas and displaying his artist bona fides.
 
Beauty doesn't just happen - a decision was made to create it, and N-Blox is the result. I doubt if densification was ever the aim - it is a labour of love and the high prices reflect the need to pay for those priorities.

If they'd wanted dense, they'd have bought up properties next door and built tall. But this project is about being a good neighbour and fitting in, which is the philosophical underpinning of Toronto Style - which is based on a design vocabulary that evolved in the early 1970's when alternatives ( Spadina, blockbusting, etc. ) were rejected - the Market Square model prevailing rather than the Robarts Library one if you like. Toronto continues that urban journey through projects such as this one, and there is a clear link.
 
This project is pretty impressive.

Isn't there a similarly scaled project being constructed on Roncesvalles (or somewhere thereabout)? I thought I remembered seeing something on this forum about a 6-8 storey condo with townhouse-sized units, also done in a clean, modernist aesthetic, but I couldn't find reference to it in the site backlog.

Regardless, I think this project is raising the bar for architectural verve and providing us with a great example of a housing typology I would like to see more of in this city - mid-rise, small-footprint projects with larger and more interesting units. While this project is clearly targeted at a high-income demographic, as a prototype I think it's an interesting way to create dense, family-friendly housing in the city.

If I'm reading the census right, nuclear families are still the demographic we're failing to provide for in the city.
 
"On that note, I noticed this morning that some poor slob on the 2d floor of Spire has a cheap-o wooden futon/sofa, one of those carpeted cat scratcher pole things, and a speaker for a surround sound system. Oy."

LOL. I saw them setting up their apartment the night they moved in (I also live in the building). I was struck by the furniture, but just as bad is the complete lack of privacy of that apartment. When you are walking up Church st you can see right into their apartment, and in fact you can probably see what they are watching on TV. I hope they pull the shades down at some point. Not cool.
Apologies for digressing from the topic
 
You're not digressing at all, RJR123. Buildings such as Spire and N-Blox are designed for people with an "I've got nothing to hide" approach to life that welcomes security cameras in every public space and invites the eyes of the world into their homes. Their sense of personal taste is always on display and creates the decorative motifs of the building, and the aesthetic status of Spire and N-Blox will stand or fall, in part, because of them.

To pull down the shades would be a sign of old faux-gey-ism, a sign that proto-Cheddingtonistas had taken up residence and are harbouring Louis XV furniture or worse.
 
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