Toronto St Lawrence Market North | 25.3m | 5s | City of Toronto | Rogers Stirk Harbour

[interchange42]

To make it a little easier to consider the designs, here are 3 images per finalist, nice and big:
(Want them smaller? See the version of this post on the home page.)

Blue:

Green:

Orange:

Red:

Yellow:

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[yyzer]

orange is looking even better, imo...I like red too, but it doesn't seem to reflect the neighbourhood somehow - seems more Vancouverish to me.....

the others; green - not bad at all, blue- horrible, yellow- meh...

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Strangely enough, I find red the most "contextual" of all the projects - it almost looks like it's always been there and while interesting to look at, doesn't scream "look at me, look at me!" like orange does. I do think the upkeep argument against red to be bit of a red herring - there is nothing that suggest to me the barrel of orange would be particularly easily to clean after the evitable pigeon poop episode with all those overhangs from the window cutouts, for example.

AoD

 

[Filip]

Red by far... First time I see myself saying this but I enjoy its 'don't look at me just enjoy how well I fit in'-ness.

The materials look top notch, the ground floor market fits and the atrium framing St Lawrence hall is for me the best part of this plan.

 

[condovo]

Orange without question. It belongs in the big city. Red belongs on Granville Island.

Twenty years hence, the elements and inevitable lack of upkeep would have little effect on the contained form of the Orange scheme while the 'assembled' Red scheme would be seriously degraded.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

I'm also split between Red and Orange. I really like the roof top garden idea.

 

[grey]

I am appalled by the warm reception Red is receiving. You should all be ashamed! <

>

I'm guessing yellow is KPMG. Looks very 2002.

Orange is neat. I love the rooftop feature. The courtroom gallery really channels Gehry's AGO reno. Its relationship with Market Hall looks well-considered. I like this one a lot.

Green is contextual to a fault and aesthetically blah in an early 1990s pomo way. Sort of reminds me of the Mississauga library building, or Ryerson's Robocop building.

Blue looks like something ultra contemporary from Germany (awesome). Bizarre as a submission for this purpose, but but I hope Toronto gets more like this. This is what Corus Quay should have been like.



edit: I cannot look at Red without giggling. It looks like a steampunk chinatown maritime train museum. It looks like future Shangai from the upcoming game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. What's that thing on the front? A warp core? Come on...

 

[ponyboy]

although I dislike the rest of the proposal, the covered outdoor market of the yellow proposal looks really good. I like the orange and red proposals best, but for the orange there are no renders of the covered outdoor market in the photos above (they are in the pdfs though).

 

[interchange42]

Finally, a little time to actually weigh in on this one:

Yellow: This one most cleanly and simply (and therefore best) addresses the public square to the west of the building. Too bad we don't have more exterior renders: it makes me wonder what they are trying to hide, and leaves me unable to properly assess this entry.

Red: I get the Granville Island critique... but that's exactly why I think this does belong here in the city, as this area should be our Granville Island. As our Farmers' Market, the North Market should have a granola-y feel. I like the glass elevators and staircase facing Front Street and the Saint Lawrence Market: the movement of the elevators and the eyes on the square, even while riding vertically away from it, will further animate this space. I like the wooden louvres and recessed glazed exterior of the building: they will make for constantly changing facades depending on the daylight conditions or lack thereof. I love the interior view through to St. Lawrence Hall; it is easily the best of the interior designs. Good openings to the public square to the west.

Orange: This is the most playful exterior with its partial barrel shape, randomized punch-out windows, and colours. I like very much the colouration of cladding panels, reflecting the colour of leaves at different times of the year. I am not sure why the south end would not sport a similar treatment: I think that more of the same would be more interesting than the simple glass field that is proposed. This design does not take advantage of the public square to the west as well.

Green: This looks like an older building that has been completely overhauled to look more modern... and has too many fussy details as a consequence. While Orange has details galore too, they seem to be better integrated in its case, while here they feel piled on. It does feel like too slavish a copy of the St Lawrence Market building too, and one that has not improved upon it despite the doodads. No idea of the interior feel.

Blue: I like sheds as much as the next guy, which is to say, not very much. Why are they pushing the shed thing? Who is this supposed to get on-board? I am unaware of a pro-shed movement in town. I also like modern, out-there, wow-factor architecture as much as the next guy, so too bad this is not it. There is no delight in this thing; it look turtle-ish, which is to say heavy and sluggish, it won't animate the square to the west whatsoever, nor the Front Street facade, nor the Jarvis Street facade, where it looks like a Star Trek: TNG phaser. The renderfolk in the south window of the courts section can't even see into the building from where they are, making the courts seem inaccessible and oppressive. It's hard to imagine that there were 25 designs that were worse than this one. How did this possibly make it as a finalist?

So, Red, then Orange, but maybe Yellow on par with Orange if I knew what it looked like, followed by none of the others please!

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[Urban Shocker]

Yesterday, I spoke to one of the stakeholders in the decision making process - who rents space at the North Market most weeks - and was informed that the "Green" team's design is the only one which maintains the mandated amount of floor space equivalent to what the market has now. The "Red" team's design apparently cuts back on that space the most. The point this person made, somewhat obviously perhaps, is that the chosen design willl have to conform to the needs of these users eventually.

It'll be nice to see a winning design that eliminates that row of offices ( a "Parent resources" kindergarten, offices for the Market, and the health food store that recently left ) that shaves 20/25 feet of usable market vendor space off the entire west side of the building and limits access points to it.

 

[Jayomatic]

edit: I cannot look at Red without giggling. It looks like a steampunk chinatown maritime train museum. It looks like future Shangai from the upcoming game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. What's that thing on the front? A warp core? Come on...

Have you never seen any of Richard Rogers work? This proposal contains multiple references to his style.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Blue: I like sheds as much as the next guy, which is to say, not very much. Why are they pushing the shed thing? Who is this supposed to get on-board? I am unaware of a pro-shed movement in town.

I'd say it's more of a Duck than a Decorated Shed.

" Robert Venturi draws the basic conclusion that all architecture is either what he calls a Decorated Shed or a Duck. A Decorated Shed is what the commercial strip is, "the $10,000 building with the $100,000 sign." He describes functional boring architecture, neutral to the point of being difficult to recall, but that carries a surface alive with appliqué ornamental symbols, the function of which is to evoke various emotional responses. This is historical architecture; the Renaissance is full of Decorated Sheds. If you try to imagine what a Vegas casino must look like from the back, the term Decorated Shed should become abundantly clear. The other type of architecture, the Duck, is a building that has so reduced itself in importance in comparison to its sign that it has actually become the sign. The classic example for Venturi is a roadside structure on Long Island that is shaped like a duck (thus the name) but any such sculptural, freestanding building will do. Chartres is a Duck, we are told (although Venturi admits arguing with others who said it was a Shed). Most Modern architecture are basically Ducks, but don't admit to being Ducks. The real hypocrisy for Venturi was that "...modern architecture always demonstrated what it was by setting itself against what it wasn't." But a duck is a duck."

"Blue" team's market building Duck is more of a Bud The Spud.

 

[greenleaf]

Yesterday, I spoke to one of the stakeholders in the decision making process - who rents space at the North Market most weeks - and was informed that the "Green" team's design is the only one which maintains the mandated amount of floor space equivalent to what the market has now. The "Red" team's design apparently cuts back on that space the most. The point this person made, somewhat obviously perhaps, is that the chosen design willl have to conform to the needs of these users eventually.

Thanks for the follow up on usable space of the designs, US. That's unfortunate about the Red proposal.

I don't know how many people on the board visited St. Lawrence Hall this past weekend, but looking at the models there was extremely helpful in understanding each proposals relationship to the neighbourhood (as opposed to the artistic renders we see here on the thread).

I know they are just models, but when viewing them, the Yellow and Blue proposals just didn't look or feel right in context. The Green and Orange proposals looked very comfortable in the surroundings, which is not surprising considering their matching built form to the South Market. The Red proposal somehow managed to bridge St. Lawrence Hall and the South Market, and the rest of the immediate neighbourhood in its own unique way. It felt like a central focal point for the neighbourhood: a complimentary, yet subtlely iconic civic landmark without being terribly ostentatious about it.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Note that Rogers Stirk Harbour has a history of building courthouses as well - eg. European Court of Human Rights, Antwerp Courthouse and Bordeaux Courthouse - and the latter also had extensive use of wood in the structure.

edit: I cannot look at Red without giggling. It looks like a steampunk chinatown maritime train museum. It looks like future Shangai from the upcoming game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. What's that thing on the front? A warp core? Come on...

What's wrong with that? Toronto has very few good examples from the Technoromantic school of Hi-Tech.

AoD

 

[UrbanVigor]

I love Red. Though I did consider the fact that a lot of useable space would be eliminated. However, the trade off is that it completely opens up the NW corner of Front & Jarvis and would contribute to the neighbourhood on a grander scale whether you're across the street or inside the market. I wonder if the space can be utilized efficiently so that all user group's needs would be met? Or if spill off can be handled on the west side/Market Square? The consideration of the St. Lawrence Hall is outstanding and from all corners of the market it connects the neighbourhood.

All the others have a Behemoth quality to them. I do like all the natural light provided by Green, but the corner of the building clearly intends to use up every available space (as the current market does) and create just a little room for pedestrians at the intersection. Would prefer to see the corner opened up. Orange manages this. The front feels more open and the rooftop park is brilliant.

Red first followed by Orange, IMHO.