Sometimes a month can feel like forever when you're watching a construction site grow. When projects are in their early stages, and every form has to be built specially for each floor, progress can be difficult to measure if you're passing by each day. Once a building makes it out of the ground and past the podium floors however, get ready for a growth spurt: the typical floors of a condo or office tower, where the walls and services are in the same place floor after floor, can be replicated every 4 or 5 business days.

One of the buildings we have been watching on a monthly basis is the Alterra Group's Post House Condos. This development a few short blocks from Toronto's Saint Lawrence Market will eventually be 21 storeys tall. We have been there to see it grow from a hole in the ground, and progress up to now has been about a floor a month. Things have suddenly changed. 

Post House as seen from George Street, image by Craig White

At the end of August, Post House had not quite completed its first typical floor, the third, while parts of the fourth floor were just getting started. In the four weeks since however, the seventh floor is now complete and the forms are going in for the eighth floor.

Post House as seen from George Street, image by Craig White

The additional end-of-September height means that Post House can now be seen from new vantage points, so a walk around the site provides the opportunity to add the following new sylvan perspective on the work; this pedestrian laneway connecting two neighbouring George Brown College buildings has this view of Post House's southeast corner.

In behind: Post House as seen from George Brown College, image by Craig White

The walkway includes small windows where you can catch a glimpse of work at ground level. This view through the site looks down Post House's driveway, making the turn to the left to head down into the garage. George Street is the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel in the image below.

Post House's driveway and garage entry, image by Craig White

Another George Brown pedestrian lane angle; this one looks at Post House's northeast corner.

In behind: Post House as seen from George Brown College, image by Craig White

It's the next two images that best show the dramatic growth of Post House over the last month. The first shot is from the end of August, the second one is from the same perspective at the end of September.

Post House at the end of August: just getting into the typical floors, image by Craig White

Post House at the end of September: a rapid rise, image by Craig White

You'll notice above that starting with the third floor, each floor is the same. That allows construction workers to disassemble forms once the concrete has cured sufficiently, move them out and up one level, where they are reassembled again before the next pour. The process of building the tower can now go quite quickly. You'll see above as well that some shoring poles remain on the fourth and fifth floors. While concrete attains the majority of its eventual total strength quite quickly, the poles are left for a couple weeks while the curing continues. The poles have been removed, in the image above, below the fourth floor. Only the poles which secure the safety fence around the perimeter of the floor plate still remain on the third level.

We will be back again next month to check in on further progress at this Wallman Architects-designed building. In the meantime, if you want to know more about Post House, check out our rendering and information-laden dataBase file for Post House, linked below. Want to talk about it? Click on one of the associated dataBase threads, or leave your comment in the space provided on this page.