Toronto Living Shangri-La Toronto | 214.57m | 66s | Westbank | James Cheng

Most of the items you listed are actually 'cheaper' than glass and steel, specially if one picks a high end glass with a curtain wall construction. Windows are actually more expensive than most stones and certainly more expensive than precast and brick.

So why is using glass so 'cheap' again?
 
Well, yes, high-end commercial curtainwall is expensive and can be nice, but the cheapo residential windowwall going up all over the place really *is* crap.
 
Big Daddy said:
That's it?? You are content with glass on every building? I'm disappointed - I would have thought a group as interested in buildings as this group is would have higher expectations of our architects and developers.
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"That's it?"

It's a question - to you! What should it be clad with?

Did you see anywhere where I suggested glass on everything?

Do you guys ever look at these buildings or just compare height? (perhaps you're compensating for something?)
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Is this indicative of your complete inability to name a material that would satisfy your otherwise obscure and unstated tastes?

Rather than being an ass, try answer the question. It's a really simple question, too.
 
Hydrogen said:
....Rather than being an ass, try answer the question. It's a really simple question, too.
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Big Daddy said:
There is granite, precast concrete, cast stone, prestressed wall panels, Limestone, etc. Did you ever look at Scotia plaza or FCP? An even more interesting effect would be to combine a stone or precast exterior with glass.
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alklay said:
You still have not answered the question: if not glass and steel, what? Cork?
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My mistake, your right, I did respond like an ass - Cork is a better solution.
 
Things other than glass that we could clad Shangri-la in:

- Corrugated cardboard
- Aluminum foil
- Drywall
- Vinyl siding
- Spandex
- Caked mud
- Strangely blue titanium
- Pristine white marble squares
- Spikes
- Paper Mache
- Felt
- Precast concrete
- Bamboo
- Radar-absorbing composites
- Group of Seven paintings from the Thompson collection
- Ducks
- Saran Wrap
- Pillows
- Land mines
- A building-sized canvas with a rendering of the Shangri-La painted on it
- Asphalt
- Recycled two-litre pop bottles
- A very large blue tarp
- Advertising
 
Sir Novelty Fashion said:
Things other than glass that we could clad Shangri-la in:

- Corrugated cardboard
- Aluminum foil
- Drywall
- Vinyl siding
- Spandex
- Caked mud
- Strangely blue titanium
- Pristine white marble squares
- Spikes
- Paper Mache
- Felt
- Precast concrete
- Bamboo
- Radar-absorbing composites
- Group of Seven paintings from the Thompson collection
- Ducks
- Saran Wrap
- Pillows
- Land mines
- A building-sized canvas with a rendering of the Shangri-La painted on it
- Asphalt
- Recycled two-litre pop bottles
- A very large blue tarp
- Advertising
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I would go with the ducks covered in saran wrap on the tower and use the land mines to cover the base.

Ok back on topic now…
 
Big Daddy said:
Do you guys ever look at these buildings or just compare height? (perhaps you're compensating for something?)
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i like how you're just itching to get into real ad honimen attacks. why beat around the "bush", Mr. er, "Big" Daddy?...just let it rip.
 
Big Daddy said:
There is granite, precast concrete, cast stone, prestressed wall panels, Limestone, etc. Did you ever look at Scotia plaza or FCP? An even more interesting effect would be to combine a stone or precast exterior with glass.
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- Granite might be nice, but not with with Shangri-La's shape, it would look pretty boring and would be kind of a waste.
- You're saying this city has too much steel and glass, and instead we need some precast concrete for variety? Have you ever been to Toronto?
- Cast stone is something you find on suburban cookie-cutter mini-mansion castle homes.
- Aren't prestressed wall panels mostly found on industrial structures? Not something I think you'd want to clad a tower with.
- Limestone would be awesome if Shangri-La were designed in a beaux-arts/gothic/deco fashion.

- Tip: using FCP as an example of ideal building cladding will convince absolutely nobody. Carrera marble is universally regarded as a bad choice for cladding as it is very porous, so it absorbs pollution like crazy and loses structural integrity, which makes it hazardous. It has failed as tower cladding in Toronto, Chicago, and probably elsewhere.
-Combine stone (? having a hard time picturing this not looking terrible -- I'd be interested to see an example) or precast exterior with glass -- again, I'm not convinced you've actually seen Toronto outside of pictures of the central business district.
 
Spikes! The whole building must be covered in spikes. It is so obvious now. Why didn't we see this earlier? Spikes are the answer. Thanks SNF for this.

Or do we dare take spikes one step further and shell the entire structure in Hazel-inspired gargoyles? Just imagine gargoyles jetting out from every direction up the entire exterior of the tower. Gargoyles, gargoyles gargoyles. There will be no windows, no steel and no pre-cast... just gargoyles. Big ones, littles ones, ones that ride on bikes.

But if we want to get expensive, and I mean pricey, why not go the Marvel route and fortify the entire building with adamatium? That's the strongest alloy ever imagined. Or we can bombard the tower with gamma rays to give it a nice green glow. That'd be something different.

Of all the ideas listed in this post none seem worse than stone or pre-cast with glass.
 
Big Daddy said:
Do you guys ever look at these buildings or just compare height? (perhaps you're compensating for something?)
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Nope, just the height. This thread is actually just 40 pages of us converting the height of Shangr-La into various obscure metrics.
 
If we could back up a bit, I made the comment:

Big Daddy said:
I agree completely - just drive past City Place and see if any of these buildings stand out. it’s like a wall of glass and aluminum - no individuality. In ten years people will look at this and wonder how the city could let this happen to such a key piece of real estate. (Anyone remember St. James Town)

Why doesn’t anyone use a different exterior building material? Must everything be on the cheap?
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My point is, other than the “Uptownâ€, virtually all the new buildings are clad in glass (I recognize that glass can look great and be expensive, but very few are using glass like the Ritz) wouldn’t it be nice if some of them could use a different exterior material. St. Jamestown is all precast concrete balconies and looks terrible. City Place is ALL Glass and while the Individual renders looked good, they are lost when twelve or so very similar buildings are clustered together.

If there were a few developers that had the courage (and the budget) to consider a different building material (and yes there are other materials available other than cork and marble) I think Toronto would benefit tremendously.
 
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