mysteryman
Active Member
^ in a house!
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Dane
Active Member
^ or at The Ritz!
the kitchens are open to the space, just because its too damn small to put them anywhere else!
the kitchens are open to the space, just because its too damn small to put them anywhere else!
H
Hydrogen
Guest
Geez, how far do you want people to walk?
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
I personally like a kitchen which connects in some fashion to a living or family room. It makes the person (or people) preparing a meal, snacks, drinks etc. more inclusive with their guests or to the rest of the family. A kitchen as a separate room with four walls and a door is not very user friendly. In fact I think it's somewhat repressive. Kitchens in newer homes and condos are also designed much more attractively than in the past so it's not a space that necessarily needs to be hidden away behind four walls. With designer cabinets and appliances, backsplashes, granite countertops and a dishwasher to hide the offending food utensils after a meal, kitchens are often very attractive spaces. All that said I don't like some of the plans I've seen where guests enter through the kitchen or where there is no established perimeter to the area with say, a counter to define the space. Perhaps that's just me.
khris
Senior Member
Personally I can't think of anything better than lifting some weights, while drinking an Apple Martini inbetween reps.
allabootmatt
Senior Member
Count me in with the liking open kitchens crowd...it's much nicer for entertaining, etc.
Hypnotoad
Senior Member
Have someone serve your your apple martini between reps. Remember, we're talking luxury here.
rpgr
Active Member
I love open kitchen concepts. Being a pretty darn good cook compared to most people my age I like open kitchen concepts so that I can interact with guests while i prepare meals.
A lot less lonely that way.
A lot less lonely that way.
MisterF
Senior Member
I have an open concept kitchen/living room and I wouldn't have it any other way.
That's because Wikipedia skyscraper entries are edited by people who frequent geeky forums. The average person doesn't know or care what a "supertall" is. And while developers would know, they usually don't really care. Wikipedia is neither an accurate representation of cultural discourse, nor an accurate representation of how the development industry thinks.
Because they're residential buildings and people living in high rises want an outdoor space. I don't get why people on UT are so down on balconies. To begrudge balconies through some idea of architectural purity reeks of snobbery. They're an integral part of people's homes and honest to the use of the building. It's where people live, of course it's going to look a little messier than a 9-5 office building. That's not a bad thing. Besides, architects have got pretty good at incorporating balconies into the design of skyscrapers. The ones on 18 Yorkville look amazing, and they're even precast!
lxmoss
Active Member
According to some people here I am living in squalor. Not only do I have a balcony and an open-concept kitchen but I also live in cityplace! 
alklay
Senior Member
Most of us are not against balconies. I live in an apartment with a balcony and use it all the time. I would never move to an apartment/condo unless it had a balcony. Its nice to be able to step outside, even if for only a few minutes.
I know condo owners without balconies and all of them wish they had them.
I know condo owners without balconies and all of them wish they had them.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
A balcony can be turned into a mini-garden in the summer, like a real garden attached to a house - flowers, veggies, sunbathing ...
Many of the apartment layouts I've seen suggest that whoever cobbled them together gave very little thought to how people actually live their lives. Rather than using the design process to organise storage, living and circulation space as logically and economically as possible in order to solve problems for owners, they're actually creating barriers to easy living by not thinking things through.
And the way people live their lives has changed considerably since the days of formal dining - separate kitchens don't seem to be a requirement for most people nowadays - but I get the impression that this is being used as an excuse for lazy design, with the kitchen being plunked down wherever.
The ante-chamber bedroom that has to be accessed through the larger bedroom - in the rental 50 Gerrard East - is one of the strangest arrangements, considering the market which is mostly single students who probably want to come and go as they please.
Many of the apartment layouts I've seen suggest that whoever cobbled them together gave very little thought to how people actually live their lives. Rather than using the design process to organise storage, living and circulation space as logically and economically as possible in order to solve problems for owners, they're actually creating barriers to easy living by not thinking things through.
And the way people live their lives has changed considerably since the days of formal dining - separate kitchens don't seem to be a requirement for most people nowadays - but I get the impression that this is being used as an excuse for lazy design, with the kitchen being plunked down wherever.
The ante-chamber bedroom that has to be accessed through the larger bedroom - in the rental 50 Gerrard East - is one of the strangest arrangements, considering the market which is mostly single students who probably want to come and go as they please.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
From the Globe Real Estate Section, by JBM:
ARCHITECTURE
John Bentley Mays
For a premium address, a faulty second try
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
November 2, 2007 at 12:00 AM EDT
Though it is a key orientation point in the urban grid, and the site of an important crossing in the subway system, the intersection of Bloor and Yonge streets has long been outstanding for its vulgarity. This central place, which should be exciting, is currently framed by a couple of ugly high-rise office buildings, the dreary concrete hulk of the Hudson's Bay Company, and, on the south-east corner, a shabby little structure of no architectural merit.
There have been some attempts by developers to make Bloor and Yonge into something better. In early 2005, a sleek 60-storey skyscraper was proposed for 1 Bloor Street East — currently the site of the worthless little building — by the Toronto firm Young and Wright. Then, ownership of the place changed. Its new developer, Bazis International, a company with origins in Kazakhstan, stepped up earlier this year with a new vision of what should happen at 1 Bloor East: a shopping centre, luxury hotel and residential complex, rising to 80 storeys, designed by Toronto artist and architect Roy Varacalli. (Mr. Varacalli recently became design chief at Bazis.)
The old scheme had some attractive features. It was big enough, for one thing. The intersection — potentially one of Canada's great addresses — needs the strong, urbane identity that tall buildings can deliver. The former plan also had some nice swing. As it rose from the base, the mass of the west-facing half of the building slid away from a central blade, leaning toward downtown, while the east-facing volume made a similar slight bow in the direction of suburbia. These very large slides and bends in space promised to make the tower sprightly, dynamic — a beacon in the nearby grid of streets and blockish buildings, strongly expressing the significance of Bloor and Yonge.
Last Week, Bazis opened its sales office on Bloor, and unveiled a new version of the tower at 1 Bloor East, again by Mr. Varacalli. This final design is worse than big and bad. It's big and ordinary.
The condominium tower at 1 Bloor Street East is set to rise 80 storeys and will include retail space and a hotel.
The podium has been chopped down from four storeys to three in Mr. Varacalli's latest rendition. Four storeys was right. That height gave the tower imposing presence at street level and a solid sense of heft. At three storeys, the base of the building simply matches the low-rise facades of too many main-street commercial structures in Toronto, instead of weighing in with something more assertive and distinctive. (The total proposed height of the tower still stands at 80 storeys — though it remains to be seen whether city officials will eventually whack off a few storeys at the top, as they are inclined to do.)
One interesting aspect of the earlier podium arrangement, however, has survived. It's an installation of a loosely looping fabric embedded with light-emitting diodes, sweeping around the base. This feature is intended to sparkle with advertising messages, but will also serve as a medium for art: Mr. Varacalli would like to invite video artists to make pieces for display here.
But no amount of lively art at the base will compensate for the architect's simplification of the main shaft of the tower. For the chic shifting planes in the earlier version, Mr. Varacalli has substituted straight up-and-down volumes arrayed on the vertical blade of reflective glass. To activate the surface of the tower, he has created a double skin, with inner and outer elements separated by five feet of terrace. Homeowners in the 596 apartments ($300,000 to $2-million) will be able to open and shut apertures in the outer skin, presumably giving it variety and a bit of visual jump. Though I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise — by the actual building, that is, which should be up in about four years' time — I am not convinced this expedient will make the building's shaft any more elegant and refined than your basic, everyday office tower.
Then there are those fins at the top. Like the LED scrim at the base, these upswept, sharp ornaments — Mr. Varacalli likens them to the tailfins on a Cadillac from the 1950s — have been brought from the earlier scheme into this one. They beat dropping a funny hat on the building, I suppose, or making its lid flat. But what will they add to the city's skyline, other than a little quirky novelty?
Bloor and Yonge deserves something better and more architecturally dashing. What's now planned for the southeast corner of the intersection just isn't good enough.
AoD
ARCHITECTURE
John Bentley Mays
For a premium address, a faulty second try
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
November 2, 2007 at 12:00 AM EDT
Though it is a key orientation point in the urban grid, and the site of an important crossing in the subway system, the intersection of Bloor and Yonge streets has long been outstanding for its vulgarity. This central place, which should be exciting, is currently framed by a couple of ugly high-rise office buildings, the dreary concrete hulk of the Hudson's Bay Company, and, on the south-east corner, a shabby little structure of no architectural merit.
There have been some attempts by developers to make Bloor and Yonge into something better. In early 2005, a sleek 60-storey skyscraper was proposed for 1 Bloor Street East — currently the site of the worthless little building — by the Toronto firm Young and Wright. Then, ownership of the place changed. Its new developer, Bazis International, a company with origins in Kazakhstan, stepped up earlier this year with a new vision of what should happen at 1 Bloor East: a shopping centre, luxury hotel and residential complex, rising to 80 storeys, designed by Toronto artist and architect Roy Varacalli. (Mr. Varacalli recently became design chief at Bazis.)
The old scheme had some attractive features. It was big enough, for one thing. The intersection — potentially one of Canada's great addresses — needs the strong, urbane identity that tall buildings can deliver. The former plan also had some nice swing. As it rose from the base, the mass of the west-facing half of the building slid away from a central blade, leaning toward downtown, while the east-facing volume made a similar slight bow in the direction of suburbia. These very large slides and bends in space promised to make the tower sprightly, dynamic — a beacon in the nearby grid of streets and blockish buildings, strongly expressing the significance of Bloor and Yonge.
Last Week, Bazis opened its sales office on Bloor, and unveiled a new version of the tower at 1 Bloor East, again by Mr. Varacalli. This final design is worse than big and bad. It's big and ordinary.
The condominium tower at 1 Bloor Street East is set to rise 80 storeys and will include retail space and a hotel.
The podium has been chopped down from four storeys to three in Mr. Varacalli's latest rendition. Four storeys was right. That height gave the tower imposing presence at street level and a solid sense of heft. At three storeys, the base of the building simply matches the low-rise facades of too many main-street commercial structures in Toronto, instead of weighing in with something more assertive and distinctive. (The total proposed height of the tower still stands at 80 storeys — though it remains to be seen whether city officials will eventually whack off a few storeys at the top, as they are inclined to do.)
One interesting aspect of the earlier podium arrangement, however, has survived. It's an installation of a loosely looping fabric embedded with light-emitting diodes, sweeping around the base. This feature is intended to sparkle with advertising messages, but will also serve as a medium for art: Mr. Varacalli would like to invite video artists to make pieces for display here.
But no amount of lively art at the base will compensate for the architect's simplification of the main shaft of the tower. For the chic shifting planes in the earlier version, Mr. Varacalli has substituted straight up-and-down volumes arrayed on the vertical blade of reflective glass. To activate the surface of the tower, he has created a double skin, with inner and outer elements separated by five feet of terrace. Homeowners in the 596 apartments ($300,000 to $2-million) will be able to open and shut apertures in the outer skin, presumably giving it variety and a bit of visual jump. Though I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise — by the actual building, that is, which should be up in about four years' time — I am not convinced this expedient will make the building's shaft any more elegant and refined than your basic, everyday office tower.
Then there are those fins at the top. Like the LED scrim at the base, these upswept, sharp ornaments — Mr. Varacalli likens them to the tailfins on a Cadillac from the 1950s — have been brought from the earlier scheme into this one. They beat dropping a funny hat on the building, I suppose, or making its lid flat. But what will they add to the city's skyline, other than a little quirky novelty?
Bloor and Yonge deserves something better and more architecturally dashing. What's now planned for the southeast corner of the intersection just isn't good enough.
AoD
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
And another:
REDEVELOPMENT
An 80-storey tower reclaims the lost corner of Yonge and Bloor
DEREK RAYMAKER
From Friday's Globe and Mail
November 2, 2007 at 12:00 AM EDT
So long, Harvey's. Hello, Hy's Steakhouse.
The southeast corner of Bloor and Yonge streets has long been a festering blight on the city, according to the self-appointed custodians of Toronto iconography. This February, however, its fast-food joints and kitsch stores will be on the business end of sledgehammers and backhoes. When the rubble is cleared, the 80-storey, $450-million 1 Bloor Street East will rise on the famous corner.
And unlike other skyscraping high-rises throughout downtown Toronto, few people seem to mind.
This particular project, which includes retail space and a hotel, is under the direction of Kazakhstan-based Bazis International and has set a land-speed record from concept to approval to sales launch. But the quest to bring something appropriate to the storied intersection has been a 20-year journey.
The project's powerful yet graceful rendered figure, overseen by Toronto architect and Bazis's design and construction director, Roy Varacalli, appears to have scored the thumbs-up from even the crankiest of architecture critics, (though our own John Bentley Mays has his reservations; see his column above.).
Mr. Varacalli started working with Bazis on the design team for Crystal Blu, a 38-storey high-rise now under construction on Balmuto Street, a block west of the 1 Bloor site. At the time, he was a partner in Burka Varacalli Architects. For 1 Bloor, he left the firm and became a partner and senior executive with Bazis.
He toured the company's myriad construction projects around the world, concentrated mostly in Russia.
"I learned they did things very quickly, and their projects are realized very quickly," Mr. Varacalli said. Techniques included employing three shifts of workers a day, multiple crane systems and innovation in materials, he added.
At least 100 people crammed the presentation centre for 1 Bloor on Monday night, sipping vodka-based cocktails and nibbling on rich hors d'oeuvres, to take a first glimpse at some of the model suite layouts. They also heard Mayor David Miller and area councillor Kyle Rae, fresh from pushing the municipal land-transfer tax through council, speak effusively of the project and all that it would mean to the city's most famous intersection.
Attendees included consultants and real estate agents representing interested buyers. Some were recent immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe who'd done well for themselves in Canada. Some of these particular potential buyers, while duly admiring the slick finishes of the model suite, admitted they were definitely going to purchase a suite, maybe two, as investment properties.
On their way out of the overcrowded presentation centre, a pair of cheerful, fetching ladies handed out a hefty catalogue of suite layouts and dazzling photos and renderings.
Mr. Rae, never shy to offer an opinion, has been too happy to run down the corner's current tenants (which includes, yes, Harvey's) and their low-rent quarters, and foist lavish praise upon the promise held by Bazis's 1 Bloor.
Mr. Rae has a point. But the city has no shortage of so-called revitalization structures that are only marginally more appealing than the blight they replaced. Look only as far as Dundas Square and some of the glass catastrophes among the CityPlace communities on the railway lands west of the Rogers Centre.
Luckily, 1 Bloor goes a long way toward raising the standard for high-rise design. Mr. Varacalli, who grew up in Toronto, certainly felt the pressure in delivering something that would cut a striking figure on a very important corner.
"I want it to be truly memorable," he said. "I was particularly interested in how it relates to the skyline, but also how it relates at the street level and the human scale."
To that end, Bazis purchased property south to Hayden Street, a relatively quiet side street going east from Yonge. It's here where you'll find the entrance to the condominium portion of the project, 564 suites from the 18th to 77th floor.
The first six floors above the retail platform will be a hotel, with an entrance on Bloor instead. An L-shaped steel frame dissects the entire building, settling into a cornice separating the street-level glass façade from the residences above.
Another innovative feature 1 Bloor brings to the table is the use of lanais. These are essentially extra balconies, but with moveable glass walls that can enclose the space in cooler weather.
"On a warm day it will look porous, but on a cold day it will look like a solid block," Mr. Varacalli said. "It will be able to produce a pixilated façade."
Sales officially launched Tuesday morning, ranging from $355,000 to more than $2-million for pre-registered potential buyers, with sizes ranging from 540 to 2,110 square feet (excluding lanai space). A large majority of the suites, even the smallest ones, have lanais and balconies.
Extra costs include $5,000 for a locker and $45,000 for a parking spot (available only for suites larger than 700 square feet).
AoD
REDEVELOPMENT
An 80-storey tower reclaims the lost corner of Yonge and Bloor
DEREK RAYMAKER
From Friday's Globe and Mail
November 2, 2007 at 12:00 AM EDT
So long, Harvey's. Hello, Hy's Steakhouse.
The southeast corner of Bloor and Yonge streets has long been a festering blight on the city, according to the self-appointed custodians of Toronto iconography. This February, however, its fast-food joints and kitsch stores will be on the business end of sledgehammers and backhoes. When the rubble is cleared, the 80-storey, $450-million 1 Bloor Street East will rise on the famous corner.
And unlike other skyscraping high-rises throughout downtown Toronto, few people seem to mind.
This particular project, which includes retail space and a hotel, is under the direction of Kazakhstan-based Bazis International and has set a land-speed record from concept to approval to sales launch. But the quest to bring something appropriate to the storied intersection has been a 20-year journey.
The project's powerful yet graceful rendered figure, overseen by Toronto architect and Bazis's design and construction director, Roy Varacalli, appears to have scored the thumbs-up from even the crankiest of architecture critics, (though our own John Bentley Mays has his reservations; see his column above.).
Mr. Varacalli started working with Bazis on the design team for Crystal Blu, a 38-storey high-rise now under construction on Balmuto Street, a block west of the 1 Bloor site. At the time, he was a partner in Burka Varacalli Architects. For 1 Bloor, he left the firm and became a partner and senior executive with Bazis.
He toured the company's myriad construction projects around the world, concentrated mostly in Russia.
"I learned they did things very quickly, and their projects are realized very quickly," Mr. Varacalli said. Techniques included employing three shifts of workers a day, multiple crane systems and innovation in materials, he added.
At least 100 people crammed the presentation centre for 1 Bloor on Monday night, sipping vodka-based cocktails and nibbling on rich hors d'oeuvres, to take a first glimpse at some of the model suite layouts. They also heard Mayor David Miller and area councillor Kyle Rae, fresh from pushing the municipal land-transfer tax through council, speak effusively of the project and all that it would mean to the city's most famous intersection.
Attendees included consultants and real estate agents representing interested buyers. Some were recent immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe who'd done well for themselves in Canada. Some of these particular potential buyers, while duly admiring the slick finishes of the model suite, admitted they were definitely going to purchase a suite, maybe two, as investment properties.
On their way out of the overcrowded presentation centre, a pair of cheerful, fetching ladies handed out a hefty catalogue of suite layouts and dazzling photos and renderings.
Mr. Rae, never shy to offer an opinion, has been too happy to run down the corner's current tenants (which includes, yes, Harvey's) and their low-rent quarters, and foist lavish praise upon the promise held by Bazis's 1 Bloor.
Mr. Rae has a point. But the city has no shortage of so-called revitalization structures that are only marginally more appealing than the blight they replaced. Look only as far as Dundas Square and some of the glass catastrophes among the CityPlace communities on the railway lands west of the Rogers Centre.
Luckily, 1 Bloor goes a long way toward raising the standard for high-rise design. Mr. Varacalli, who grew up in Toronto, certainly felt the pressure in delivering something that would cut a striking figure on a very important corner.
"I want it to be truly memorable," he said. "I was particularly interested in how it relates to the skyline, but also how it relates at the street level and the human scale."
To that end, Bazis purchased property south to Hayden Street, a relatively quiet side street going east from Yonge. It's here where you'll find the entrance to the condominium portion of the project, 564 suites from the 18th to 77th floor.
The first six floors above the retail platform will be a hotel, with an entrance on Bloor instead. An L-shaped steel frame dissects the entire building, settling into a cornice separating the street-level glass façade from the residences above.
Another innovative feature 1 Bloor brings to the table is the use of lanais. These are essentially extra balconies, but with moveable glass walls that can enclose the space in cooler weather.
"On a warm day it will look porous, but on a cold day it will look like a solid block," Mr. Varacalli said. "It will be able to produce a pixilated façade."
Sales officially launched Tuesday morning, ranging from $355,000 to more than $2-million for pre-registered potential buyers, with sizes ranging from 540 to 2,110 square feet (excluding lanai space). A large majority of the suites, even the smallest ones, have lanais and balconies.
Extra costs include $5,000 for a locker and $45,000 for a parking spot (available only for suites larger than 700 square feet).
AoD
Mike in TO
Senior Member
I've heard that formal applications for 1BE are to be submitted to the city next week. The current zoning was put in place in 2003 for the old Kolter proposal and permits a tower of up to 205 metres. Bazis’ proposed version of 1BE is intended to rise to 275 metres.
Both Mayor Miller and Kyle Rae have voiced thier support for the project. Acting Chief Planner Gary Wright has voiced support for the project as well.
Pre-application discussions between Bazis and city staff have been ongoing and resulted in some revisions to the project’s design (as we've seen in the newer renderings),but overall,the discussions have been positive.
The hotel portion of the development will include 132 rooms and will occupy the six floors immediately above the four-storey podium. The podium will contain three floors of retail space. There is five floors of underground parking planned.
Plans for Emerald Park at Yonge and Sheppard should be unveiled in the coming weeks as well.
Both Mayor Miller and Kyle Rae have voiced thier support for the project. Acting Chief Planner Gary Wright has voiced support for the project as well.
Pre-application discussions between Bazis and city staff have been ongoing and resulted in some revisions to the project’s design (as we've seen in the newer renderings),but overall,the discussions have been positive.
The hotel portion of the development will include 132 rooms and will occupy the six floors immediately above the four-storey podium. The podium will contain three floors of retail space. There is five floors of underground parking planned.
Plans for Emerald Park at Yonge and Sheppard should be unveiled in the coming weeks as well.
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