News   Jul 22, 2024
 190     0 
News   Jul 19, 2024
 974     0 
News   Jul 19, 2024
 4.1K     7 

45 Elm Street (Freda's, 3s, Burdifilek)

DavidCapizzano

Senior Member
Member Bio
Joined
Jan 12, 2017
Messages
1,927
Reaction score
9,870
Location
Toronto
Didn't see anything on here about this. Small project on Elm Street, what used to be Oro Restaurant is getting a renovation. Currently under scaffolding but a small brick sample is visible.

Screen Shot 2020-09-26 at 4.12.21 PM.png
IMG_6612.JPG
 
An older pic from December 2019. Looks like they're completing some extensive interior and exterior renovations, that I'd reckon would eventually return towards being a restaurant space in the future.

Shame that they didn't look into further intensifying the site, would've been fine to go up to at least 5-6 storeys here.


1601329632348.png
 
For what it’s worth those bricks are from Denmark and they are $$$$$

Good design is often ruined by a cheap material palate.

But excellent materials are wasted when deployed in service of a poor design, or one that is inappropriate to its its context.

This is going to stick out like a sore thumb on Elm.

How unfortunate.
 
The Elm-facing side is excellent. The EIFS at the back is unfortunate at best.

Anyone know who the architect is?

Really? It's essentially a large, plain, wall.

No matter what material you put on that, there isn't much design.

Outside of street-level, the single, narrow, asymmetrically placed window leaves a large chunk of the space feeling dead.

The absence of porosity, along w/those design features noted above means it also doesn't play well with its neighbours at all.

The EIFS is dreck, but at least its less conspicuous than the Elm-facing side.
 
If you don't like it, there's not much I can say, but there's plenty of work by Chipperfield, Holl, SANAA, Ando, Hariri, etc. that could be described as 'large' and 'plain' (not saying this is at that level, but it's well balanced and the bricks are gorgeous). I really like it and I'm cautiously excited to see what happens at grade.
 
If you don't like it, there's not much I can say, but there's plenty of work by Chipperfield, Holl, SANAA, Ando, Hariri, etc. that could be described as 'large' and 'plain' (not saying this is at that level, but it's well balanced and the bricks are gorgeous). I really like it and I'm cautiously excited to see what happens at grade.

I agree with the quality of the brick. That's excellent.

The rest I'm less high on.
 
Good design is often ruined by a cheap material palate.

But excellent materials are wasted when deployed in service of a poor design, or one that is inappropriate to its its context.

This is going to stick out like a sore thumb on Elm.

How unfortunate.
Sticking out like a sore thumb isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially on Elm St which has been so neglected and bastardized over the years. Some key elements are still unfinished here, which could make or break this. I'm holding out for the final result.
 

Back
Top