"Higher Learning" Toronto tall buildings symposium

wyliepoon · Sep 29, 2006

"Higher Learning" Toronto tall buildings symposium

Canadian Architect

Link to article

City of Toronto hosting symposium on tall buildings
9/28/2006

In collaboration with the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) and Toronto Society of Architects (TSA), the City of Toronto will host a "Higher Learning" Symposium at the Westin Harbour Castle on October 19, 2006. The Symposium will be a day-long exploration of how other major cities are dealing with tall buildings and urban growth.

Participants will examine opposing views through the eyes of tall building designers, developers, city staff and residents from other North American and European cities. Invited speakers will present and discuss the visions for their high density downtowns and neighbourhoods - and explain how they have incorporated tall buildings into their visions, as well as the types of tools and design guidelines they employed to achieve the desired results.

The day will begin with a CUI and City of Toronto co-hosted Urban Leadership session, moderated by CUI President and CEO, former Mayor David Crombie. William Thorsell (President and CEO, Royal Ontario Museum), will open with a keynote address. This will be followed by a series of presentations by tall building policy experts from New York, London and Chicago. The morning session will conclude with a general discussion

In the afternoon there will be three concurrent workshops focusing on: tall building design guidelines and regulations; creating livable tall building communities; and using technology to engage the public in tall building design review.

In the evening, a free, public TSA/City of Toronto lecture and panel discussion led by renowned facilitator Rick Wolfe, will feature Mark Kingwell (University of Toronto) and Paul Katz (Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects) as keynote speakers. The panel â€“ to include local and international architects, designers, planners and residents â€“ will kick off a lively public discussion of the issues.

For further information and to register for the free afternoon workshops, please visit www.toronto.ca/planning/higherlearning.htm. To register for the Urban Leadership session (8:00am-11:30am), please visit www.canurb.com and click on Events & Awards.

AlvinofDiaspar · Oct 23, 2006

Re: "Higher Learning" Toronto tall buildings sympo

From the Star, by Hume:

City's fear of tall buildings silly
Oct. 23, 2006. 05:46 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME

What can be said of a city that fears growing up?

In Toronto's case, mere mention of the word highrise is enough to turn grown men and women into frightened children. Anywhere, they say, but please, not in my neighbourhood. Not where it might block the view from my kitchen window, or cast a shadow on my backyard.

Yet despite Toronto's fear of heights, the city keeps reaching higher and higher. And strangely, even though residents scream whenever a tall building is proposed, once they're up, they're filled to capacity.

City bureaucrats and politicians have been singularly inept at quelling these fears, so perhaps it wasn't surprising that several hundred local planners, architects and development industry types showed up at a one-day conference last week devoted to tall buildings.

The Higher Learning Symposium, as it was called, brought to town a gaggle of experts from New York, Chicago, London and Vancouver to discuss how their cities deal with height.

Not surprisingly, the experience of every community is different. In New York, where skyscrapers constitute the very identity of the city, height is embraced. Yet even in Manhattan, there are areas where they're not welcome.

Same thing in Chicago, a city that takes architecture seriously; tall buildings are admired, the thinner the better.

Vancouver has invented its very own highrise model that has been copied around the world â€” skinny towers on lowrise podiums.

London, which doesn't have a history of tall buildings, has no firm policy on the matter.

But alone among these cities, Toronto views the tall building with fear and loathing â€” make that self-loathing. Truly, this is a city that doesn't want to be a city, that likes the amenities urbanity offers but would rather remain a small town.

Unfortunately, that's no longer an option.

But for the Peter Pans who live here, growing up is hard to do.

As the city's chief planner, Ted Tyndorf, points out, "We're at a bit of a watershed in Toronto; dealing with highrises represents a coming of age. We need to develop a framework, a methodology. But the pace of change is so incredibly rapid that people are feeling very cautious about what the future will bring."

For downtown councillor Kyle Rae, the conference was an "exercise in hand-holding."

"What we need to know," he added, "is where highrises go, where they don't and how far apart they should be."

As Tyndorf made clear, his department will prepare a report based on the information gathered from the session; it will be presented to the city's planning and growth management committee next March or April.

But judging from what was heard, that report will do little to help Torontonians cope with their phobia. That's because it is irrational, not based on civic or architectural concerns.

New York uses economic incentives to promote the development it wants. But as Tyndorf pointed out, "Incentives is a dirty word here in Toronto."

In Chicago, the city uses TIFs, tax increment financing, to encourage development. According to Chicago's director of planning policy, Sam Assefa, for every $1 the city spends in TIFs, the private sector spends $6.

Again, TIFs are not part of the Toronto scene, entirely appropriate for a city that at heart is deeply ambivalent about itself, that tries to stop progress rather than welcome it.

It was left to William Thorsell, president and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum, to voice the truth about Toronto, which he rightly argued, is steeped in a culture of unchanging blandness and mediocrity.

Toronto, he said, rejects height for height's sake. Yet, as he said, to do so is to turn our back on everything it represents â€” excitement, exuberance, growth, greatness and ambition.

Instead, we are fixated on height as the symbol of all our civic fears. No doubt many of our tallest buildings are architectural failures, but even when they're first-rate, the NIMBY hordes come out to complain.

Tall poppies, tall buildings, they must be cut down to size.

AoD

AlvinofDiaspar · Oct 23, 2006

Re: "Higher Learning" Toronto tall buildings sympo

Interestingly, this is what Hume had to say about another tall building...from the Star:

Edifice retch What is Libeskind thinking?
Christopher Hume

Sep 23, 2005. pg. B.04

There's no nice way to put it a condo tower should not be built at the Hummingbird Centre.

Except to the cash-starved administration of the facility, it is an idea that has no merit. Indeed, it's hard to think of a more ill- conceived, misguided scheme than this.

Does anyone actually believe it'll happen?

But the real question might be what on earth Daniel Libeskind was thinking when he designed the condo. To say it's outlandish is to put it mildly. To say it's wildly inappropriate, overblown and verging on kitsch might be more to the point. Vulgar isn't a word heard often these days, but for once it applies.

We all know Libeskind is capable of producing great architecture. He proved it in Berlin with his Jewish Museum and in Manchester with the Imperial War Museum. In Toronto, where his addition, the Crystal, is under construction at the Royal Ontario Museum, he is on his way to another triumph.

But if the drawings of Libeskind's design released this week are any indication, he would be well advised to try again. This plan is characterized by empty gesture and meaningless flourish. The issue of how the tower meets the Hummingbird, how the two structures are integrated and joined, apparently remains unresolved.

However, even if Libeskind's design were brilliant, it wouldn't change the basic problem that there's not enough room on site to contemplate such an enormous addition. It simply doesn't make sense.

Then there's the fact that the Hummingbird is an important Toronto landmark, cultural and architectural; it must be maintained and valued, not cashed in for the highest bidder.

The only reason the condo idea has been taken seriously so far is that the city-owned facility desperately needs cash. Since its two main tenants, the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada, will be moving out next year, the Hummingbird brains have been casting around for ways to make up the shortfall.

Their concern is understandable, but you don't save a civic asset by burying it beneath a tower.

And who knows, perhaps the Hummingbird can find new life as a different kind of venue. Some observers insist it has a future as a place where older rock fans, 35 and up, go to concerts. Already Elvis Costello has played there, as have Lou Reed and, gasp, Marilyn Manson.

Condo proposals like this come up regularly in Toronto, a city that hates to say no to development of any sort. Up at the Royal Ontario Museum, president and CEO William Thorsell is in the middle of his first public relations fiasco also because of a condo tower.

His proposal for a 40-storey residential tower on top of a five- storey museum expansion has locals up in arms. It would replace the now defunct McLaughlin Planetarium

Again, the scheme grew out of a need for cash. The museum requires something like $60 million to finish its rebuilding program, but does that justify a 45-storey tower in a historic district dominated by institutional buildings?

Most Torontonians say no.

Towers can be exciting, even thrilling, but in architecture context is everything. Though the designers talk about creating a landmark that would make the ROM visible for miles, that seems an inadequate excuse to construct a skyscraper here.

There's also the question of whether the south end of the ROM site is the right location for a residential building in the first place. Proponents point to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which includes a huge condo on top. That's Manhattan, not Toronto.

The truth is that these proposals have little to do with what's right for Toronto. They grow out of economic need, which, however real, doesn't make them acceptable.

The condo boom has enabled thousands of people to live downtown and that's entirely good. But throwing up a condo tower whenever some institution finds itself in financial distress is no way to build a city.

Even when Daniel Libeskind is involved.
____________________________________________________

Like honestly, does Hume ever re-read what he had written before?

AoD

Bogtrotter · Oct 23, 2006

Re: "Higher Learning" Toronto tall buildings sympo

Indeed- he seems to believe Torontonians are timid about building tall and accepting anything remotely extravagant, yet he admonishes Libeskind for his proposal for the Hummingbird site..? :\

rbtaylor · Oct 23, 2006