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Simpsons Tower Nightime Lighting

wyliepoon said:
Interestingly, the current Foresters Building across from the Science Centre looks somewhat like a reclad Simpsons Tower. Maybe that's what City Lover wants.

website%20foresters.jpg
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Thanks so much for this ...... i was referring to something like this in that a re-do is necessary for this tired looking tower....i don't believe it is short-sighted; it can be done tastefully.

Adma, I'm not as knowledgeable as you're in this subject matter, and I have a feeling you'll reply to each of my posts with your not-so-nice tone, so I'll give this a rest...

Warm Regards.
 
CITY_LOVER said:
Thanks so much for this ...... i was referring to something like this in that a re-do is necessary for this tired looking tower....i don't believe it is short-sighted; it can be done tastefully.
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Under the circumstances, it's no more fatally "tired-looking" than nearby office buildings from the 20s and 30s. Maybe what you're suggesting might have been plausible 20 or even 10 years ago--but today, as what motivated this thread in the first place suggests, maybe the optimum "tasteful" solution to the tower's "tiredness" is more along the lines of restoration than transformation: something that demonstrates a fresh appreciation of its existing aesthetic merits. Maybe not freezing it in amber; but certainly not the kind of extreme makeover you're recommending--which would be as idiotic as the EIFS stucco Botox that's been plaguing historic main streets all over; again, as a misguided "tasteful" solution to renewing "tired" blocks and storefronts.

Adma, I'm not as knowledgeable as you're in this subject matter, and I have a feeling you'll reply to each of my posts with your not-so-nice tone, so I'll give this a rest...

Warm Regards.
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Well, if you admit to being "not as knowledgeable", then why do you persist in advocating such solutions? You can't be "tasteful" through the filter of abject ignorance and naivety, after all...
 
Incidentally, if the new Foresters building is similar in aesthetic idiom to Simpsons, why not--they're from the same date--and its original white tile cladding (which wore poorly) was replaced by metal in the 90s or so. I'm not one to overjudge the end result; but suffice to say that if the recladding happened today, there'd probably be a bit more modern-loving grassroots lamenting it much as it lamented the nearby losses of Bata and Inn On The Park. (And remember, too: contextually speaking, Don Mills + Eg isn't Queen + Bay. Which isn't an argument that the existing Simpson Tower aesthetic belongs in the former; rather, that the Foresters recladding solution doesn't, today, belong in the latter.)
 
Speaking of which what is happening with the inn on the park, is it going to be demolished eventually? What is it being replaced with?

Sorry if there's a thread already but I can't seem to find one.
 
Well, if you admit to being "not as knowledgeable", then why do you persist in advocating such solutions? You can't be "tasteful" through the filter of abject ignorance and naivety, after all...[/QUOTE]

Even if I don't know as much as you, I still can voice my opinion on how I feel about this building and what I wish it was/wasn't. And since opinions are subjective, what one may find tasteful/attractive does not apply to all so I don't see why you use strong words when disagreeing.....don't be arrogant.
 
CITY_LOVER said:
Well, if you admit to being "not as knowledgeable", then why do you persist in advocating such solutions? You can't be "tasteful" through the filter of abject ignorance and naivety, after all...
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Even if I don't know as much as you, I still can voice my opinion on how I feel about this building and what I wish it was/wasn't. And since opinions are subjective, what one may find tasteful/attractive does not apply to all so I don't see why you use strong words when disagreeing.....don't be arrogant.
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If that were the case, one might as well offer kid gloves to those who tear down "obsolete" heritage homes for McMansions, or embalm "tired" Victorian and Edwardian blocks in EIFS stucco. Sometimes, so-called "strong words" can do wonders to stop short-sighted ignorance dead in its tracks. So if I'm the Lloyd Bentsen to your Dan Quayle, so be it.

And besides, above all, didn't you get the gist of this thread from the start? It's about an appreciation, or perhaps a re-appreciation, of the existing architecture--with a classic "you don't know what you got 'til it's gone" situation brewing with the formerly-lit Simpson's crown. Maybe it's something you should learn from, rather than mush-mouthedly work against--and I do mean mush-mouthedly; if you were more emphatic about the notion of "restoration" being a crock (or even if you got the idea that a "restoration" approach was what was being flirted with here), maybe you wouldn't have come off so ineptly.

Look at it this way: it'd be like a hypothetical UT thread of 3 or 4 decades ago suggesting that a c1900 office block be restored, and then someone chiming in suggesting that said block should be freshened up with a contemporary facade, oblivious to the fact that that's not the kind of "restoration" being dealt with here. Not specifically hostile; just oblivious...
 
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Being a lighting guy I will show my bias a little, and agree that re-illuminating the crown would be nice. LEDs would make it vastly more cost effective to run and maintain - but a counter argument can be made that since no lighting has been on there for years, ANY lighting (even LED) is actually adding to the building's hydro consumption and a net positive in terms of carbon footprint, etc...

Perhaps savings in other areas of the building could offset the added power requirements of the crown lighting, but it's easy for us to assume they want to spend any money on this to begin with - as it isn't a quick/cheap proposition.
 
Marko said:
- but a counter argument can be made that since no lighting has been on there for years
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As per what motivated this thread, the "darkness" of the Simpson crown is actually a very recent condition.
 
adma said:
As per what motivated this thread, the "darkness" of the Simpson crown is actually a very recent condition.
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That matter was a little muddied during my first reading of the thread, but fine it's recent.

It doesn't change the fact that the current state = zero power required to light the crown, whereas an LED system might use a few kilowatts. It would be like home using a toaster, hair dryer, microwave and clothes dryer at the same time, but that's still $500 a month in hydro. Let's say it's 8kW and runs 8 hours a day, that works out to 23,300kWh, or approx 9 tonnes of CO2 (depending on whose formula you use).

It's actually not a lot, but there are those who would strongly oppose ANY such project which in their opinion is needless and wasteful. There are lots of them in this city.
 
THE SIMPSON TOWER...

Brightly solving the issue of shadowing in Toronto's financial district since 1969​
 
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Thanks. Imagine if every tower was lit up that much so that during the day shadows just didn't exist in the financial district.





...That would be terrible though.
 
Marko said:
It's actually not a lot, but there are those who would strongly oppose ANY such project which in their opinion is needless and wasteful. There are lots of them in this city.
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Well, pound for pound, it'd be less "needless and wasteful" than to give the whole building an extreme makeover like CITY_LOVER is proposing.

And in a way, such opposition might be tributary to the kind of "bleeding-heart heritage philistinism" that's threatened many an older school or hospital or theatrical building over time...
 
Perhaps savings in other areas of the building could offset the added power requirements of the crown lighting, but it's easy for us to assume they want to spend any money on this to begin with - as it isn't a quick/cheap proposition.
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Even buying "green electricity" from Bullfrog Power or similar Green Tags could be useful.
 
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