adHominem
Senior Member
That's not a thing.
Toronto The Bond | 138.68m | 42s | Lifetime | Core Architects COMPLETE
- Thread starter BMyers
- Start date
That's not a thing.
junctionist
Senior Member
Some people are heightist against my culture of building tall skyscrapers, and I won't stand for it!
TheKingEast
Senior Member
Same color, same design, same height. God bless this city. Yawn.
Marcanadian
Moderator
Bond
someMidTowner
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
G.L.17
Senior Member
someMidTowner
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
G.L.17
Senior Member
someMidTowner
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Pretty generic.
old boy
Senior Member
While there's nothing particularly wrong with this building, the god awful repetition of form in this area of downtown is dreary. The monotonous height restrictions imposed by the planners is but only one element in the whole sad story. It's a shame the developers don't seem to have as much concern for their architectural legacy as for their greedy ROI. I hope I live long enough to see these generic icons of mediocrity in the shadows of Gehry's, and others', works of imagination.
Light
Active Member
I think (hope) the "monotony" may work in the area's favour once the Gehry's are built. The current crop of condos will provide an understated background of glassy grids that will amplify the flamboyance in Gehry's spectacular buildings. I think Dubai's skyline (at least from the pictures, never been) show what happens when nearly every building tries to have some flair; the result seems a bit overwhelming.
Toronto's Planning Department should not be taking the blame for that. They wanted a gradual reduction of height from University Avenue over to Spadina. The OMB told them that if they approved height X (which happened to be 157 metres in the case of the TIFF Bell Lightbox) in one spot, they had to allow it pretty much everywhere in the surrounding blocks. Since then, everyone's gone to within a few metres of that height.
Following the much higher Mirvish+Gehry (308m), a number of the developers have been somewhat shooting higher than 157 metres, hoping the OMB will allow more now that the bar is being raised for M+G. None of those higher proposals have been approved yet.
EDIT: The only way to be certain that buildings in the area would have wildly varying heights would be to not have any restriction on how high they could build. In that case, what they could afford would determine how high their proposals would go. To allow such vertical anarchy, however, would be an abrogation of the department's responsibility to actually provide planning.
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