Toronto 45 The Esplanade | 130.85m | 39s | Republic | Arcadis

[Northern Light]

I actually think that building creates a fairly good streetscape. Sure it lacks the cornice and brickwork of a lot of the older buildings, but the mass of it is visually broken into smaller parts and the storefronts are narrow. Even if a larger tenant combined multiple storefronts together it would still read as narrow storefronts with granularity at street level. It even has strong sign bands and the retail entrances in alcoves, which are sadly missing from most new buildings.

Excellent commentary; 100% agree.

The simple idea here than the brick colour alternates every 2 storefronts makes a real difference.

It illustrates that a lot of the solutions are not expensive.

Great material is, well, great; but 'good material' can be fine; and while some flourishes/accents are welcome, what they offer can be addressed in alternative ways, and/or in a modern style.

 

[Northern Light]

What I'm talking about is more along the lines of this. The building does have a strong design sense, I'll give it that. But the brick and glass are long, flat expanses, it has no signbands at all, and nothing in the design breaks up the bulk of the building. The fact that it's in the Distillery District makes the contrast with older buildings all the more stark.

Again, 100% agree. Great example.

I would add when specifically comparing it with the better example on Queen, the sheer length of this building makes it so important to have that visual break periodically, which could be achieved by colour or by material, or even by some other gesture, subtle or overt. (change in window style as an example.)

Also, the first floor and the residential component needs to feel differentiated/apart in some way; the sign band alone can do that, but some other visual cue; a bit of extra room, a shift in cololur, a simple band of concrete even.

Or this, which is a fail on so many levels.

Indeed. Absymal!

 

[Ervin]

Regardless of how good or bad the existing building is, its replacement is undoubtedly a downgrade, and therefore this is a sad loss.

 

[Koops65]

That's just your opinion. I think it looks excellent, and it isn't a downgrade at all...

 

[urbanexplorer]

Regardless of how good or bad the existing building is, its replacement is undoubtedly a downgrade, and therefore this is a sad loss.

Agreed.

 

[Newintown]

Regardless of how good or bad the existing building is, it's replacement is undoubtedly a downgrade, and therefore this is a sad loss.

I hope the Developer is teasing us and the renderings are just a joke….Developer: if you are reading this, you are in old town T.O….not in Vegas!!
this does not go in the neighborhood and especially in between the existing buildings..

 

[Ward8]

I would add when specifically comparing it with the better example on Queen, the sheer length of this building makes it so important to have that visual break periodically, which could be achieved by colour or by material, or even by some other gesture, subtle or overt. (change in window style as an example.)

I would argue that modern design is often too restrictive in how facades can be modified by tenants. Older buildings allow for the tenant to bring character and texture to the building. Brick and wood can be modified, painted, have many different types of signage, or a variety of different awnings. I would suggest that, as much as possible, architects should not necessarily design for visual breaks, but for a maximum amount of adaptability at short intervals.

All that is to say-- 100 meters of continuous glass doesn't allow for anything interesting to happen. It is permanently boring. To be fair to these developers, it's not just this building, but a wider problem across the city.

 

[Northern Light]

I would argue that modern design is often too restrictive in how facades can be modified by tenants. Older buildings allow for the tenant to bring character and texture to the building. Brick and wood can be modified, painted, have many different types of signage, or a variety of different awnings. I would suggest that, as much as possible, architects should not necessarily design for visual breaks, but for a maximum amount of adaptability at short intervals.

I'm fine w/the above; with the admonition relatively few buildings see the various treatments you outline in Toronto, when you see that variation on the street, it tends to occur with divergent ownership more than tenants.

All that is to say-- 100 meters of continuous glass doesn't allow for anything interesting to happen. It is permanently boring. To be fair to these developers, it's not just this building, but a wider problem across the city.

Lets look at Yonge, south of Charles:

Here, the one building with 3 storefronts has a uniform appearance above them.

***

Once again, where there is either one building, or several of shared design language, there is uniformity above the storefront level:

And again in this block:

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Doubtless we can find examples with more variation and a common owner, there are almost certainly dozens.
Still, I would suggest that is not what prevails.

Landlords tend to prefer a uniform appearance (for better and worse) to their properties.
What saves these blocks to the extent one finds them redeeming is a bit of pleasing architecture and stretches of sameness that are typically well shy of 100M.

*****

That leaves two essential ideas, one is creating the illusion of different buildings; the other is to restrict the size of any new building in terms of street frontage.

Alternatively we can try and require architecture so brilliant no one will care, LOL

But current laws don't allow for that; and many would worry who gets to define such excellence.

 

[cd concept]

That's just your opinion. I think it looks excellent, and it isn't a downgrade at all...

The building is unique looking for the city core and should be developed in another place. But so is this antique looking hotel that should be kept for its rareness in the city core. They don't build these detailed types of structures as much anymore because of the cost.

 

[Ward8]

Once again, where there is either one building, or several of shared design language, there is uniformity above the storefront level:

Perhaps I was unclear, but these pictures are examples of what I am talking about. All of these buildings allow for more texture on the ground floor because the tenants are bringing in something unique. Though some of the examples above are not the most attractive, they have better urbanism that most new buildings. Contrast those with the wall of glass that we can expect here.

Each of these facades are less than half the length of what is being proposed.
What happens above the ground floor is almost irrelevant if the ground floor doesn't work well for the city. You're right, that smaller lots would provide more variety, or one could take the Mirvish Village approach, but there is an even easier way to achieve a more textured street, and that is to allow tenants to affect change on their small slice of frontage. Exactly like the buildings you show on Yonge. Even in the long frontage of the second picture there is a multitude of different colours, and one guy has even added a garage door as the front window. Even Mirvish Village wont work well if they standardize the signage or try to have a cohesive look at the ground floor. Architects don't like messy, but all good streets are messy at the bottom.

 

[Koops65]

 

[Newintown]

We citizens need to start a campaign to save the Novotel building from demolition and to stop this Trump tower look alike from taking its place…the new building should preserve the Novotel at its street level…

 

[RepublicDevelopments]

We've been following this thread and want to say thank you to all those who are participating in the discussion. Honest and productive feedback is healthy and we appreciate hearing it. In the interest of providing some colour, we had 6 major applications being worked on simultaneously, 5 of which were submitted before year end, so we were unable to go through a typical process of design exploration and critique on all of the sites. In this case we needed to proceed with the first option received in order to get in front of the new foundation drainage policy changes which came unexpectedly. Many of the comments mentioned in this thread are echoed by us and our design team, and along with community feedback will help inform what a resubmission and the ultimate design will look like. Stick with us. It will improve.

 

[evandyk]

Thanks for contributing and listening! The north side of the Esplanade there is pretty delightful to walk along, and the south side is absolutely not, so hopefully some lessons can be drawn.

 

[condovo]

A developer directly acknowledging that our critiques are being heard? Isn't this what we've all been waiting for lo, these many years on UT??