Toronto 50 Merton | 157.47m | 46s | Diamond Corp | Hariri Pontarini

Really makes you wonder… why not??

Land use patterns in this city are so ridiculous

Entrenched single family homes as far as the eye can see, but oh no *clutches pearls* we can’t allow new housing in a building above X m or X FSI

Like… can we stop playing around? Why can’t people build as much housing as they want near transit like this?

getting really mad about this

Toronto needs its Haussmann.
 
Nestled between all those condos around it and having a birds eye view of the cemetery and the Yonge st corridor etc. Make it a sure sale in my book! Thanks Koops for your visual imput!
 
Really makes you wonder… why not??

Land use patterns in this city are so ridiculous

Entrenched single family homes as far as the eye can see, but oh no *clutches pearls* we can’t allow new housing in a building above X m or X FSI

Like… can we stop playing around? Why can’t people build as much housing as they want near transit like this?

getting really mad about this
Again, I don't disagree with you philosophically, but please try and run the numbers on a 79 storey tower on a 59x31m site with one street frontage. Just give it a go.
 
Realism aside, I kind of wish it was actually 79-storeys just to drive down the absurdity of constraining all new housing supply into a tiny sliver of land when we have a sea of single-detached neighbourhoods as far as the eye can see.

Because that is exactly what is happening to Yonge & Eglinton and Davisville Village. I'm not convinced at all that what is being built in those two areas is close to ideal city building. It sure is dense though.
 
Lobbyist registry has been amended:

50 & 64 Merton Street 39 Storey Tower - Residential

Also I do not see a particularly special value to the existing Girl Guides building. Walked by recently. It’s definitely competent but I just don’t see any special heritage value unless we are fetishizing something just because it looks kind of like some work by a famous guy who never came to Toronto

It’s beautiful. Brigitte Shim selected it as one of her favourite Toronto buildings. Good blog post on it here.

https://robertmoffatt115.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/carmen-corneils-girl-guides-headquarters/

From that blog post:

Hidden away at 50 Merton Street, the headquarters of the Girl Guides of Canada is probably the most faithful homage to Alvar Aalto to be found in Toronto. Designed by Carmen Corneil (with William McBain) and completed in 1962, the building successfully synthesizes the great Finnish architect’s postwar work, particularly the Sӓynӓtsalo Town Hall and the National Pensions Institute in Helsinki.

And here are pictures of those two “precedents” in order:

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I see some echoes in the materials and details but the form is completely different. I don’t know enough about Aalto to understand whether it’s the materials, details, form, or some combination thereof that made his work significant.
 
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Thank Koops for the flyby! For showing how it might look like having an 800 plus foot skyscraper in the Davisville area. It might happen someday being close to a subway stop! PS keep this flyby for references don't listen to hecklers!
 
ZBA application submitted:

Development Applications

Project description:
Zoning By-law Amendment Application to facilitate the redevelopment of the site for a 39-storey mixed-use building having a non-residential gross floor area of 2342.0 square metres and a residential gross floor area of 29,326.0 square metres. A total of 443 residential dwelling units are proposed.
 
it has alot of potential to end up looking like this, but i know HPA wont let that happen.
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Definitely not a fan of the westernmost building closest to Yonge, and the east building's balconies are a little ambitious when considering the execution of other smaller hariri pontarini buildings...
This proposal only covers one building. The westernmost building you refer to is an adjacent proposal, while the east building already exists.

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