Toronto 80 Bloor Street West | 263.4m | 78s | Krugarand | Arcadis

[Mithras]

Though I don't know why, I liked it with the other orientation. I guess they wanted to get the balconies away from the property lines though. Can't think of another reason for the swap.

Would you like a balcony looking west or one with lake views to the south? Which would be easier to sell?

 

[rpeters]

as long as they keep the side without balconies as glass window wall I don't really care about the orientation. If those sides were to become concrete, plastic spandrel, or some other opaque non-reflective material on the other hand....this might become a record holder for world's tallest commie block.

 

[adHominem]

as long as they keep the side without balconies as glass window wall I don't really care about the orientation. If those sides were to become concrete, plastic spandrel, or some other opaque non-reflective material on the other hand....this might become a record holder for world's tallest commie block.

I assume, if it's built right up to the property line, that those sides of the building would be windowless.

 

[ProjectEnd]

Boooooo, it looked better the other way.

And to think I was going to give it praise for being an interesting design, they go and just put more rectangle balconies on the main facade.

Not sure how that suddenly makes it uninteresting as the form remains the same (rotated, of course).

 

[interchange42]

Our story, with a tad more info, is now up on the front page. The dataBase file has a pile of close-ups.

 

[buildup]

Has anyone seen a successful solution to this problem whereby 2 sides need to be windowless in case another tower is built beside, but attractive in the event that never occurs?

 

[innsertnamehere]

There are many, many buildings in NY that do this, and all it requires is some form of cladding that isn't white spandrel. 300 Front does it's blank wall quite well, it's actually the best part of the building.

 

[whatever]

I don't mind the solution at the RCMI tower

 

[CN Tower]

80 storeys here? So it can cast a perma shadow over Bellair, Cumberland & Yorkville? I think not.

 

[rpeters]

Has anyone seen a successful solution to this problem whereby 2 sides need to be windowless in case another tower is built beside, but attractive in the event that never occurs?

Looking at this building's rendering, I feel like black and white stripes of granite or marble would go very nicely on those sides, but the problem is we all know they would use spandrel. I do think the stripes would be better than the pixels of RCMI though even if they did end up using super cheap and ugly materials.

 

[E.B.]

They should have stuck with the previous designs, but they probably knew they wouldn't be able to get it approved by the grannies at city planning.

Once again, the city can't decide whether they want boring or really boring buildings that will "fit in". As Banksy wrote last week, criticizing the design of the new world trade center building in N.Y., "it's plain vanilla...something they would build in Toronto"

 

[innsertnamehere]

well he actually said canada...

 

[E.B.]

well he actually said canada...

I know he said "Canada". He was in Toronto, as you well know, so it doesn't take a leap to see he is talking about Toronto.

 

[E.B.]

I think that quote in itself deserves a new discussion thread. Toronto and it's designers/planners should look hard at the impression we give off by having cookie cutter copies of everything. I believe it stems from our position in Canada and Ontario as the hated and envied city that everyone wants to suck money from. Since we're always having money siphoned off and subsidizing the rest of the country our planners can't think big, they're too concerned with breaking even. If we were to build some real gems, the rest of Canada would get the impression that we're too rich and should be sending them even more tax dollars and so maybe our vanilla-ness is an attempt to fly under the radar and avoid getting our wealth redistributed by a hostile system of government built to shit on Toronto.

I hope this is said in jest?

 

[marcus_a_j]

Has anyone seen a successful solution to this problem whereby 2 sides need to be windowless in case another tower is built beside, but attractive in the event that never occurs?

I'd suggest The Met (west elevation) does a good job.

I don't mind the solution at the RCMI tower

I didn't mind the treatment RCMI was given at first, but as it got higher and higher, it just seems too much, IMO. Downtown Condos on the other hand, with a similar treatment as RCMI but on a smaller scale, seems to be a better fit for that style of randomness.