Toronto Bisha Hotel and Residences | 146.91m | 44s | Lifetime | Wallman Architects

junctionist · Jun 26, 2017

Miscreant said:
I think this is a bit hyperbolic. Complete trash is whatchamacallit on Church there, the first development on the east side just south of Carlton. That's trash. This is isn't that, at least not to me. It's filler at worst.

I understand the sentiment. It looks awful from Spadina with its large blank wall. The prominent mechanical box with its utilitarian design is also inelegant when you see the tower from the east, which is when you're looking at its best facade.

Rascacielo · Jun 26, 2017

junctionist said:
I understand the sentiment. It looks awful from Spadina with its large blank wall. The prominent mechanical box with its utilitarian design is also inelegant when you see the tower from the east, which is when you're looking at its best facade.

The off-centre gray mechanical box certainly doesn't do the boring tower any favor

AHK · Jun 26, 2017

Rascacielo said:
The off-centre gray mechanical box certainly doesn't do the boring tower any favor

Most likely an unfortunate side effect of trying to maximize the rooftop lounge and amenity space - a mechanical box in the centre could render the rooftop area pretty much unusable for any other purposes. A couple of other examples - the mechanical rooftop areas on top of the Thompson Hotel are to one side of the building (to the west, or Bathurst Street side) of the rooftop, to allow space for the pool and patio areas. The main rooftop mechanical components of the 629 King Street West building are actually housed on its associated, lower rise building at 38 Stewart Street, leaving the bulk of the space on the 629 King Street building rooftop available for the Lavelle pool and patio areas.

vatche · Jun 26, 2017

As long as the street esthetics turn out nice I'm good with this building.

maestro · Jun 27, 2017

junctionist said:
I understand the sentiment. It looks awful from Spadina with its large blank wall. The prominent mechanical box with its utilitarian design is also inelegant when you see the tower from the east, which is when you're looking at its best facade.

I'm not going to obsess about a utilitarian mechanical box. Lots of residential towers have those. AFAIK, It's an actual vision glass tower from the street side, east elevation. How rare is that?

TheKingEast · Jun 27, 2017

All the buzz this had. Should have known it would be a dud when it took ages to build. Finished product is disgustingly underwhelming. Plopped the most basic tower onto a heritage structure and went for a snooze. The whole thing is just lazy. Is it trash? No, but that seems to be where we set the bar so nothing to see here. We're not a city that cares much for good design at this point.

junctionist · Jun 27, 2017

maestro said:
I'm not going to obsess about a utilitarian mechanical box. Lots of residential towers have those. AFAIK, It's an actual vision glass tower from the street side, east elevation. How rare is that?

We've been discussing mechanical boxes for years. There has been progress over the years from the nondescript looming boxes that used to be the norm. This tower is a step backwards in that regard.

The only reason it has so much glass is that they're building something designed circa 2009. There were many delays.

maestro · Jun 27, 2017

I've been there from the start suggesting the forum's obsession with mechanical boxes usually goes too far. They're residential towers and, in Toronto, they are fat residential towers. They don't need more than elevator overrun. Don't get me wrong, this is an unsightly large box by comparison but, it's also 500 feet in the air.

It's rare to see a facade without any full sized spandrel panels even from before circa 2009. This doesn't make up for the North , South and, West elevation but there's hope a couple of them will begin to fade from future developments. Hopefully, the same will happen with M5V. They screwed up the red box however, the street face still isn't all that bad.

Red Mars · Jun 29, 2017

They completed the exterior paneling this week.
Took this pic June 27/17

Momin · Jul 21, 2017

Update:

Toronto's Entertainment District has evolved from an area dominated by dance clubs and bars in heritage commercial/industrial buildings, to an area dominated by high-rise condos, now with a broader range of after-work offerings, albeit fewer dance clubs. Theatres, comedy clubs, and more bars and restaurants are popping up everywhere, while new hotels are incorporated into some of the condo towers. Bisha Hotel and Residences is the latest of these combination developments. Now finishing off, 70% of the condo suites in theWallman Architects-designed tower are already occupied as construction approaches completion.

MetroMan · Jul 21, 2017

Momin said:
Toronto's Entertainment District has evolved from an area dominated by dance clubs and bars in heritage commercial/industrial buildings, to an area dominated by high-rise condos, now with a broader range of after-work offerings, albeit fewer dance clubs.

I'm happy to hear this. While I value nightclubs and bars for a city's overall health, King West went too far in the extreme. The club district literally picked up and moved here from Richmond and Peter where no clubs remain. What a change for that area.

I know a few nightclubs are closing up in the next year with the biggest one, Maison Mercer, shutting down for Nobu. EFS on the other side of the strip at King and Bathurst is closing and there's talk of Everleigh being reworked into more of a resto-bar. Eventually, the clubs on King will be replaced with more resto-bar like spaces and hotel rooftops like Thompson, Lavelle and now Bisha. Hopefully Charles Khabouth's REBEL in the Portlands shifts the centre of gravity of the loud club district out there where it can stay until the Portlands gets developed in the next 20 years.

junctionist · Jul 21, 2017

maestro said:
I've been there from the start suggesting the forum's obsession with mechanical boxes usually goes too far. They're residential towers and, in Toronto, they are fat residential towers. They don't need more than elevator overrun. Don't get me wrong, this is an unsightly large box by comparison but, it's also 500 feet in the air.

It's rare to see a facade without any full sized spandrel panels even from before circa 2009. This doesn't make up for the North , South and, West elevation but there's hope a couple of them will begin to fade from future developments. Hopefully, the same will happen with M5V. They screwed up the red box however, the street face still isn't all that bad.

I think that criticism of mechanical boxes has generally been fair and reasonable on this forum. We've seen many towers built with prominent mechanical penthouses that lack architectural expression and look unrelated to the rest of the building. As a result, the whole facade is marred.

When it comes to high-rise architecture, towers lead the viewer's eyes towards the sky. The roofline is a therefore an important element of architectural expression as the last part of the building's profile before the sky. Putting a looming utilitarian grey mechanical penthouse on the roof means giving the building a generic and utilitarian focal point rather than something that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

Great skyscrapers have well designed rooflines. Whether it's the pyramidal forms of the Chrysler Tower or the sleek flat mechanical penthouses of the TD Centre's towers, mechanical penthouses are important aspects of high-rise architecture that shouldn't be treated as afterthoughts in the design and development process.