Toronto CAMH Discovery Centre | 41.6m | 7s | CAMH | KPMB

alklay said:
This is capital B "Bland Institutional." I would think that a major street downtown deserves a little bit more than this.
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CAMH seems to be a good reflection of the prevailing attitudes towards healthcare architecture of its times in every one of its incarnations.

AoD
 
DavidCapizzano said:
These buildings don't need to be exciting. They provide a vital service and what is important is the care that patients receive inside. They're good fabric buildings, and it's clear that CAMH is taking a more bold step with their next phase (the wavy KPMB one)
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The bold phase should have been planned for the most visible location - along Queen.
 
The eastern building with the faint yellow brick and wide expanses of glass is definitely bland. But I don't mind the western building with red brick too much. There's enough variation in massing and materials to keep visual interest IMO. The grade level detailing also looks fairly sharp, and as an institutional building meets the street quite reasonably.
 
AlbertC said:
The eastern building with the faint yellow brick and wide expanses of glass is definitely bland. But I don't mind the western building with red brick too much. There's enough variation in massing and materials to keep visual interest IMO. The grade level detailing also looks fairly sharp, and as an institutional building meets the street quite reasonably.
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I find that Montgomery Sisam seems to favour bricks with almost no texture and variations in tone/shading - the result when combined with the lack of adornment is flat-looking facades that communicates institutional.

I can't help but think what if we had a Casey House level of material variation on the Queen facade.

AoD
 
Last edited:
July 19, 2020

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innsertnamehere said:
Love the trees along Queen St.

Yea, this is bland, but it's at least fairly well detailed.
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The trees are nice. Good to see that they used reinforced, floating sidewalks.

For those unfamiliar with these, the in-laid squares are indicative.

What this means is the sidewalk will not compact the roots.

On the downside, the openings for water are still very small and do not conform the current preferred pit design.

The current preferred design (if using a tree pit) is the metal, slatted grates.

Such as this:

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These allow far greater penetration of rain water.

Of course the overhead wires also remain; but that's not resolvable in the near-term on a streetcar route.
 
Northern Light said:
The trees are nice. Good to see that they used reinforced, floating sidewalks.

For those unfamiliar with these, the in-laid squares are indicative.

What this means is the sidewalk will not compact the roots.

On the downside, the openings for water are still very small and do not conform the current preferred pit design.

The current preferred design (if using a tree pit) is the metal, slatted grates.

Such as this:

View attachment 258330

These allow far greater penetration of rain water.

Of course the overhead wires also remain; but that's not resolvable in the near-term on a streetcar route.
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How do these hold up in Toronto winters? I read recently someone posit that one of the reasons the street trees aren't doing great along the reconstructed bits of Bloor through Yorkville is that the road salt gets kicked into the (similar) planters in winter.
 
ADRM said:
How do these hold up in Toronto winters? I read recently someone posit that one of the reasons the street trees aren't doing great along the reconstructed bits of Bloor through Yorkville is that the road salt gets kicked into the (similar) planters in winter.
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Salt is definitely an issue on Bloor.

However........in fairness to the grates..........the problem might have something to do with how the City/Contractors chose to pile salt-laden snow on Bloor.

As per this image I posted recently in Toronto Tree Thread:

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That is how to kill a street tree.

If that isn't done, salt can still be an issue, that that depends on salt management (amount used and how its applied), and also the whether there's any lip/curb at the edge of the grate, and how the sidewalk is sloped, amongst other things.

The thing about concrete vs metal design is that we're talking about how much water the tree gets.

If the choice is salty water vs no water; salty it is.

Certainly the trees would be better off in full planters (trench length, 2 or more trees), that have rim/lip around them, about 18 -24 inches high with lots of soil and with complementary shrubs and the bed isn't raked in the fall, allowing leaves to deposit nutrients into the soil.

But I recognize, that's not going to happen in many places where the sidewalks are more narrow; and you aim for the best design compromise you can achieve.

Put simply the metal grates are imperfect performers, but they out perform the concrete covers on balance.
 
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