greenleaf
Senior Member
I could be wrong, but I thought the ceiling height was really low on each floor - 6-7 ft or so. I am all for adaptive reuse, but that would be difficult to use.
Toronto Curio by Hilton Distillery District | 115.1m | 31s | Gupta | IBI Group
- Thread starter yyzer
- Start date
I could be wrong, but I thought the ceiling height was really low on each floor - 6-7 ft or so. I am all for adaptive reuse, but that would be difficult to use.
SP!RE
°°°°°°
Except it looks like too much glass coverage to be a Teeple design. Hmm. Hopefully we'll find out soon.
Tewder
Senior Member
Maybe it's just that the renderings are a little vague but the connection between the tower and the heritage base seems a little awkward. I like the approach here though, continuing with the idea of turning the Distillery into a neighbourhood rather than a museum (not that museums are bad).
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Fairly nice - the separation between the tower and the heritage base isn't very clear from the renderings.
Toro:
I agree to a certain extent - but can't really say until the details for the proposal is more clear. As to relationship to the heritage building - it might not be the best idea given the built form is fundamentally different. Besides, contrasts like these aren't unknown - see Foster's Hearst Tower in NYC, which arguably worked quite well (if unauthentic facadism by strict standards).
AoD
Toro:
I agree to a certain extent - but can't really say until the details for the proposal is more clear. As to relationship to the heritage building - it might not be the best idea given the built form is fundamentally different. Besides, contrasts like these aren't unknown - see Foster's Hearst Tower in NYC, which arguably worked quite well (if unauthentic facadism by strict standards).
AoD
khris
Senior Member
Very cool looking building! I look forward to more renders.
Red October
Senior Member
Wow, looks great! I love the fact that they're saving the inside, it would be neat if they kept some of the historic parts inside and incorporated them into the lobby/amenities somehow.
Except it looks like too much glass coverage to be a Teeple design. Hmm. Hopefully we'll find out soon.
The glass coverage here, and the volumes too in fact, remind me more of their OpArt project in Oakville than their 60 Richmond project in town. I also figure that a major part of the Gansevoort move into Toronto in their first attempt was the Teeple design which declared "we are different". Why wouldn't they stick with the same architect who was able to articulate that statement for them?
There are a couple of other assumptions I am making here too: 1) that the development partner is Cityscape and Dundee Realty, as they are developing the rest of the Distillery, and 2) that they would welcome Teeple into the fold. I don't know the folks at Cityscape, but Jason Lester at Dundee strikes me as a very forward thinker, and therefore likely eager to work with Teeple. If this is not Teeple, then the Disilltery's go-to guy has been Peter Clewes so far, and I don't think it is beyond the realm of possibilities that this could be aA. KPMB would be a third-place guess for me, but Teeple remains my bet.
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Blovertis
Active Member
Great looking building. I'm more excited by the fact that this would be the first real upscale hotel east of the downtown core.
A landmark in the slow revivification of old Toronto.
A landmark in the slow revivification of old Toronto.
grey
Senior Member
The whole property is sort of a living museum. All of the buildings are numbered and I'm pretty sure there are pamphlets or information on a website somewhere.
Once the Distillery is built out, the current sales centre might make for a good museum if a particular single spot onsite is necessary, but Grey is right, the whole property is akin to a museum already. There is already a small museum onsite housed in a staircase within the Stone Distillery Complex which has not been made easy to find on the Distillery's website, but it is there, and it's worth a visit.
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Atlantis
Active Member
I've walked around this structure at least a few times in the past and I too remember thinking that those windows looked too closely spaced and not particularly high enough to be able to accommodate a normal floor.
ToroTO, do you remember if the effective 'ceiling' height of the windows are sufficiently tall enough to support at least an 8 foot ceiling, if floors were to be constructed on the inside of the existing structure? I'm wondering because if there's no way that they could do 8 foot, then wouldn't the expectation be that they would need to dismantle the existing structure and do a pure facadist reconstruction, as opposed to leaving the structure in place like at Five?
How they approach the heritage facade also got me thinking about why they need to accommodate 166 parking spaces off-site. I can understand that maybe if they were to leave the structure in place where it is and put up shoring walls on the inside of the structure to build the basement, then perhaps the interior space would be too small for a parking structure as well. But if the existing structure were too short to accommodate a standard 8 foot ceiling within the existing envelope, and were to be necessary to dismantle it before construction, then wouldn't the entire site footprint be big enough to accommodate its own underground parking?
The Pure Spirit lobby actually has a four tiered reconstructed rack that has effectively been placed on museum display, along with barrels and a fork lift they used to use. They have managed to keep some parts of a different rackhouse.
Red October
Senior Member
I'd be willing to bet it would be very similar to how they converted the old Seagram distillery in Waterloo into condos/Balsilie School.. Though these are huge loft apartments.
CanadianNational
Senior Member
Thanks for posting those photos, Atlantis.
It looks fine. I think it is a bit tall, but since the Pure Spirit buildings have already made a point of implanting stark height differences into the area, I suppose it won't come as too much of a shock.
While touring the site, a guide told us that the historic building had been a specialty storage building, where labourers rolled casks into place - those labourers were children.
Low ceilings were the best for maximizing the amount that could be stored. Kids fit best under the low ceilings with ease. (Four feet? Five feet? - I can't remember). Anyway, quite the story.
Since the floors are about one-half height of a normal condo floor today, I can't see how the interior of the building could be kept as is - unless it was some kind of ultra-daycare, or newfangled place for pets. Maybe those Japanese sleeping pods would fit in without a squeak.
It looks fine. I think it is a bit tall, but since the Pure Spirit buildings have already made a point of implanting stark height differences into the area, I suppose it won't come as too much of a shock.
While touring the site, a guide told us that the historic building had been a specialty storage building, where labourers rolled casks into place - those labourers were children.
Low ceilings were the best for maximizing the amount that could be stored. Kids fit best under the low ceilings with ease. (Four feet? Five feet? - I can't remember). Anyway, quite the story.
Since the floors are about one-half height of a normal condo floor today, I can't see how the interior of the building could be kept as is - unless it was some kind of ultra-daycare, or newfangled place for pets. Maybe those Japanese sleeping pods would fit in without a squeak.
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WiddleBittyKitty
Felis catus
Well, it would be the hotel part in the rack house. Maybe Toronto's first hotel just for kids? After all, they did labour here. It could be a new home for Stinson's old Mad Hatter.
ProjectEnd
Superstar
I doubt that the original floor heights will matter much in this redesign. The pictures which Atlantis kindly took show that only three windows will be fitted into a space which originally held four. (three on the south face vs. four on the west).