Toronto Forma | 308m | 84s | Great Gulf | Gehry Partners

I'm not sure how projects like this can be criticized from a sustainability point of view relative to the other options. The efficiency of land use, the sharing of a floor, ceiling, plus 2 or 3 walls and the impact on energy use, the high likelihood that residents of a downtown condo will be minimizing car use, the efficiency of living space given the relatively small sizes. What form of living accommodation could be more efficient and sustainable?

Certainly it would be nice if every building met some Leed standard but even in the absence of that this type of high rise living would seem to be the optimal form of minimizing the impact of housing a large mass of people.
 
If you want to drive down rents for everyone, build more units. That means letting the market respond to demand. This is one area where Econ 101 holds its ground and its been demonstrated over and over. Edward Glaeser made this point well in his recent book.
 
Not building these towers would be so bad because this would probably be the first towers to go up that are not ugle. Second the population increase would be so small, no more than 1200, compared to some peoples opinion that these towers would create a overflow of people in the downtown core, which is completly stupid. Thirdly the city could easily add half a million people with out being over crowded. Other cities have 10 times the density and they do well and the increase in population means better business. Which would be more money to the city and less taxes.
 
Lansdude said:
If you want to drive down rents for everyone, build more units. That means letting the market respond to demand. This is one area where Econ 101 holds its ground and its been demonstrated over and over. Edward Glaeser made this point well in his recent book.
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Yea, it's kind of frustrating how many people still view things like condos as driving housing price increases rather than a response to demand.

Though, it could be argued that, projects like M-G, by replacing some dowdy warehouses and the Tim Horton's with newer and better architecture and programing, make a given area more desirable in general then would otherwise be the case had it not been built and end up raising demand for an area by a larger factor than they contribute to supply.

But, then, you'd be admitting that these would be major contributions to the city anyways, so why wouldn't you build them?
 
The condo boom in Toronto, for all its advantages, has and continues to push many lower-income people out of the city's core. It's increasingly unaffordable.

The idea that the creation of even more condominium units will bring rents down in any dramatic way, is a fairytale story that we tell ourselves so that we can feel better about the inequalities that exist in our cities. Without a provision for more affordable units, enforced by the city or other levels of government, the "free market" is going to continue to divide our city. Condos are great, but we need to keep some sort of balance in this city; the market will not create balance nor will it serve everyone. I do believe that without government involvement and regulation, a lot of people get stepped all over and forced out. This is happening in Toronto, as it has in American and various international cities, and it's well-documented.

I do, however, agree with another forumer above, that the construction of affordable housing options in mid-rise neighbourhoods on the fringes of downtown (i.e. West Don Lands) is a very encouraging sign, even if it's only a drop in the low-cost-housing bucket.

You're welcome to make snide remarks towards me, but I speak about these things from a place of genuine concern, from my knowledge of some of these issues and of the industry, and from the standpoint that I think they are worthy things to discuss.

Anyways, this is getting "off-topic" now and delving into other matters. I still think a truly world-class development would be one that takes sustainability into account. TCHC and Teeple can create LEED projects, so Mirvish and Gehry can do at least that too.

Mo-tage said:
I'm not sure how projects like this can be criticized from a sustainability point of view relative to the other options.
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I am not against the high-rise building form. But density =/= sustainability, contrary to popular belief.

You can build towers or high-density neighbourhoods that are sustainable, and you can build them in such a way that they are environmentally short-sighted. In Toronto, we err towards the latter.

SP!RE out. Time to do some more Envelope Systems studying, then crumple up some paper into weird shapes... Architecture!
 
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SP!RE said:
The idea that the creation of even more condominium units will bring rents down in any dramatic way, is a fairytale story that we tell ourselves so that we can feel better about the inequalities that exist in our cities. Without a provision for more affordable units, enforced by the city or other levels of government, the "free market" is going to continue to divide our city. Condos are great, but we need to keep some sort of balance in this city; the market will not create balance nor will it serve everyone. I do believe that without government involvement and regulation, a lot of people get stepped all over and forced out. This is happening in Toronto, as it has in American and various international cities, and it's well-documented..
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It's not a fairytale. Look at housing affordability in Toronto. Condo affordability trends are relatively flat compared to other dwellings, which is clearly a reflection of the fact that we've been seeing thousands of new units hit the market place every year. You don't have to be Milton Friedman to accept that large expansions of supply will lead to lower prices than would otherwise have been the case!

At first glance it's kinda ridiculous to claim things like M-G help the poor, since obviously only a small number of people will be able to afford it, but it's true! If we didn't have places like M-G to warehouse the gentrifier demographic, where would they go? To Moss Park or Parkdale to gentrify those places even quicker!

Yes, you are right that the market will likely not provision affordable housing in all areas of a city. Land next to the CBD for instance will naturally be more valuable than land located next to warehouse 30 miles away.

There are certain corollaries of this, though. If it's a bad idea for the market to provision affordable housing in some areas it's probably a bad idea for the public to provision them there through social housing or other such programs. There's an opportunity cost to building affordable housing in premium areas. Intuitively, it would be stupid for us to try building affordable housing in Yorkville or the Bridle Path since we could build far more units somewhere else. London's a weird example of this, where they simultaneously have massive backlogs throughout their social housing programs while also having people living in multi-million pound flats in Chelsea!
 
Downtown Toronto is increasingly unaffordable for anyone but the wealthy.
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On the contrary....I think it is the increasing unaffordability of the so-called suburban lifestyle that has greatly contributed to the explosion of apartment living in downtown (and elsewhere). While housing prices haven't been going down, it is the competitive condo market that has kept price increases fairly modest, especially compared to freehold house prices.

In the decade between 2001 & 2011, the downtown residential population increased by over 56 thousand. The following decade will see an even bigger residential increase. Plus the increased working population from all the new commercial space, plus all the new students at expanded educational facilities downtown.

The job of city hall is not to curb growth and development because it puts a strain on infrastructure....their job is to expand infrastructure to meet the demands of increased growth and development. That's what we pay them for.

The current administration's mantra is "respect for taxpayers". Well, perhaps they should start looking at where the lion's share of those taxes come from....downtown. Then tell me how we need to waste precious resources on subway expansion for what should be LRT expansion in Scarb, while downtown (that warrants subway expansion), get stuck with the current over capacity strreetcars running in mixed traffic.

And yea, their job also involves protecting heritage structures in our city (for which they haven't really done much a great job at). But the trick is to pick your battles wisely. You don't allow the demolition of something as significant as the Inn On The Park so it can be replaced by a stupid Toyota Dealership, and then get all high-handed over a couple of insignificant warehouse buildings and risk a project as game-changing as Mirvish-Gehry.
 
The heritage preservation laws must be strong to do what they're supposed to do. If that means the failure of this project, so be it. There will probably be many starchitect projects in the future.
 
And unfortunately, the circumstance here does neither side favours. The fact that de jure heritage is being threatened winds up fueling the "anti-starchitect" argument in a way that a tabula rasa wouldn't, while the fact that the proposal is what it is is fueling an equally overwrought dismissiveness of existing fabric that, again, wouldn't otherwise pertain...
 
Every net addition to Toronto's housing stock increases affordability. Even a M-G penthouse has that result, ultimately & indirectly, all the way down the line like musical chairs.

I dismiss below market (subsidized) residential in the heart, like King & John, is because its wildly inefficient. If the city reserved land in the entertainment district for 100 single-parent families I'd be livid. I would tell the city to sell valuable land to a developer and use the proceeds to build 300 affordable units within a 10-15 minute walk. Why should 200 families NOT get housing because some bureaucrat has a fantasy about affordable housing at King & John.
 
buildup said:
Every net addition to Toronto's housing stock increases affordability. Even a M-G penthouse has that result, ultimately & indirectly, all the way down the line like musical chairs.

I dismiss below market (subsidized) residential in the heart, like King & John, is because its wildly inefficient. If the city reserved land in the entertainment district for 100 single-parent families I'd be livid. I would tell the city to sell valuable land to a developer and use the proceeds to build 300 affordable units within a 10-15 minute walk. Why should 200 families NOT get housing because some bureaucrat has a fantasy about affordable housing at King & John.
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I agree completely but this is already happening with downtown projects! Tridels 10 York will include 12 subsidized units thanks to Adumb Vaughan. This is one of the most expensive new buildings in the heart of the city within a ten minute walk to King and Bay and as a Section 37 trade-off twelve very lucky individuals/families are going to be able to live in one of the most luxurious buildings in the city for next to nothing! It is complete insanity!

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...g_set_to_include_affordable_rental_units.html

I'm guessing that the value of these 12 units is worth about $6 Million. With this kind of money an organization like Habitat for Humanity could build 50 three bedroom homes in Toronto (based on their published figures: http://torontohabitat.ca/about-us-mobile/faqs/habitat-for-humanity.html )
 
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