GenerationLee
Senior Member
Today,
Toronto Hospital For Sick Children: Patient Support Centre | 99.06m | 22s | Sick Kids | B+H
- Thread starter AlvinofDiaspar
- Start date
christiesplits
Senior Member
UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
I dunno, I do like the yellow bits and the Pride stairwell...
ushahid
Senior Member
^yeah. i like that too but entrance area looks dull. i agree with both of you. 
GenerationLee
Senior Member
Yeah, I wasn't too impressed when I passed by in the last few weeks. As a side note, I think the crosswalk at Gerrard should've been given street lights long ago. It's a bit disorganized to put it lightly, both for drivers and pedestrians.
Northern Light
Superstar
The intersection of Gerrard and Elizabeth does have traffic lights.
Did you mean Elm?
GenerationLee
Senior Member
Yes. I always forget the name of that street. The intersection by the bus terminal isn't quite ideal either.
Northern Light
Superstar
I assume Alex's critique here, based on those pics is the at-grade/base, on the Elizabeth-facing side of the building. Though perhaps he could clarify.
I agree w/others that the tower, as taken from a distance is reasonably nice, the yellow offering some much needed vibrant colour.
But I can concur w/Alex, that the at-grade expression is not great here.
Here's what I would note:
1) The entrance is relatively subtle as compared to building, it seems a bit under-scaled.
2) 100% glazed, at-grade is almost always a bad idea, even if one has retail or other enlivening, glass tends to read cold.
3) The only thing to make 100% glazing at grade look worse is integrated spandrel/opaque glazing.
4) The vibrant colour of the tower form doesn't really come down to grade.
5) The absence of any retail or something else to break up the visual at-grade and to offer some animation gives more of a hostile, secure, cut-off vibe to the building. In a building will w/staff who need to eat lunch, even a simple coffee shop w/patio could do wonders.
6) The sidewalk is wide, yet the trees are under-sized, and pushed off to the curb, where they are more susceptible to salt damage; why not do mid-sidewalk landscape, not too much, but some open beds with shrubs/perennials, so the space doesn't give off 'concrete runway'.
The introduction of warmer material choices for the grade expression and/or the use of warm-toned interlock, instead of concrete on the sidewalk would do wonders.
So would framing the main entrance so as to make use of some strategic uplighting.
Northern Light
Superstar
I'm generally not keen on more traffic lights everywhere. So I'm not sure I agree w/adding them here. I don't think the intersection functions all that poorly.
Now, its not terribly attractive, and there certainly is room to address that and probably improve safety for road users a bit as well.
How about raised-crosswalks at the intersection, and we narrow Elm Street as it approaches the intersection (precluding parking close to same) ; and use that space for enhanced streetscaping?