Toronto Hullmark Centre | 167.94m | 45s | Tridel | Kirkor Architects

I liked it better with the signs. Those video screens can add a little light and colour to a dull corner. I love the ones in Dundas Square. Why can't we have another thriving area, with video screens in downtown North York? North York definitely needs help in pedestrianizing the strip.
 
I've met the Developer before. Let's just say that cheapening the end product is a consistent measure of his development skills.
The Lead Architect must really be hurting on this one.
 
I would think that the retailers who were considering space at Hullmark Centre would be very disappointed with the removal of the video screens.
 
I've met the Developer before. Let's just say that cheapening the end product is a consistent measure of his development skills.
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Tridel doesn't win all these accolades and respect from the resale market by partnering with cheapstakes or cheapening on their own product ...well, at least not any more than anyone else. This is also more than just a shitty condominium. It has a fairly substantial commercial component. Cheapening the project in any way would be a disservice to their pocketbooks regardless if Hullmark holds on to the commercial space or sells it off.
 
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drunkmunky said:
I've met the Developer before. Let's just say that cheapening the end product is a consistent measure of his development skills.
The Lead Architect must really be hurting on this one.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your post, one-post pony.
 
Video Signs can be whatever the owner/operator makes of them. They can be a horrible, blinking, flashing eyesore and terrible distraction to drivers. Or they can be a sleek, modern, futuristic addition to a street scape, with subtle images smoothly blending from one to another.

In my opinion, only one video screen on a corner is a terrible driving distraction. I remember when they put that CTV one at Yonge and Bloor on the SE corner. When you tried to drive through that area at twilight or cloudy days, it would flash and blink to grab your attention and not only distract you from the road if you were driving, but actually make it hard for the brain to notice brake lights.

However, when you have many video screens (as in Yonge and Dundas) it just becomes ambient lighting.

That being said... JUST IN MY OPINION...Until North York secedes from Toronto to become it's own city again...Video screens belong downtown and leave the suburbs for the bedroom community they are.

(Oh, am I going to get some hate mail on this!.... LOL)
 
No, I agree. They installed a video screen at the north-west corner of Yonge and Eglinton and its awful. Its distracting and a "horrible, blinking, flashing eyesore and terrible distraction to drivers". And I doubt anyone reads or watches what is being displayed. It subtracts, instead of adds, to the urban atmosphere.

Bring them on at Yonge-Dundas Square. Leave the rest of the city alone.
 
I prefer the new design as well. I thought the TV screens (though nice as they were) doesn't necessarily add to the overall ambient feel of the NYCC area.

Most importantly however, I think its more important to expect whether or not the little open concrete space will be used by the public as a place to sit/socialize/buskering entertaining etc etc...
 
The paving and landscaping shown in the renderings is not what will get built, anyway, so it would be an error to tie the removal of the screen to the removal of the swirls (which were a bit silly, but not nearly as silly as filling up a piazza with strips of grass as proposed in the new rendering). Yonge's sidewalks are all being designed in a similar, cohesive way - not that the emerging granite 'key' scheme is necessarily the most attractive and functional sidewalk design, but, whatever, that's what's being done, not whatever gets rendered here.

Hate to break it to you guys, but this project is definitely worse off without the media screen. Others have noted the large retail & office component of Hullmark, and, given existing and future pedestrian patterns, this piazza will be quite devoid of people unless as much attention as possible is paid to luring people (and their eyes, and their wallets) out of their way to the space. The intersection is not Yorkville...it will never be intimate. Yonge & Sheppard was supposed to be a rather subdued (well, obtuse, 80s-style) corporate nexus, but that didn't pan out. Don't let the parking lots and empty sites fool you or establish the area's aesthetic norm: flashing lights and signs and ads are the future...or should be, once the sites are developed. The NW corner, for instance, is slated to be developed with a small retail complex. Yonge & Dundas and Times Square aren't the ideal models - busy Asian shopping/restaurant streets are. The video screen is a logical next step in the area's evolution, not some superfluous eyesore. The curved blank wall above the piazza now looks stupid and barren. Perhaps it's time for North York to finally stop pretending the 80s aren't over.

Video screens are sometimes like lipstick on a pig. It needs to be said that there'd be more art in the videos and ads on the screen than there is in the design/architecture of the complex upon which the screen would be mounted. Hullmark without a video screen is like Babe without the ability to talk...no matter how charming they both might still seem without their added feature, if you slice them up, you'll still find bacon.
 
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Dec 23 Visit

A view of what the area looks like today. People going to loose their nice view once this goes up.
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