Toronto KING Toronto | 57.6m | 16s | Westbank | Bjarke Ingels Group

Can't see those glass blocks ageing well.. Look no further than every 80's motel or tacky florida resort

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I'm fascinated by all the trees planted in the balconies - great idea theoretically minimizing water runoff, adding additional tree canopy to minimize heating/cooling costs while also helping clean the air...

How deep do those tree roots need to go down to be secure? I'd assume each level is 9 ft high, and they'd want to minimize the amount of space between each level to maximize units for sale. Will the roots be secure enough given the winds Toronto experience?

I believe there's a tree wall for a building in Milan, but that's also a mild weather city from my understanding.
 
Evergreens (lack of) were discussed in another thread, BIG should give that (evergreens) some thought... though I'd argue the "planting" renders are a dream... even if they pulled it off I'd hate to see the impact of water and November leaf clean-up, on monthly maintenance fees ;-)
 
Can't see those glass blocks ageing well.. Look no further than every 80's motel or tacky florida resort

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This is a pretty narrow way of judging materials. It's all about HOW the material will be used. Look at marble used in bathrooms in the 80s vs now. The design vision is completely different from "80s bathrooms" and in this case is revolutionary. Save your negativity for a project that deserves it.
 
This is a pretty narrow way of judging materials. It's all about HOW the material will be used. Look at marble used in bathrooms in the 80s vs now. The design vision is completely different from "80s bathrooms" and in this case is revolutionary. Save your negativity for a project that deserves it.

Yup, as a counterpoint, one could point to Le Corbusier's Maison Verre as a different application of glass block.
 
GH3 used Glass Block really successfully on this Edmonton water treatment project:


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I'm less concerned about the glass block. Done/sealed well should have a decent life-span (cleaning?).

It's fun to draw and paste massive greenery into a massive project... guess there are city documents supplied by now that explain this green vision in our climate. This building will not look so good unless it pays off some "green" for most of the year. I see ivy which will help all year (sorry window-washers) but no pine/cedars which makes climate sense.

As I said before, this building could be a "maintenance fee" nightmare for buyers ... unless BIG has BIG planting tech in their plan. Otherwise pretty pictures.. Buenos Aires.

We still have trouble keeping trees alive at grade ;-)
 
There's that condo in Vancouver that had to pay 600k to replace their tree spire not to long ago. It's a wealthy building but, the cost still probably hurt. The vines on the Woodward Tower have been an epic failure in a rain forest. Fortunately, the trellis look good.
 
There's that condo in Vancouver that had to pay 600k to replace their tree spire not to long ago. It's a wealthy building but, the cost still probably hurt. The vines on the Woodward Tower have been an epic failure in a rain forest. Fortunately, the trellis look good.

I was wondering what happened to that tree! Just found a CTV story about it that states:

"Strata documents obtained by CTV show the owners of the building's condos have no choice in the matter. The city's building permit was contingent on having a rooftop tree, so owners will have to pay about $35,000 per unit for its replacement."

Ouch!

 

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