MetroMan
Senior Member
The cheapening has already been done. We lost the boot. I don't see the white stripes disappearing. They're simply different coloured windows. At worst, they may not be as distinct as shown in the rendering.
Automation Gallery
Superstar
I doubt it, this is one of the higher end buildings being built in Toronto.
200-300 million dollar complexes like the Trump, Four Seasons, Shangri-La, Ritz, will most liklely be built to spec as possible. unlike other boxy mediocre residential garbage going up all over the city.
grey
Senior Member
The Cheapening isn't limited to "boxy" buildings.
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MetroMan
Senior Member
Putting the loss of the boot behind us -- there's no point in mourning it now -- and focusing on the extraordinary tower we're getting downtown, I'm beginning to wonder about the details of the public plaza. It's a fairly large area now that the tower only occupies the southmost area of the block.
I'm not sure we need another public square here (there's a beautiful park steps away and Union Station's front door will be transformed into one of our city's most prominent public piazza's with the Union Station district plan.
Nonetheless, I'm curious as to how it'll be used.
I'm not sure we need another public square here (there's a beautiful park steps away and Union Station's front door will be transformed into one of our city's most prominent public piazza's with the Union Station district plan.
Nonetheless, I'm curious as to how it'll be used.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Before their clearcutting, the five well-maintained and fruitful mulberry trees on that site provided sheltered sleeping quarters for the homeless and sustenance for the jam-making community in the summer months. It's a tiny space in the grand scheme of things, but I think we should take every opportunity to reimagine urban spaces like that one as either passive gardens for the general public, or as productive community gardens that will sustain we locavores. Fortunately, we're not a city where every tall building "meets the street" and there are plenty of opportunities - in addition to the new emphasis on incorporating green roofs on new large developments - to establish Toronto as a centre of urban agriculture, lessening our need to import food. Our growing season is short, but it can be highly productive.
Also, people should seriously consider eating their pets. Keeping Fido and Fluffy and Hammy ( all of whom have their own carbon footprints ) nourished isn't doing the planet any good.
Also, people should seriously consider eating their pets. Keeping Fido and Fluffy and Hammy ( all of whom have their own carbon footprints ) nourished isn't doing the planet any good.
Solaris
Senior Member
the white strips here here to stay ... there will be frosted glass windows panels in the condominium suites, which also show up in the floorplans contained in the Agreements of Purchase & Sale
MetroMan
Senior Member
^ There you go. Thanks for the confirmation.
Solaris
Senior Member
I'll go through the package again and find the exact wording ~
41stfloor
Active Member
Don't believe everything you read in the paper. I read the same article about that study and it's bunk. Pets like dogs and cats that eat commercial food that contain animal protein eat parts or by-products of animals that would otherside be tossed out. As such, the carbon footprint is much lower than one would think. If you think we should stop feeding pets grains and seeds because of the carbon load involved in producing the grain and seeds, then I guess the logical extension of that argument is that we should also stop feeding wild birds (and squirrels) commercially grown bird seed. In addition pets have a significant psychological boost to people that more than outweigh any carbon load attribution.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Psychological boost maybe, but they'd eat us if they got the chance. You can't tell me that our burgeoning trophy dog population doesn't consume as much, if not more, as the owners I see them dragging around town on the end of leashes; their vittles have to come from some sort of commercial production process. And squirrels are vermin along with wild birds. The nutty old woman who used to live a couple of doors away from me was constantly feeding peanuts to squirrels - I think she saw herself as some sort of St. Francis of Assisi - and they'd show their gratitude by biting the heads off all our tulip bulbs, little wretches.
yyzer
Senior Member
John Bentley Mays in today's Globe.....agree with him 100%
Toronto settles for half a Libeskind
Last week's sod-turning for L Tower, destined to rise on the southeast corner of Front Street East and Yonge Street, was cheerful and upbeat, as such events always are, but it left me disgruntled. What did Toronto mayor David Miller, various city councillors and this residential building's developers (all on hand for the hard-hat photo op) have to be so darned happy about, when L Tower so clearly represents lost opportunities?
As originally designed by star architect and enfant terrible Daniel Libeskind and unveiled in 2005, the tower indeed had an L-shaped silhouette. The weight of the proposed edifice fell down its gracefully bulging shaft, then curved nicely, finally hitting the ground in a projecting podium that gave the whole composition, in profile, the figure of a stout boot. This scheme was flamboyant, as Mr. Libeskind's things tend to be. But it had integrity, a contemporary spirit of architectural invention and a quality too rare among Toronto's tall buildings: real urban flair. Though shoehorned into its tight site alongside Peter Dickinson's festive, swank O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts (1960) – now called Sony Centre – L Tower, as first thought out, would have provided an interesting postmodern counterpoint to the older structure's sleek horizontal modernism.
The $280-million L Tower we'll now be getting has been shorn of its eight-storey podium. This element was to have contained a $75-million arts and heritage awareness complex, featuring an interactive arts lab, a banquet hall and a video cabaret space. The facility would have been a fine addition to the mix of cultural venues in the downtown core – we don't have anything quite like it – and would have boldly complemented the existing cultural institutions clustered along Front Street between Yonge and Church streets. It was axed last year when the feds and the province refused to come up with a measly $22-million each. Corporate sponsors didn't materialize. Nobody with money in this very rich city, it appears, thought that putting this unusual complex in the heart of an important Toronto arts neighbourhood was worth the bother.
The result is half a Libeskind, a shaft without a strong base. (Eaton's College Park, at the corner of College and Yonge streets, is also half a building: a strong beaux arts base without the shaft that was planned to go on top. Until quite recently, in the financial district, we had an abandoned concrete service core without anything wrapped around it. Perhaps it's Toronto's fate to be stuck with half-done architectural projects.)
The condominium shaft of L Tower, at 58 storeys, is very tall – up from 49 storeys in the original design – and the whole building is large, as Toronto residential blocks go. From stem to stern, there will be 600 suites in the structure, starting in price at about $600 a square foot and size with one-bedroom apartments at 442 square feet. The units move up from there to 2,000-square-foot penthouses, and loft suites with 10-foot ceilings will be available on some lower levels. The views to the south (toward Lake Ontario) and to the north and west (the high-rise downtown core) should be spectacular.
The south façade will be a flat expanse of glass falling sheer and straight from the skyscraper's crown. The artistry of this tower's svelte north façade is much as it was in the earlier vision: slightly narrow at the waist, billowing outward at the top before smartly curving back at the summit.
The curve in the north façade, especially at the top 15 or so levels, will create interior volumes shaped more like glass botanical pavilions than the orthogonal apartments in more ordinary residential developments. As Toronto discovered with the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum, Mr. Libeskind likes to knock walls out of their conventional configurations and push space into unusual forms. The fascinating upper suites of L Tower will be examples of this artist-architect's handiwork at its most daring.
But all this drama and spirited play with light and area vanish at the bottom. There, in lieu of the exiled boot-toe podium, Mr. Libeskind has put a plaza, and a short utilitarian structure to house the residents' fitness centre, swimming pool, party room and other amenities. The developers have committed $30-million to the city to refurbish the Sony Centre, and the plaza will probably be welcomed by urban enthusiasts of the Jane Jacobs persuasion as yet another new public place, of which Toronto can apparently never have too many.
I think putting a plaza there is a waste of good downtown real estate. Be that as it may, Toronto will have to wait until another day to get a second Daniel Libeskind creation whole and complete.
Toronto settles for half a Libeskind
Last week's sod-turning for L Tower, destined to rise on the southeast corner of Front Street East and Yonge Street, was cheerful and upbeat, as such events always are, but it left me disgruntled. What did Toronto mayor David Miller, various city councillors and this residential building's developers (all on hand for the hard-hat photo op) have to be so darned happy about, when L Tower so clearly represents lost opportunities?
As originally designed by star architect and enfant terrible Daniel Libeskind and unveiled in 2005, the tower indeed had an L-shaped silhouette. The weight of the proposed edifice fell down its gracefully bulging shaft, then curved nicely, finally hitting the ground in a projecting podium that gave the whole composition, in profile, the figure of a stout boot. This scheme was flamboyant, as Mr. Libeskind's things tend to be. But it had integrity, a contemporary spirit of architectural invention and a quality too rare among Toronto's tall buildings: real urban flair. Though shoehorned into its tight site alongside Peter Dickinson's festive, swank O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts (1960) – now called Sony Centre – L Tower, as first thought out, would have provided an interesting postmodern counterpoint to the older structure's sleek horizontal modernism.
The $280-million L Tower we'll now be getting has been shorn of its eight-storey podium. This element was to have contained a $75-million arts and heritage awareness complex, featuring an interactive arts lab, a banquet hall and a video cabaret space. The facility would have been a fine addition to the mix of cultural venues in the downtown core – we don't have anything quite like it – and would have boldly complemented the existing cultural institutions clustered along Front Street between Yonge and Church streets. It was axed last year when the feds and the province refused to come up with a measly $22-million each. Corporate sponsors didn't materialize. Nobody with money in this very rich city, it appears, thought that putting this unusual complex in the heart of an important Toronto arts neighbourhood was worth the bother.
The result is half a Libeskind, a shaft without a strong base. (Eaton's College Park, at the corner of College and Yonge streets, is also half a building: a strong beaux arts base without the shaft that was planned to go on top. Until quite recently, in the financial district, we had an abandoned concrete service core without anything wrapped around it. Perhaps it's Toronto's fate to be stuck with half-done architectural projects.)
The condominium shaft of L Tower, at 58 storeys, is very tall – up from 49 storeys in the original design – and the whole building is large, as Toronto residential blocks go. From stem to stern, there will be 600 suites in the structure, starting in price at about $600 a square foot and size with one-bedroom apartments at 442 square feet. The units move up from there to 2,000-square-foot penthouses, and loft suites with 10-foot ceilings will be available on some lower levels. The views to the south (toward Lake Ontario) and to the north and west (the high-rise downtown core) should be spectacular.
The south façade will be a flat expanse of glass falling sheer and straight from the skyscraper's crown. The artistry of this tower's svelte north façade is much as it was in the earlier vision: slightly narrow at the waist, billowing outward at the top before smartly curving back at the summit.
The curve in the north façade, especially at the top 15 or so levels, will create interior volumes shaped more like glass botanical pavilions than the orthogonal apartments in more ordinary residential developments. As Toronto discovered with the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum, Mr. Libeskind likes to knock walls out of their conventional configurations and push space into unusual forms. The fascinating upper suites of L Tower will be examples of this artist-architect's handiwork at its most daring.
But all this drama and spirited play with light and area vanish at the bottom. There, in lieu of the exiled boot-toe podium, Mr. Libeskind has put a plaza, and a short utilitarian structure to house the residents' fitness centre, swimming pool, party room and other amenities. The developers have committed $30-million to the city to refurbish the Sony Centre, and the plaza will probably be welcomed by urban enthusiasts of the Jane Jacobs persuasion as yet another new public place, of which Toronto can apparently never have too many.
I think putting a plaza there is a waste of good downtown real estate. Be that as it may, Toronto will have to wait until another day to get a second Daniel Libeskind creation whole and complete.
ganjavih
Senior Member
We keep getting half-a-(insert starchitect's name here) in this town. When will we get the real deal?
Traynor
Senior Member
When people stop voting with their pocket books and stop buying into these half-assed creations.
The same goes for the size of the units in most condos these days. Since when is it acceptable to have a fridge and stove in your living room? Remember the days when an apartment had a real kitchen? Even one that is open concept, but at least they had a defined space? Now you have a bunch of counters flat against one wall in a 15 foot room and your sofa 2 feet from your kitchen counters.
I know I'll hear from the "dollars-per-square-foot-believers" saying those days are gone... I say, do a search on floor plans of any American condo and you'll see most have real kitchens despite their high dollar per sq/ ft. prices. In Toronto specifically and Canada in general, we have become complacent, accepting what money-grubbing builders can get away with.
OK... Bring the hate.... I can take it.
Granny
Active Member
When people stop voting with their pocket books and stop buying into these half-assed creations.
The same goes for the size of the units in most condos these days. Since when is it acceptable to have a fridge and stove in your living room? Remember the days when an apartment had a real kitchen? Even one that is open concept, but at least they had a defined space? Now you have a bunch of counters flat against one wall in a 15 foot room and your sofa 2 feet from your kitchen counters.
I know I'll hear from the "dollars-per-square-foot-believers" saying those days are gone... I say, do a search on floor plans of any American condo and you'll see most have real kitchens despite their high dollar per sq/ ft. prices. In Toronto specifically and Canada in general, we have become complacent, accepting what money-grubbing builders can get away with.
OK... Bring the hate.... I can take it.
I'm in 100% agreement with you on the 'new' kitchens that are suddenly showing up in projects. The interior windowless bedrooms are probably an unavoidable evolvement, but these linear kitchens are just plain crazy. It is beyond my comprehension as to who would buy this kind of thing. Whoever does must realize that one day they will want to try and sell. The application of the 'Greater Fool Theory' is not really the smartest route to go in real estate.
Should point out however, from what I have seen of the L Tower plans, there appears to be very little of this sillines. I have only seen the larger sq. ft. plans though. Perhaps someone out there has copies of the small units to share with us.