Toronto Market Wharf | 110.33m | 33s | Context Development | a—A

ganjavih said:
Hipster Duck got the point. Replace the Lenox with Mozo... my point is still the same. The cube is better for urbanity than the point tower.

Which works better?

mozo.jpg


cityplace.jpg


Point towers inevitably fail to contribute to urban fabric. There is no such thing as a vibrant point tower neighbourhood.
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^but if there were towers rising above those 'cubes' wouldn't you have the best of both worlds? In other words maybe you don't have an issue with podiums so much as with the type of podiums we're getting (i.e. ones that don't form strong streetwalls...)
 
Doesnt this development back onto the railway tracks? If so, I think the design is quite appropriate, with the tall point tower acting as a sort of anchor to this part of Jarvis street.

About the debate over point towers: I don't think cityplace fails simply because of the abundance of tall towers. It fails mainly because it is an entire neighbourhood that was essentially built overnight, but also because there is very little interaction between the buildings and the street. Market wharf doesn't suffer from either of these problems (that podium looks to be around 8 stories tall, and has a very signficiant presence. it certainly isnt overpowered by the tower).
 
Tewder: you can bury the base of a point tower of any height behind a podium with no impact... or if intelligent life is involved in the development (yeah right), some kind of genuine meet the street at grade (retail + live/work lofts above = street animation thing in lieu of podium... it's so f!@ckin' simple to create a welcoming new streetscape. Just don't make your podium private property... make it serve the new neighbourhood.

Point being, who gives a shit about aerial photos of built form... give me a dozen point towers with 3-6 storey bases/podiums/street animation via retail... no would care until they looked up. It's not like people are lining up to shop/eat et al at the properly scaled Mozo.
 
I actually don't mind a tall tower in this location. My problem is the tower is too short. I also think the podium could be taller too.

I'd also be happy with just a taller version of the podium and no tower.
 
The key is how the buildings meet the street, whether they have podiums or not. In urban centres we tend to like density and strong streetwalls, for the most part, and this is true of cities in a North American (highrise) context, or a European lowrise one. Is this why we hate brutalism so?
 
Trick question. The answer is the one without the parking lot and motor court which says nothing about cubes or point towers.
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That's exactly the problem with the City Place buildings on Front as well as the ones on Bremner east of Spadina. From what I've seen of the ones west of Spadina they may finally have got it right.
 
Tewder said:
In urban centres we tend to like density and strong streetwalls...
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The problem is we don't often get that these days. One of the rare examples is the Pantages tower which is built right up to the street without a wimpy podium. I guess the Trump Tower as well. Unfortunately, most of our towers are built on lowrise podiums that don't provide a good streetwall and don't contribute to an attractive streetscape.

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That's why I suggested getting rid of the Market Wharf tower and bulking up the podium.
 
ganjavih:

It might be true for the examples that you've cited - but the Market Wharf podium certainly isn't whimpy by a long shot - the height is practically even against the surrounding buildings.

AoD
 
Ganjavih raises some good points about podiums in general. Maybe they should be mandated along certain arteries for density and height (Heck, the whole city of Paris is mandated for height). This might curb the suburbanization of new urban development (City Place).
 
Or perhaps just trust to the design review process rather than relying too heavily on mandating things? There's a certain sameness to Baron Haussmann's city that isn't universally applauded, after all. Spire, for instance, pretty much skips the podium and sets it off to one side and the world carries on quite nicely. Eliminating the Market Wharf tower and turning this development into one huge butterball podium building, based on the tenuous argument that because the same architect designed MoZo on a much smaller site without a tower the same approach must be taken here, seems to miss the point that sites even a few blocks apart can be very different and require different approaches.
 
Eliminating the Market Wharf tower and turning this development into one huge butterball podium building, based on the tenuous argument that because the same architect designed MoZo on a much smaller site without a tower the same approach must be taken here seems to miss the point that sites even a few blocks apart can be very different and require different approaches.
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Speaking about tenuous arguments, Shocker, didn't you defend the tower's height in relation to its "proximity" to certain high-rise towers several blocks away? (Post 239) Incidentally, those condos are all located well west of Church street and form the descending eastern ridge of the high-rise cluster of the financial district. East of Church, height drops precipitously to maintain the midrise aesthetic of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood.
 
The podium will approximately match the red brick buildings on either side, and the tower will be about the same height as nearbye towers. That's quite different from mandating a towerless form for this development, which sits on a large site, based on the fact that the same architect did a building on a much smaller site that sensibly doesn't include a tower for obvious reasons.
 
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