Toronto One Bloor East | 257.24m | 76s | Great Gulf | Hariri Pontarini

[steveve]

It would be pretty awesome if they did a mirror of 1BE at 1BW. We would get some WTC-esque twin towers type of stuff going on up there. Just a thought.

lol! the residents at Uptown and Crystal blu would be prettyyyy pissed!
but yeah, i think if they did mirror it, people would get sick of one bloor, and it might be overkill, i think all 4 corners should be uniformly different, since the north corners are different,

 

[gweed123]

lol! the residents at Uptown and Crystal blu would be prettyyyy pissed!
but yeah, i think if they did mirror it, people would get sick of one bloor, and it might be overkill, i think all 4 corners should be uniformly different, since the north corners are different,

I would reply to them by saying: you bought into one of the densest corners in all of Canada, did you really think your view was going to last??? Seriously, it's like people who buy into a new rural estate subdivision and then complain that the farm next door smells like shit. F**king duh!

Maybe the design of One Bloor isn't so lending to being twinned, but I think Toronto needs an iconic twin tower look on their skyline. Part of what makes Absolute World so amazing is not just the buildings themselves, but the sight of the two of them together. They play off of eachother in an amazing way. And I think that if there was only one of them, it would look much less impressive.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Maybe the design of One Bloor isn't so lending to being twinned, but I think Toronto needs an iconic twin tower look on their skyline. Part of what makes Absolute World so amazing is not just the buildings themselves, but the sight of the two of them together. They play off of eachother in an amazing way. And I think that if there was only one of them, it would look much less impressive.

ICE will hopefully fuffill that role in the skyline. From the lake they should look as though they're just about the tallest buildings in view.

 

[gweed123]

ICE will hopefully fuffill that role in the skyline. From the lake they should look as though they're just about the tallest buildings in view.

Hopefully. Although I think we need something similar further up too (between Dundas and Bloor). ROCP did a pretty poor job at being those needed twin towers.

 

[Roots_Energize]

There's the met condos on college, they are really nice, but not super tall, great addition to the area tho .

 

[EMP1729]

I do think that 1 Bloor east needs a partner tower. A second more, ahem, masculine building would complement it just fine.

 

[Mongo]

Like this?

 

[steveve]

I would reply to them by saying: you bought into one of the densest corners in all of Canada, did you really think your view was going to last??? Seriously, it's like people who buy into a new rural estate subdivision and then complain that the farm next door smells like shit. F**king duh!

Maybe the design of One Bloor isn't so lending to being twinned, but I think Toronto needs an iconic twin tower look on their skyline. Part of what makes Absolute World so amazing is not just the buildings themselves, but the sight of the two of them together. They play off of eachother in an amazing way. And I think that if there was only one of them, it would look much less impressive.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Toronto has way too many twin tower condo complexes.... And too many on our skyline/streets looks cheap and in fact, most of the ones we get are cheap. I prefer standalone towers.

Examples of twin tower condo complexes. ROCP, MLS, murano, ice, success, u condos, etc.... I mean, common! This just shows that Toronto is a city with too many big open lots for developers to build these things. Downtown should have more standalone towers that give the city variety. Not big twin tower complexes with big podiums... That's just suburban.. You don't find that stuff so much in new York or Chicago.

 

[renvel]

1 Bloor W

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Toronto has way too many twin tower condo complexes.... And too many on our skyline/streets looks cheap and in fact, most of the ones we get are cheap. I prefer standalone towers.

Examples of twin tower condo complexes. ROCP, MLS, murano, ice, success, u condos, etc.... I mean, common! This just shows that Toronto is a city with too many big open lots for developers to build these things. Downtown should have more standalone towers that give the city variety. Not big twin tower complexes with big podiums... That's just suburban.. You don't find that stuff so much in new York or Chicago.

1 Bloor East & 1 Bloor West connected by podium?
OK let the opposite side of the street stay neglected as it is now...

 

[Irishmonk]

....Not big twin tower complexes with big podiums... That's just suburban.. You don't find that stuff so much in new York or Chicago.

New York DID have a big set of twins. Now they have to settle for the Time Warner duo.

 

[Kraylin]

I find it funny that after all the delays and all the skeptisism about this project getting built that after only a few weeks of activity on site some of you have already begun to start about the next tower on the other corner. No wonder you get antsy during the process if you start years before the developers do!

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

I don't understand the fascination with trashing the s/w corner of Yonge and Bloor nor why there has to be a highrise here. It works just fine the way it is now, tearing down older, attractive (albeit, some are rundown) building stock makes no sense to me. Bringing the old stock on Yonge Street back to an attractive state with tax credits or incentives makes a whole lot more sense to me for one of our greatest, busiest, walkable streets as opposed to more boring glass highrises.

 

[gweed123]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Toronto has way too many twin tower condo complexes.... And too many on our skyline/streets looks cheap and in fact, most of the ones we get are cheap. I prefer standalone towers.

Examples of twin tower condo complexes. ROCP, MLS, murano, ice, success, u condos, etc.... I mean, common! This just shows that Toronto is a city with too many big open lots for developers to build these things. Downtown should have more standalone towers that give the city variety. Not big twin tower complexes with big podiums... That's just suburban.. You don't find that stuff so much in new York or Chicago.

With the exception of ICE though (hopefully), those complexes blend into the skyline more than they stand out. When you look at the skyline from almost any direction, MLS isn't the first thing your eye is drawn to, and with the exception of a few limited angles, neither is Murano/Burano or ROCP.

From pretty much no matter where you are, 1BE is going to stand out. It's going to be the anchor of the northern part of downtown.

When the towers aren't the centre of attention, I agree that in a lot of cases adding a 2nd one makes it look boring and redundant. As 'skyline filler', you want a wide variety of colours, shapes, and heights. However, when the towers are the focal point of the area, I think that twinning them adds a lot to it.

 

[someMidTowner]

A second more, ahem, masculine building would complement it just fine.

Like this?

Thats a bit too "masculine". hahah

 

[junctionist]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Toronto has way too many twin tower condo complexes.... And too many on our skyline/streets looks cheap and in fact, most of the ones we get are cheap. I prefer standalone towers.

Examples of twin tower condo complexes. ROCP, MLS, murano, ice, success, u condos, etc.... I mean, common! This just shows that Toronto is a city with too many big open lots for developers to build these things. Downtown should have more standalone towers that give the city variety. Not big twin tower complexes with big podiums... That's just suburban.. You don't find that stuff so much in new York or Chicago.

I agree, we have seen a lot of mediocre twin tower complexes and repetition isn't always appealing. Yet two similar buildings with some variation can work well as a sort of inpromptu gate for a street, framing it as a space the way the CIBC and HBC towers currently frame the north side of the Yonge and Bloor intersection. But for this to work, there should be more of a relationship between the two buildings like these two houses in Cabbagetown framing a side street. It's another one of those cases where architecture meets urban planning, with buildings designed to interact with the grid. A more well-known example is designing a building as a terminating vista.