Toronto Pan Am Village in the West Don Lands | ?m | ?s | DundeeKilmer | KPMB

[AndreaPalladio]

I walked through with the dog on Saturday. It's nice, walking wise. It will be better once it's warmer, because now it will be a straight shot across Front to the park, and to the river and the trails beyond. And once the shops open - signs are up already for restos, the bike shop, the butcher, the baker, presumably a candlestick maker will arrive in due course.

The dog was less impressed, because it's new, and there are no smells yet.

 

[torontologist]

Some red or yellow brick would have been nice.

Every time I see images of the West Don Lands, I think of a certain St. Vincent music video:

 

[interchange42]

The kids had fun with these columns. But putting retail behind them? I certainly wouldn't want to have a store back here.
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If anyone can succeed behind there, it'll either be an LCBO, or a Dark Horse Café… and it's a Dark Horse, per this Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/BD_Cs0sna1l/

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[maestro]

What do I want from a mass produced product? Well just sticking to the same general part of the city, how about this, with three different colours working together with the design and massing to create an engaging streetscape. Or this, with a variety of colours and textures creating an interesting building. Or even this, which is a bit of a dud at street level but is otherwise quite attractive thanks in no small part to its use of colour. All of these buildings are mass produced residential products, and there are many, many more around the city. There's nothing about mass production or an investor clientele that dictates a sea of grey. And there's a lot more to colour than adding a few red spandrel panels.

Hopefully we'll see some better design in future buildings in this area.

You're comparing single tower developments to a cohesive community design with a quad set and a twin set. Not only that, I'm not a fan of your choices. The Berczy Condo is pretty awful in its execution and design. The last thing the neighbourhood needed was some unremarkable historic cues with a glass tower plopped on top.

 

[ADRM]

I'm not bothered by the colour as much as the super-wide sidewalks. Nice but going always going to look empty. Certainly not very urban.
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The kids had fun with these columns. But putting retail behind them? I certainly wouldn't want to have a store back here.
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Interesting—after walking around on the weekend (will post some pics tonight), the super-wide sidewalks are one of my favourite design choices from an urban perspective. Remember the mixed use nature of the existing buildings in this area: George Brown students, condo dwellers, YMCA users, etc. will all be milling around there once the weather turns and adding to (or, creating, I should say) the vibrancy of the area. Narrow sidewalks are, in many cases, where great, dense, urban experiences go to die—people need places to congregate, enjoy their coffees, toss a frisbee, etc.

I think this is going to wind up being one of the most impressive and vibrant areas in the city in 5-10 years as development both in that and surrounding areas continues.

As for the pillars, they are perhaps my single favourite design feature present in any of the buildings. In a site that, in my opinion (and clearly in that of others), is badly devoid of architectural intrigue, they're one of the few unique(ish) identifying factors. I think Dark Horse will do well behind there.

 

[Tuscani01]

Interesting—after walking around on the weekend (will post some pics tonight), the super-wide sidewalks are one of my favourite design choices from an urban perspective. Remember the mixed use nature of the existing buildings in this area: George Brown students, condo dwellers, YMCA users, etc. will all be milling around there once the weather turns and adding to (or, creating, I should say) the vibrancy of the area. Narrow sidewalks are, in many cases, where great, dense, urban experiences go to die—people need places to congregate, enjoy their coffees, toss a frisbee, etc.

I think this is going to wind up being one of the most impressive and vibrant areas in the city in 5-10 years as development both in that and surrounding areas continues.

As for the pillars, they are perhaps my single favourite design feature present in any of the buildings. In a site that, in my opinion (and clearly in that of others), is badly devoid of architectural intrigue, they're one of the few unique(ish) identifying factors. I think Dark Horse will do well behind there.

Agree with everything here.

The wide sidewalk, (which is more linear park than sidewalk) is my favourite feature of this new neighbourhood. There is nothing about it that doesn't feel urban to me. It's a new gathering space in a neighbourhood where people will be encouraged to use the streets as a place rather than simply giving up space to vehicles. Just look at the picture quoted and you can already see that cars have been given a quarter of the ROW, with the other 3/4's being public space. That's pretty urban.

It helps that more space has been reserved on the North side of the street, as this part of the ROW will get the most sunlight throughout most of the year. Really smart planning IMO.

 

[ADRM]

Okay, here we go with pics from Saturday (looks much more inviting on a sunny day).

Still can't get over the sharrows, though.

 

[MisterF]

You're comparing single tower developments to a cohesive community design with a quad set and a twin set. Not only that, I'm not a fan of your choices. The Berczy Condo is pretty awful in its execution and design. The last thing the neighbourhood needed was some unremarkable historic cues with a glass tower plopped on top.

Well I suppose it's a matter of taste, but I think the Berczy condo is more engaging at street level than what I've seen in the West Don Lands so far. The design language, historic or not, has all the fundamentals of a pedestrian-scaled building. No long horizontal lines, no featureless expanses of glass or brick. What it does have is retail frontage that's visually broken up into smaller pieces, prominent signage and plenty of texture in the facade. And there's absolutely no reason that buildings in newly developing areas can't have those same concepts...or some colour.

The second link I posted is a two tower development done in the spirit of (or possibly part of, not sure) the St. Lawrence community. In fact, St. Lawrence was basically the West Don Lands of its day: a planned high density community that was built from scratch on empty former industrial land east of downtown. They even both have some form of linear park. And the buildings in St. Lawrence have plenty of colour. It'll be interesting how the two neighbourhoods compare in a decade or two.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Folks who want to see for themselves can take advantage of the Jane's Walk in a couple of weeks:

http://janeswalk.org/canada/toronto/new-public-art-collection-toronto/

We did a self-guided tour, following this route. Came west over the flyover and down the bike path to Underpass and Mirage, down Eastern to the corner of Cherry to see Site Specific, then down Cherry to the Canary building and back to Corktown Commons. It's a lovely walk.

I really think that people are working really hard to hate on this, quite frankly. The guy that doesn't want to go through the columns to get to the spa or Dark Horse? Well, use the entrance, dude. Or, in the case of the Dark Horse space, use the side door off of what I expect will be a Trump-sized huuuuuge patio. The entire Front Street extension promenade has been designed for walking, playing with kids (the blue Water Guardians sit over a splash pad), sitting under trees (benches around a little 'courtyard' space that'll be lovely come spring), and still have room for cars in the middle and shops on the side. Once the trees leaf (and they don't even have to grow much, as they're already planted at a decent size!) this will be spectacular.

Now that the rocks have been covered at the back of the Commons and along the bike path / Bayview, there is a ton of green all the way north to the King/Queen triangle. And there's pops of colour everywhere. But, even if you only count buildings, there are five grey brick buildings (big, true, but not overwhelming by any means), three red brick heritage buildings on the Eastern extension, two red brick heritage buildings at Cherry / Front, and in the greater scheme of things the red brick and glass of Distillery just across Cherry, and the black and white of River City on the other side of River square.

Funnily enough, the only part that seemed 'too grey' to us was River Square. The grey gravel and black planters need the flowers planted and trees leafing to liven it up. Still think that was a missed opportunity for a pétanque court...

While I don't know the leader of the walk and whether she'll be interesting to hear speak about the sculptures, I would definitely recommend a walk through WDL. This is an amazing re-build of a part of the city that was a real travesty just 20 years ago.

 

[ADRM]

Folks who want to see for themselves can take advantage of the Jane's Walk in a couple of weeks:

http://janeswalk.org/canada/toronto/new-public-art-collection-toronto/

We did a self-guided tour, following this route. Came east over the flyover and down the bike path to Underpass and Mirage, down Eastern to the corner of Cherry to see Site Specific, then down Cherry to the Canary building and back to Corktown Commons. It's a lovely walk.

I really think that people are working really hard to hate on this, quite frankly. The guy that doesn't want to go through the columns to get to the spa or Dark Horse? Well, use the entrance, dude. Or, in the case of the Dark Horse space, use the side door off of what I expect will be a Trump-sized huuuuuge patio. The entire Front Street extension promenade has been designed for walking, playing with kids (the blue Water Guardians sit over a splash pad), sitting under trees (benches around a little 'courtyard' space that'll be lovely come spring), and still have room for cars in the middle and shops on the side. Once the trees leaf (and they don't even have to grow much, as they're already planted at a decent size!) this will be spectacular.

Now that the rocks have been covered at the back of the Commons and along the bike path / Bayview, there is a ton of green all the way north to the King/Queen triangle. And there's pops of colour everywhere. But, even if you only count buildings, there are five grey brick buildings (big, true, but not overwhelming by any means), three red brick heritage buildings on the Eastern extension, two red brick heritage buildings at Cherry / Front, and in the greater scheme of things the red brick and glass of Distillery just across Cherry, and the black and white of River City on the other side of River square.

Funnily enough, the only part that seemed 'too grey' to us was River Square. The grey gravel and black planters need the flowers planted and trees leafing to liven it up. Still think that was a missed opportunity for a pétanque court...

While I don't know the leader of the walk and whether she'll be interesting to hear speak about the sculptures, I would definitely recommend a walk through WDL. This is an amazing re-build of a part of the city that was a real travesty just 20 years ago.

Great points, all of them. At the end of the day, this is the type of neighbourhood you want your city building in 2016—the only legitimate or significant gripes, in my books (yes, of course, there will never be unanimity in subjective assessments of urban design and architecture), are that some of the architecture is uninspiring and, much more importantly, the cycling infrastructure completely sucks (i.e. it's virtually nonexistent).

The latter is inexcusable and should not be repeated with similarly scaled projects henceforth, but taken as a whole, the unveiling of this neighbourhood is a massive net positive for the city.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

the cycling infrastructure completely sucks (i.e. it's virtually nonexistent).

Wait, what? How did you come to this conclusion with respect to a community where they tunnelled a bike path under the railway line to link up with the most extensive bike trails in the city?

 

[ADRM]

Because there's literally zero cycle infrastructure in the neighbourhood itself—it's sharrows or nothing on every street. When designing a neighbourhood literally from scratch, why not prioritize cycle and pedestrian traffic over vehicular traffic?

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

http://blog.waterfrontoronto.ca

WT has a good blog piece on the woonerfs and how they'll be primarily pedestrian and cycle friendly. The bike paths along the rail tracks are cycle only. The fact that Front has no separate bike lane is on purpose. There's no bike rings installed, but no parking either. What would make WDL more bike friendly?

 

[ADRM]

I'm familiar with woonerfs, and you're right, there are lots of good reads on the WT site, but there are issues with the direct application of that terminology to the streets here, in my eyes.

The intent of woonerfs is to create spaces where pedestrians (and, to a lesser extent, cyclists) take priority and vehicles are relegated to guest status; here, there really aren't any design measures that will demonstrably slow the pace of traffic, which is essential in the creation of effective woonerfs insofar as traffic is slowed. Traffic measures such as narrow streets, curbs, benches, or planters that jot out into the traffic, and bends of the street itself are all commonplace in the (mostly) European examples. None of those elements exists in this case; see some design guideline examples below:

There aren't really any of those design elements present that'll make the streets themselves pedestrian- or cycle-friendly. Now, setting aside the applicability of the woonerf discussion for a moment, I do like the treatment of the pedestrian realm in this case—it's well designed insofar as it has a generous amount of sidewalk space, public art, seating, patio area, etc.

Back to the street itself, for a moment, to quote Christopher Hume, "one woonerf does not an enlightened city make, but it’s a start. Ultimately, though, what will be needed is a cultural shift, a move towards a more egalitarian approach to Toronto’s streets." Whilst I of course agree that Toronto is in dire need of a cultural shift away from the hegemony of the automobile, my main point of criticism of the neighbourhood emanates from the source of my disagreement from the "it's a start" portion of that Hume quote: namely, the fact that there are zero protected cycle lanes in the area. In any neighbourhood where that's the case, that's a dangerous situation for cyclists and vehicles alike, and you're asking cyclists to be satisfied with that status quo whilst the rest of the city undergoes its cultural shift.

Quite simply, at present, the street is a dangerous environment for cyclists because there is no protection and also because there are scant traffic slowing provisions. I've now been a pedestrian, cyclist, and driver in the neighbourhood (albeit with very few people around), and I mostly think it's a huge miss to not promote cycle usage through the construction of protected infrastructure when there was no obvious barrier to doing so.

The other urban design term that Keesmaat and co. at the Planning department have of course introduced is "complete streets", as WT implemented on Queens Quay. I would've been much happier with a similar treatment here, as opposed to the somewhat measured attempt at woonerfs as we've seen here.

The city's cycling infrastructure lags so dramatically that every instance where there is room and opportunity to improve upon it represents an especially marked missed opportunity.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

We will have to agree to disagree. Much like when I got in trouble with people complaining about QQ before it was finished, I'm arguing with someone who is complaining about an unfinished product. To make your contention that there are 'literally zero cycle infrastructure' in this neighbourhood you have to ignore a new tunnel to the Don and a new bike ramp installed on the Eastern flyover and all the many, many bike paths installed. If that's not 'bike friendly', I don't know what is. The fact that they haven't installed bike rings or truly figured out the woonerfs/traffic slowing measures on a set of roads that have been open for business for less than a month is a ridiculous complaint.

I'd rank it right up there with 'the buildings are too grey.'