Toronto Sidewalk Toronto at Quayside | ?m | ?s | Sidewalk | Snøhetta

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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Fixed. From the looks of that - it is more like a technology partnership than wholesale development by Sidewalk.

AoD
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The article notes the initial deal may have implied that the 50M for pilot projects could be inferred as payment for land. That has now been explicitly rejected.
 
Just doing a back-check to see what's available on-line to give a background to the latest developments.

The most recent FT coverage, a month ago (I'm led to believe they're putting out a new one shortly) is available cached, in full, no paywall here:
https://webcache.googleusercontent....NDAs/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=ubuntu

I'm loathe to copy and paste without using my subscription to cover 'fair use', so how ironic that Google gets you the real deal. I note Googling that The Globe, Fortune and other pubs have now got copy up on the latest developments.

I've not had time to catch up on what's being revealed, but be aware of this (from a month ago, and covered in the FT cache linked above)

[...]
A draft of the agreement obtained by The Logic instructs panel members not to disclose any information marked confidential or presented during closed meeting portions, and not to reveal that any such information was ever made available to them. Multiple sources privy to the panel’s operations told The Logic that at least five members voiced opposition to the draft agreement, including at a closed-door session on June 7. One source told The Logic they had never seen a non-disclosure agreement for a volunteer committee as stringent as the one presented by Waterfront Toronto. To date, less than half of the Digital Strategy Advisory Panel—the 15-member volunteer committee that advises Waterfront Toronto on the project—has signed the agreement. “There have been constructive conversations amongst the panelists on the confidentiality agreement and we will continue to consider their feedback as the agreements are finalized,” said Carol Webb, a spokesperson for Waterfront Toronto.
[...]
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https://thelogic.co/news/exclusive/...-panel-over-strict-confidentiality-agreement/

See also:
https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/op...front-toronto-lessons-in-community-engagement

Very interesting...
 
Northern Light said:
https://www.thestar.com/news/city_h...changing-city-says-board-member-who-quit.html
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I just sent the link off to a Financial Times journo who's been writing in-depth articles on it. It all comes as no surprise to her, and she's one of the FT's top business writers. Does the in-depth features for them w/ videos and interviews.

The domestic papers still aren't reporting the gag order on the Waterfront Board. It's so tight that members can't even allude to there being a gag order.

Nuff said for now...
Waterfront Toronto faces opposition from Sidewalk Toronto advisory ...
https://thelogic.co/.../waterfront-toronto-faces-opposition-from-sidewalk-toronto-advis...
A confidentiality agreement presented to an arm's-length volunteer committee ... Waterfront Torontofaces opposition from Sidewalk Toronto advisory panel over ... to be released in Spring 2019 for consideration by both organizations' boards.

Sidewalk Toronto — “Sold Out” Public Meetings and Sidewalk Labs ...
https://medium.com/.../sidewalk-toronto-sold-out-public-meetings-and-sidewalk-labs-s...
5 days ago - The next Sidewalk Toronto public meeting (the third of five) will be happening ... it will be made public, and the Waterfront Toronto board is preparing a special ... advisory panel were asked to sign Non-disclosure agreements.
Sidewalk Toronto: Critical Governance Document Not Open for Public ...
https://medium.com/.../sidewalk-toronto-the-next-critical-governance-document-plan-...
Jul 8, 2018 - Sidewalk Toronto: Critical Governance Document Not Open for Public Consultation ... and now for a Non-Disclosure Agreement that Waterfront Toronto's ... meeting of the Board of Directors currently scheduled for July 31, ...
[...]
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See:
https://webcache.googleusercontent....NDAs/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=ubuntu
 
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Northern Light said:
The Star is beginning to sink teeth into this deal.

Another day, another column.

https://www.thestar.com/business/op...on-runs-into-waterfront-torontos-reality.html
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Excellent 'heads-up'. I'd so far missed seeing that.
[...]
But as has been much reported, it failed the essential first test of transparency last November, when Waterfront Toronto revealed that in naming Sidewalk Labs as the winning partner it had also signed a non-disclosure agreement preventing release of the first framework struck between the two parties. Only now, nine months later and in tandem with the release of a further agreement that nullifies the first, has the initial confidential document been released.
[...]
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That's the canary in the data mine that I mentioned:
steveintoronto said:
The domestic papers still aren't reporting the gag order on the Waterfront Board. It's so tight that members can't even allude to there being a gag order.
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The local mass media is still late to this story, as to why is curious....
“Be seeing you.”

Only devotees of The Prisoner, the superbly hallucinogenic Sixties-era series about entrapment in “The Village,” will recognize the show’s creepy language of leave taking. The neighbourly farewell was accompanied by forefinger pressed to thumb, as in a circle, and raised to the eye, in the manner of a spy glass.
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"Unmutual!" I used to love that series, and related to Patrick McGoohan's character "Number 6" ("I'm not a number, I'm a free man!") and his anger and cynicism. Jennifer is showing her age!

Hopefully, now the rabid cat is out of the bag, we'll be reading a lot more exposé on this sad affair.
 
Some interesting images on the Globe website with a first hint at the massing and a few name drops of the offices involved.

Sidewalk Toronto: Wood buildings, smart streets and big questions
Google’s sister company, Sidewalk Labs, unveils specific ideas for its smart city project and how it wants to build its neighbourhood
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Shadows and light dapple my arms, and I hear the warbling of birds somewhere above. I am not, however, out in the trees: I’m inside 307, a former industrial shed on Toronto’s waterfront, talking with staff of the smart-city project Sidewalk Toronto. That scattered light is coming from LEDs, and the birdsong is synthetic.

“Here, you feel sheltered, and yet open,” says Karim Khalifa, the director of buildings innovation for Sidewalk Labs, the sister company of Alphabet Inc.'s Google that is working on Sidewalk Toronto. (A low warble sounds from a speaker.) “That’s one of the ideas that we are trying to use in creating a really nice place to live.”

This faux-nature is one of many ideas in play as the 12-acre neighbourhood project moves forward. Sidewalk Labs – in a complex partnership with the public agency Waterfront Toronto – is pursuing innovations in architecture, urban design and construction technology.

Their work raises serious questions about the relationship between public and private space, and how those areas of the city – which could be intermingled – would be managed.
First, SWL hopes the buildings themselves will involve lots of wood. The neighbourhood, dubbed Quayside, would be a 12-acre district of mid-rise buildings. (Toronto’s BBB Architects are the master planners.) Mr. Khalifa says SWL intends to use mass timber widely. “If we can make it technically work, we’ll use it everywhere,” he says. To that end, they’ve called in Michael Green and his Vancouver-based firm, Michael Green Architecture, who are mass-timber specialists.

Why use wood? Because people love it. As with that faux-forest installation, SWL is betting on “biophilic design” – in short, the idea that a connection to nature makes people healthy and happy. Ideally, the Quayside buildings will show off chunky, fragrant spruce beams, glued together and cut from small, sustainably harvested trees. “They could become the heart and soul of the community,” Mr. Green says.

But mass timber is also highly sustainable, and has practical advantages. “It is a toolkit to increase speed and drop the cost,” Mr. Khalifa says. It can be made in factories – such as those of Quebec’s Nordic Structures, which is in talks with SWL – to precise sizes and dimensions, allowing for fast construction on site.

Second: These buildings would mash up residences, offices and other uses, even on the same floor. This is unconventional in new developments. To make it possible, Mr. Green’s office is designing high-ceiling structures, much like the urban industrial lofts of a century ago. These would have floor plans that can be efficiently divided and rearranged. “It’s a magnificent puzzle,” Mr. Green says. “What are the optimum distances between columns? What are the optimum floor-to-ceiling heights? Wood allows for a lot of flexibility there.”

SWL’s staff and consultants are working out business models for this sort of mashup – a real challenge in itself.

At street level, SWL is imagining double-height spaces that can be filled in by smaller separate buildings that will house shops, “public uses, cultural uses and production uses,” says Jesse Shapins, SWL’s director of public realm.

These would be lined by what SWL calls stoa – a term borrowed from classical Greek architecture that denotes a covered arcade. Along those arcades, elements that Mr. Green calls “kinetic architecture” would regulate wind, sun and rain, moving to create the ideal microclimate depending on the season and the weather. One model: a “raincoat” for a building – in other words, a lightweight, waterproof fabric curtain.

Toronto architects Partisans, and engineers RWDI, are working on a set of portable shelters which can be deployed across public spaces as wind breaks. “We know that in Toronto winter can be tough,” RWDI’s Goncalo Pedro says. “But we’re trying to extend the number of hours people will dwell in a public space, particularly in the shoulder seasons.”

And what’s the ideal result? “A seamless public life, much more than we’re used to, where public realm and private overlap in time and space,” says Ken Greenberg, an urban designer who is working with Sidewalk Toronto. Local residents, office workers, tourists; all of them, on different rhythms, will bring life to the area.

Mr. Greenberg is imagining, with landscape architects Public Work, a physical design that involves movable objects – such as loose chairs – but also “ideas that go much further than that, that allow people to improvise with a variety of activities.”

Back at SWL’s 307 centre, I get an idea of what this might look like. Mr. Shapins points me to a green bench resting in the middle of the space; then he pecks at an iPad, and the bench starts to edge forward on invisible wheels, moving around to face us. “Imagine if you had furniture like this that could understand where people are on the street and move towards them, responding to the crowd,” he says.

In theory, the street could know where you are. The floor beneath us is a set of hexagonal modules, studded with coloured LED lights and – theoretically – controllable by a remote server that’s linked to cameras or pressure sensors.

Conceived by Carlo Ratti Associati, this dynamic street is the third of SWL’s big ideas at present. Its lights, Mr. Shapins says, could serve as traffic signals. He taps the iPad, and a set of white lane markings appear. Another tap; the whole street turns red, ready for a street festival.

Of course, this scene could make many people uncomfortable. As I stand on a public street, am I anonymous? Who determines that, and who regulates it? This sort of question is largely why Sidewalk Toronto has met a bumpy reception since the project was announced last year. There has been vigorous debate over its governance model and about its main goal, a sensor-laden neighbourhood whose traffic systems and building operations are informed by data.

The project passed a milestone two weeks ago, when Waterfront Toronto announced a “Plan Development Agreement” with Sidewalk Labs. But the political push-back has been considerable, particularly around data governance.

It’s clear that these design ideas raise parallel questions, which Sidewalk has not yet answered. Who owns the real estate? Who manages it? Who leases it out, and under what terms? Under what conditions will the ground floors of buildings be open to the public, and who exactly does that “public” include?

The answers could be attractive; in the end, it might be that this neighbourhood presents more public and quasi-public space than a conventional private development. But the terms and the details are everything. Lights and birdsong are not a forest. And there are some problems that tech won’t solve by itself.
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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/art...od-buildings-smart-streets-and-big-questions/
 
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I can't wait:cool:

Quayside: Sidewalk Toronto’s Mass Timber City

Mass Timber Neighborhood City
In the latest gathering, Sidewalk Labs recommended constructing 100 percent infrastructure of Quayside with domestic and renewable Canadian timber.

Canada is a leading supplier of certified forests that can be sustainably grown. It can grow a number of trees equivalent to
include two types of engineered woods – glue-laminated timber (glulam), and cross-laminated timber (CLT).
These woods feature higher strength and stability than standard woods and even steel.
Furthermore, they can be crafted to particular measurements reducing material waste.

Timber offers warmth to buildings, suitable for cold climatic regions. It moreover achieves faster construction duration along with less on-site noise and congestion, and safer sites through off-location manufacturing.
Besides sustainability, the extensive use of local wood would also meet one of the other objectives of Sidewalk Toronto project – economic prosperity.
The mass use of timber in buildings will eventually result in cost saving. It would further encourage Canada’s leading timber industry to gain a global expertise in tall timber technology also.

In spite of massive benefits, timber technology has several challenges upfront. According to the local building code, the timber buildings at Quayside could be erected up to 6 storeys with performance-based approvals for taller buildings, on top of the timber construction limited up to 30 storeys.
It is reported that by 2021, the government will sanction approval up to 21 floors with performance-based approvals for taller buildings. The Sidewalk Toronto committee proposed 19 storeys taller buildings with 42 and 50-story constructions in the future.

More......https://www.industryleadersmagazine.com/quayside-sidewalk-torontos-mass-timber-city/

 
I see that Quayside has expanded to include property north of Queens Quay for the first time in a government-sanctioned document.

(edit: maybe not first time come to think of it, but definitely a newer addition from this summer)
 
WislaHD said:
I see that Quayside has expanded to include property north of Queens Quay for the first time in a government-sanctioned document.

(edit: maybe not first time come to think of it, but definitely a newer addition from this summer)
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The boundaries of the Quayside area that Sidewalk Labs is developing with WT has not changed since it was announced.

42
 
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