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

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Northern Light said:
Where's this doom and gloom from?

Outside of the Innovation Ctr, WT has a pretty good track record.

We've got a really interesting all-timber building on the way.

Love Park

The wave decks

Rees Park is incoming

So are some really interesting foot bridges.

Plus a very interesting new Ferry Terminal.

And as @smably notes above, a huge new River Mouth with vast parks and a destination playground.

This City has its moments of complacency and under-achievement. But WT's record does not sit among those.
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TBH, I think Waterfront Toronto has done an exceptional job in the public realm, but its record in encouraging attractive built form is a bit more spotty.

Instances like the Waterfront Innovation Centre, the Corus Building, or the rather mediocre Bayside development don't quite bring up the same confidence as its public projects, and some detract from the excellent public spaces WT has provided.

Monde and the Arbor, and the final Bayside developments look to be some of the more promising projects, but it's unfortunate that they're in the minority.
 
Northern Light said:
Where's this doom and gloom from?

Outside of the Innovation Ctr, WT has a pretty good track record.

We've got a really interesting all-timber building on the way.

Love Park

The wave decks

Rees Park is incoming

So are some really interesting foot bridges.

Plus a very interesting new Ferry Terminal.

And as @smably notes above, a huge new River Mouth with vast parks and a destination playground.

This City has its moments of complacency and under-achievement. But WT's record does not sit among those.
Click to expand...

Outside of the Ferry Terminal, a wonky deck and some green space isn't that inspired. This will look as bland and as generic as the rest of the waterfront with no innovation.
 
picard102 said:
Outside of the Ferry Terminal, a wonky deck and some green space isn't that inspired. This will look as bland and as generic as the rest of the waterfront with no innovation.
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Yeah, to me, WT's failings with respect to urban design and built form significantly detract from the (in some cases) good public realm it has delivered. HTO park, Sugar Beach, Corktown Common, and the wave decks are all lovely and successful, and Love Park, Rees Park, the ferry terminal, and the Portlands parks all look very promising. But in nearly every instance where WT has had to put down a building there are problems, and it looks like that will continue to be the case as the eastern waterfront is built out.

Almost all of the architecture east of Yonge is moribund, and some of it is downright horrendous. The massing on the waterfront-fronting mid-rises is bulky and overwhelming and the integration with the public realm around them is uninventive and formulaic. There's very little in the way of fine-grained intrigue anywhere, all of the new local roads are too wide and/or totally needless.

I actually do like strolling the waterfront despite all of that, so that's something I suppose, but it's hard to ignore the massive lost opportunity; even if you give it a "mostly fine", the standard here should have been nothing short of world class. In any event, it doesn't instil much confidence in WT managing the Quayside process, though I agree that the revised principles are an improvement over the Sidewalk debacle.
 
ADRM said:
Yeah, to me, WT's failings with respect to urban design and built form significantly detract from the (in some cases) good public realm it has delivered. HTO park, Sugar Beach, Corktown Common, and the wave decks are all lovely and successful, and Love Park, Rees Park, the ferry terminal, and the Portlands parks all look very promising. But in nearly every instance where WT has had to put down a building there are problems, and it looks like that will continue to be the case as the eastern waterfront is built out.

Almost all of the architecture east of Yonge is moribund, and some of it is downright horrendous. The massing on the waterfront-fronting mid-rises is bulky and overwhelming and the integration with the public realm around them is uninventive and formulaic. There's very little in the way of fine-grained intrigue anywhere, all of the new local roads are too wide and/or totally needless.

I actually do like strolling the waterfront despite all of that, so that's something I suppose, but it's hard to ignore the massive lost opportunity; even if you give it a "mostly fine", the standard here should have been nothing short of world class. In any event, it doesn't instil much confidence in WT managing the Quayside process, though I agree that the revised principles are an improvement over the Sidewalk debacle.
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How do you feel about 'The Arbour'?

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*mods*

Should we break the thread for this site to reflect that this is no longer Sidewalk Labs/Snohetta (with a new thread for the post-Sidewalk future) or should we perhaps modify the thread title, to reflect their non-involvement?
 
ADRM said:
I think it looks lovely but won't really do much to address most of the criticisms I highlighted in my last post (it's never really the case that one single building can do such a thing).
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Agreed- the Arbour should be the minimum level of design quality expected on the waterfront.

Another opinion- the lot sizes on the waterfront are simply too large and uniform in scale- there needs to be experimentation with smaller lot sizes, no parking requirements, and wall-to-wall lots to generate some finer-grained alternatives to the single-design megapodiums (with their street-vibe-killing ground-level garages and service spaces) that have been produced up to now.
 
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jje1000 said:
Agreed- the Arbour should be the minimum level of design quality expected on the waterfront.

Another opinion- the lot sizes on the waterfront are simply too large and uniform in scale- there needs to be experimentation with smaller lot sizes, no parking requirements, and wall-to-wall lots to generate some finer-grained alternatives to the single-design megapodiums (with their street-vibe-killing ground-level garages and service spaces) that have been produced up to now.
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Smaller lot sizes could make a big difference in the long run, as it allows for more diversity of uses and more versatility in redevelopment and organic growth. It seems as though Waterfront Toronto is going in the opposite direction for the new Villiers Island project. Each block many only have one or two large buildings, which isn't promising in terms of future vitality.
 
ADRM said:
Almost all of the architecture east of Yonge is moribund, and some of it is downright horrendous. The massing on the waterfront-fronting mid-rises is bulky and overwhelming and the integration with the public realm around them is uninventive and formulaic. There's very little in the way of fine-grained intrigue anywhere, all of the new local roads are too wide and/or totally needless.
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I agree that the waterfront-adjacent architecture leaves a lot to be desired, but River City has some of the best residential architecture in the city and the latest designs for the West Don Lands look very promising. (Of course, The West Don Lands have their share of grim, grey clunkers as well. And some of the street design choices are indefensible, like the omission of any separated cycling infrastructure. But the architecture is not all bad.)
 
smably said:
I agree that the waterfront-adjacent architecture leaves a lot to be desired, but River City has some of the best residential architecture in the city and the latest designs for the West Don Lands look very promising. (Of course, The West Don Lands have their share of grim, grey clunkers as well. And some of the street design choices are indefensible, like the omission of any separated cycling infrastructure. But the architecture is not all bad.)
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Agreed. Are there clunkers? 100%. But, as a whole, the area is shaping up nicely and has the potential to be even better with Aquabella, Aqualuna, the 3XN timber twin buildings, Arbour, the 3C office proposal, the renovated ferry docks, West Dons, etc. Already, that's 7+ planned projects with a ton of promise. I don't think you can say the same about any other developing area in TO.

I for one am really looking forward to the future of this area.
 
I never thought of the idea of having different lot sizes: that’s really interesting, and would be a good way of forcing different architectural choices.

Whether it’s financially viable, I don’t know, but - interesting idea!
 
Sidewalk Labs Toronto office up for lease after layoffs, abandoning smart city

August 10, 2020

Sidewalk Labs' Toronto office space is available for lease months after the company walked away from building a tech-savvy neighbourhood in the city.

An online property listing shows both floors of the Lake Shore Boulevard East building the Manhattan-based Google affiliate occupied are available for $35 per square foot per year for a total of about $155,000 annually.

The first floor covers about 13,128 square feet (1,220 square metres) and the second covers 4,056 square feet (377 square metres), but the listing says both can be leased together.

The listing comes just over a month after Sidewalk told The Canadian Press it had laid off about 20 workers, including several in Canada, but stressed that it was not abandoning the country and would still keep staff there.

A spokesman for Sidewalk now says the company is still committed to maintaining a presence in Toronto, but did not say where staff in the city will work from.

ca.finance.yahoo.com

Sidewalk Labs Toronto office up for lease after layoffs, abandoning smart city

TORONTO — Sidewalk Labs' Toronto office space is available for lease months after the company walked away from building a tech-savvy neighbourhood in the city.An online property listing shows both floors of the Lakeshore Boulevard East building the Manhattan-based Google affiliate occupied are...
ca.finance.yahoo.com ca.finance.yahoo.com
 
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