Toronto Toronto City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | Perkins&Will
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
Does anyone have any insight as to whether the grand opening will be open to the public?
MetroMan
Senior Member
2012 for completion? There's ALOT of work that needs to be done, including entire buildings (the restaurant). They've only just begun with the green roof. The most pressing I think is the Queen St. sidewalk. It's such a mess and will benefit the most from PLANT's winning proposal.
MetroMan
Senior Member
I need to go check this out for myself but does anybody know if the paths within the garden are being redone in some sort of patchwork of interlocking tiles or stones or will they remain the asphalt that's there now?
I'd also like to see the ramp with a nice tiled pathway with greenery on the sides leading up to the rooftop garden.
I'd also like to see the ramp with a nice tiled pathway with greenery on the sides leading up to the rooftop garden.
khris
Senior Member
Shouldn't this thread be in P&C? City Hall renovation in Mississauga is in the P&C forum.
smuncky
Senior Member
Green Roofing Ain't Easy (at City Hall)
At a preview, on Monday afternoon, of City Hall's new green roof, Chris Pommer stood in council chambers and explained some of the thinking behind the multicoloured carpet of vegetation that will soon engulf the podium area underneath Nathan Phillips Square's iconic concave towers. Pommer is a partner at PLANT Architects, the firm that designed the new roof. The project was conceived as "an elaborate series of plantings," he said, gesturing at a large architectural illustration full of minute detail. Elaborate plans are one thing, but we had to wonder just who was doing all this planting.
At thirty-six-thousand square feet, City Hall's new podium roof will be the largest publicly accessible green roof in all of Toronto when it opens this spring. (It's only about half-finished at the moment, but the City and its contractors were evidently anxious to show it off before winter.) In terms of area, the new living carpet will cover the equivalent of slightly more than half a football field.
It was a surprise to learn that the entire task of planting is being handled by a crew of no more than eight workers on any given day and sometimes as few as six.
Damon Dewsbury, a roofer with Flynn Canada, the company hired by the City to install the green roof, reckoned that each green roof worker lifts anywhere from six to eight thousand pounds of plants and soil during an average work day. Obviously, not all at once.
As we made the circuit around the windswept artificial meadow, Dewsbury showed us the one- by two-foot rectangular plastic containers the plants arrive in, soil and all, from their growing facility. The containers are part of a modular roofing system. Workers simply place them on the roof, like paving stones. The plants and soil don't even have to be removed.
Each container, Dewsbury said, can weigh up to seventy-five pounds. And his job is to heft them, all day long.
The seemingly bucolic practice of green roofing is actually something of a contact sport.
The peculiar nature of the City Hall site adds another complication to the task of planting. Rod Undseth, another roofer, said that the rectangular plant containers each need to be carefully angled, so that they can mimic the curvature of the outer walls of City Hall's towers with no gaps between them.
Once the containers have all been installed, workers will yank out their removable plastic side walls to allow the soil and plants within to merge into a continuous whole. The plastic sides are then saved for reuse in future green roof installations, according to a Flynn Canada manager.
Dewsbury, Undseth, and their colleagues have been at work on the green roof since mid-April and will continue working until mid-November of this year.
Their services will be in high demand after January 31, 2010, when the city's new green roof bylaw comes into effect. The bylaw will require all new commercial buildings with floor plans in excess of two-thousand square feet to have green roofs. In 2011, similar requirements will come into effect for new industrial buildings.
City Hall's green roof is, in effect, the city's way of leading by example. The architects and politicians behind the project are enthralled with the site's potential as a new public gathering space (there will eventually be paths, benches, and tables) and as an energy-saving measure.
It could well turn out to be both those things, but presently it's a work in progress. With an emphasis on "work."
Photos by Michael Chrisman/Torontoist.
http://torontoist.com/2009/10/green_roofing_aint_easy_at_city_hall.php
At a preview, on Monday afternoon, of City Hall's new green roof, Chris Pommer stood in council chambers and explained some of the thinking behind the multicoloured carpet of vegetation that will soon engulf the podium area underneath Nathan Phillips Square's iconic concave towers. Pommer is a partner at PLANT Architects, the firm that designed the new roof. The project was conceived as "an elaborate series of plantings," he said, gesturing at a large architectural illustration full of minute detail. Elaborate plans are one thing, but we had to wonder just who was doing all this planting.
At thirty-six-thousand square feet, City Hall's new podium roof will be the largest publicly accessible green roof in all of Toronto when it opens this spring. (It's only about half-finished at the moment, but the City and its contractors were evidently anxious to show it off before winter.) In terms of area, the new living carpet will cover the equivalent of slightly more than half a football field.
It was a surprise to learn that the entire task of planting is being handled by a crew of no more than eight workers on any given day and sometimes as few as six.
Damon Dewsbury, a roofer with Flynn Canada, the company hired by the City to install the green roof, reckoned that each green roof worker lifts anywhere from six to eight thousand pounds of plants and soil during an average work day. Obviously, not all at once.
As we made the circuit around the windswept artificial meadow, Dewsbury showed us the one- by two-foot rectangular plastic containers the plants arrive in, soil and all, from their growing facility. The containers are part of a modular roofing system. Workers simply place them on the roof, like paving stones. The plants and soil don't even have to be removed.
Each container, Dewsbury said, can weigh up to seventy-five pounds. And his job is to heft them, all day long.
The seemingly bucolic practice of green roofing is actually something of a contact sport.
The peculiar nature of the City Hall site adds another complication to the task of planting. Rod Undseth, another roofer, said that the rectangular plant containers each need to be carefully angled, so that they can mimic the curvature of the outer walls of City Hall's towers with no gaps between them.
Once the containers have all been installed, workers will yank out their removable plastic side walls to allow the soil and plants within to merge into a continuous whole. The plastic sides are then saved for reuse in future green roof installations, according to a Flynn Canada manager.
Dewsbury, Undseth, and their colleagues have been at work on the green roof since mid-April and will continue working until mid-November of this year.
Their services will be in high demand after January 31, 2010, when the city's new green roof bylaw comes into effect. The bylaw will require all new commercial buildings with floor plans in excess of two-thousand square feet to have green roofs. In 2011, similar requirements will come into effect for new industrial buildings.
City Hall's green roof is, in effect, the city's way of leading by example. The architects and politicians behind the project are enthralled with the site's potential as a new public gathering space (there will eventually be paths, benches, and tables) and as an energy-saving measure.
It could well turn out to be both those things, but presently it's a work in progress. With an emphasis on "work."
Photos by Michael Chrisman/Torontoist.
http://torontoist.com/2009/10/green_roofing_aint_easy_at_city_hall.php
rdaner
Senior Member
More Photos of City Hall Greenroof
http://greenapple.ca/blog/2009/10/20/new-green-roof-at-toronto-city-hall/
http://greenapple.ca/blog/2009/10/20/new-green-roof-at-toronto-city-hall/
Redroom Studios
Senior Member
this is looking great - I look forward to seeing the finished result in person. I wasnt aware of the incoming bylaws re green roofing all significant new developments. That is great news and very progressive!
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
This looks fantastic, I can't wait to see it in the spring. My only reservation is that I miss the lighting which used to illuminate the back of City Hall at night.
alklay
Senior Member
Considering that the roof was not open to the public yet, who exactly were all those flowers planted for? And does all this have to be replanted in the spring?
(and when exactly will this be open to the public? Is the public going to have to wait until well into the summer until all roof is all planted again? The architect meant this roof to be open to the public. Its a shame it has been closed for much of the last ten years).
(and when exactly will this be open to the public? Is the public going to have to wait until well into the summer until all roof is all planted again? The architect meant this roof to be open to the public. Its a shame it has been closed for much of the last ten years).
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MetroMan
Senior Member
I'm no botanist but using common sense, I can determine that they'll only have to do this once. It'll create an ecosystem that will like many other gardens self seed and regrow every Spring.
Dugmor
Banned
The plants are perennials. They come back each spring.
alklay
Senior Member
Good to hear. Thanks guys.
CML
Active Member
Marcus Gee from the Globe & Mail:
With the city crawling its way out of a recession, with another half-billion-dollar pothole in the municipal budget coming up next year, with roads, transit, water pipes and a dozen other things crying out for investment, is this really the time to be spending 40 million bucks to tart up the square in front of City Hall? Well, yes, actually.
Nathan Phillips Square is one of North America's great urban spaces. Sweeping up from Queen Street to Viljo Revell's impossibly dramatic City Hall, it is bigger than London's Trafalgar Square and just as central to the life of the city. While Mr. Revell is rightly acclaimed for the radical, futuristic design of his twin, curved towers, the square is the Finnish architect's real masterpiece.
More than 1.5 million people visit it every year, for everything from the Olympic torch rally to Khalsa Day to the weekly farmers' market. Critic Robert Fulford has called it “the great living room of Toronto, the place where citizens gather to hold public meetings, to celebrate triumphs, to mourn lost heroes like John Lennon or welcome great figures like Nelson Mandela.†Skating under the vaulting arches of its big rink is one of the essential Toronto experiences.
Yet, like many public spaces in the city, the square named after Toronto's mayor from 1955 to 1962 has suffered from years of neglect and bad management. The strip of lawn that runs along Queen Street is scruffy. The square is often littered with crowd-barriers and paraphernalia from public events. Few people venture onto the uninviting elevated walkways that box the square. They are often closed off altogether in winter when snow and ice build up.
All in all, the place has the air of a Frank Lloyd Wright mansion maintained by hillbillies. “Nathan Phillips Square is the front door of Toronto,†Mayor David Miller has said, “and it's been neglected for two generations.â€
Now in progress, the renovation promises to restore the elegance of Mr. Revell's original 1958 design while adding features to make the square more functional. The rundown skate-rental building will be replaced and topped with a terrace from which visitors can watch the skaters. A glassed-in, two-storey restaurant will rise just to the west. A permanent stage will replace the messy portable affair that often clutters the space. Wide staircases above and below the stage will create “urban bleachers,†echoing Rome's Spanish Steps, where visitors can sit down, have lunch or take in the view.
The first stage of the project – a green roof on the lower storeys of City Hall – will open this spring. It will shrink the building's environmental footprint by insulating it with 3,250 square metres of colourful plants, transforming the forbidding, windswept podium below the towers into an unexpected new downtown park.
Perhaps most important, the new design will remove that monstrous carbuncle, the Peace Park, from the centre of the square. Ever since city philistines plunked it down there in 1984 to celebrate Toronto's sesquicentennial, it has been getting in the way of mass gatherings, obscuring the view of Canada's most famous modern building and spoiling the austere Scandinavian expanse.
The new design will move the gardento the landscaped western side of the square, a miracle considering the thing was consecrated by Pope John Paul II and dedicated by the Queen. In compensation, the new garden will have a lovely reflecting pool and a more visible eternal flame.
Naturally, some people question the cost of all this. When the idea first arose, city council yahoos complained that the $42.7-million devoted to the project would be better spent on fixing potholes than overhauling a perfectly serviceable square. Critics complained anew when a plan to raise about half the money from private donors fell through, leaving the city to pick up the whole tab. Then came the economic crisis, putting new strain on city finances.
“Why spend money on this when there's a recession on? It's a question we get asked a lot,†says Chris Pommer of Toronto's PLANT Architect Inc., a leading partner in the group that won an international competition in 2007 to fix the square.
He has a persuasive answer. Letting the city's main meeting place go to seed is like throwing the first piece of litter on the street. Litter leads to more littering. Neglect leads to more neglect. You can see it in our parks and subway stations.
Restoring a jewel like Nathan Phillips Square could help turn things around, sending a message to the whole city about maintaining and valuing what we have. “It's really important for us as a society to take great care of our public spaces, especially ones that are associated with seats of democracy,†Mr. Pommer says.
Work on the square is supposed to be done by 2012. Mr. Revell would be delighted. So should we all.
With the city crawling its way out of a recession, with another half-billion-dollar pothole in the municipal budget coming up next year, with roads, transit, water pipes and a dozen other things crying out for investment, is this really the time to be spending 40 million bucks to tart up the square in front of City Hall? Well, yes, actually.
Nathan Phillips Square is one of North America's great urban spaces. Sweeping up from Queen Street to Viljo Revell's impossibly dramatic City Hall, it is bigger than London's Trafalgar Square and just as central to the life of the city. While Mr. Revell is rightly acclaimed for the radical, futuristic design of his twin, curved towers, the square is the Finnish architect's real masterpiece.
More than 1.5 million people visit it every year, for everything from the Olympic torch rally to Khalsa Day to the weekly farmers' market. Critic Robert Fulford has called it “the great living room of Toronto, the place where citizens gather to hold public meetings, to celebrate triumphs, to mourn lost heroes like John Lennon or welcome great figures like Nelson Mandela.†Skating under the vaulting arches of its big rink is one of the essential Toronto experiences.
Yet, like many public spaces in the city, the square named after Toronto's mayor from 1955 to 1962 has suffered from years of neglect and bad management. The strip of lawn that runs along Queen Street is scruffy. The square is often littered with crowd-barriers and paraphernalia from public events. Few people venture onto the uninviting elevated walkways that box the square. They are often closed off altogether in winter when snow and ice build up.
All in all, the place has the air of a Frank Lloyd Wright mansion maintained by hillbillies. “Nathan Phillips Square is the front door of Toronto,†Mayor David Miller has said, “and it's been neglected for two generations.â€
Now in progress, the renovation promises to restore the elegance of Mr. Revell's original 1958 design while adding features to make the square more functional. The rundown skate-rental building will be replaced and topped with a terrace from which visitors can watch the skaters. A glassed-in, two-storey restaurant will rise just to the west. A permanent stage will replace the messy portable affair that often clutters the space. Wide staircases above and below the stage will create “urban bleachers,†echoing Rome's Spanish Steps, where visitors can sit down, have lunch or take in the view.
The first stage of the project – a green roof on the lower storeys of City Hall – will open this spring. It will shrink the building's environmental footprint by insulating it with 3,250 square metres of colourful plants, transforming the forbidding, windswept podium below the towers into an unexpected new downtown park.
Perhaps most important, the new design will remove that monstrous carbuncle, the Peace Park, from the centre of the square. Ever since city philistines plunked it down there in 1984 to celebrate Toronto's sesquicentennial, it has been getting in the way of mass gatherings, obscuring the view of Canada's most famous modern building and spoiling the austere Scandinavian expanse.
The new design will move the gardento the landscaped western side of the square, a miracle considering the thing was consecrated by Pope John Paul II and dedicated by the Queen. In compensation, the new garden will have a lovely reflecting pool and a more visible eternal flame.
Naturally, some people question the cost of all this. When the idea first arose, city council yahoos complained that the $42.7-million devoted to the project would be better spent on fixing potholes than overhauling a perfectly serviceable square. Critics complained anew when a plan to raise about half the money from private donors fell through, leaving the city to pick up the whole tab. Then came the economic crisis, putting new strain on city finances.
“Why spend money on this when there's a recession on? It's a question we get asked a lot,†says Chris Pommer of Toronto's PLANT Architect Inc., a leading partner in the group that won an international competition in 2007 to fix the square.
He has a persuasive answer. Letting the city's main meeting place go to seed is like throwing the first piece of litter on the street. Litter leads to more littering. Neglect leads to more neglect. You can see it in our parks and subway stations.
Restoring a jewel like Nathan Phillips Square could help turn things around, sending a message to the whole city about maintaining and valuing what we have. “It's really important for us as a society to take great care of our public spaces, especially ones that are associated with seats of democracy,†Mr. Pommer says.
Work on the square is supposed to be done by 2012. Mr. Revell would be delighted. So should we all.
barrytron3030
Active Member
a wonderful article that is surely meant to get people excited. i think the mods should move this thread to the "Projects & Construction" section, considering the project is well underway.
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