Toronto TYSSE: Downsview Park Station | ?m | ?s | TTC | AECOM

[AlvinofDiaspar]

That's a big improvement over your original post. I was going to state: "Oh gawd, not lipstick again!". It all depends who it is, how they do it, and what there is to work with in the first place.

Checked your link, looks incredible, albeit no pics of the actual finished concrete. I'll dig later, I've seen some stunning tinted concrete work in the US and in Europe, but again, it's not the medium, it's what you do with it.

The cladding for the stations interior you see on the F+P site is precast concrete. Another example:

(Andreas Praefcke/Wikipedia)

AoD

 

[salsa]

I'm just as unimpressed today as yesterday. Some of the stairwells are great design in terms of the structure, it's the finish that's like a...well...it's been said many times in the past of TTC stations...a giant washroom.

Wipes clean with a damp cloth...or as my Dutch photo arts instructor said years ago in college: "It don't says me nothing". The general structure and finish are a stark reminder of why I'm glad I don't live in the burbs.

Hey, at least the station can be cleaned. Pioneer Village on the other hand look like something that was built with slum housing materials, and it's not even day one.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Hey, at least the station can be cleaned. Pioneer Village on the other hand look like something that was built with slum housing materials, and it's not even day one.

Corten isn't exactly slum housing materials (if only! though it definitely is an acquired taste). The interior of the station proper is definitely different (and IMHO, good - in a Dupont Station sort of way).

AoD

 

[salsa]

Corten isn't exactly slum housing materials (if only! though it definitely is an acquired taste). The interior of the station proper is definitely different (and IMHO, good - in a Dupont Station sort of way).

AoD

I actually like corten when done in moderation, like with the small bridges in Toronto's ravine trail system. But when the entire station is made out of it with everything else being mostly concrete, it's just too much for me. And it will only get uglier over time when the surrounding surfaces start to look like this:

Corten isn't exactly slum housing materials

Of course I'm exaggerating, but rust is something that both have in common.

 

[steveintoronto]

Got to look up "Corten", not familiar with it. Comment later.

(and IMHO, good - in a Dupont Station sort of way)

Yeah...I've been turning my soul inside out trying to define what it is that Dupont has that's so lacking in most of the TTC. Was it a one off design exercise? I do remember a concerted effort at the time to get the stations to 'fit into the neighbourhood' and some on that first Spadina stretch opened did that.

There's really nothing special about Dupont, save for oodles of charm. And the entrances further announce that. It's probably the curves, as well as the colour scheme.

Got to look that up, someone got it really right on that one, even to this day! It has a *cottage* feel to it, whereas Downsview is a barn.

The cladding for the stations interior you see on the F+P site is precast concrete. Another example:

You do realize that a curing compound and pigment has been sprayed on that? That's not bare concrete.

It looks great, btw! And that's the way of doing it "now-a-days". Crossrail have even moulded giant tiles in three curved dimensions for some stations out of a material that is concrete +. I'll see if I can find and reference.

It doesn't take much to make even a truck look good if the engineering underneath it is solid to begin with.

Edit to Add:

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/route/design/prototyping-refining-design-every-step-of-the-way

http://www.hawkinsbrown.com/news-an...-of-the-year-awards-2016-shortlists-announced

Vive la différence!

 

[steveintoronto]

And here's Dupont, a delight to be in to this day, and will be for decades to come:

[...]
Architecture and art
Dupont Station was designed by Dunlop-Farrow Architects.[8] The two entrances to the station, located at the northwest and southeast corners of Dupont Street and Spadina Road, take the form of glass "bubbles" with orange-painted metal frames covering the stairways and escalators. A motif of rounded surfaces and finishes is used, with the interior walls of the station being clad in small circular orange tiles and all corners curved. On the platforms unique built-in concrete benches are also rounded and covered with the same tiles as the walls and the use of large circular lighting fixtures throughout the station reinforces the theme. The overall effect of the interior's rounded surfaces and colour scheme is of an earthly cavern.[9]

The main artwork in the station consists of murals designed by James Sutherland, entitled Spadina Summer Under All Seasons.[10] Using thousands of pieces of glass, colourful mosaics of flowers were created directly into the station’s tiling. Two large mosaics of a giant flower in cross-section face each other across the tracks, reaching upward into a mezzanine level lined with smaller flower mosaics. Sculptor Ron Baird designed massive circular interlocking doors which provide access to the electrical substation, which is nestled behind the northwest entrance.[11]


Platform lighting, tiled wall and built-in bench

Flower mosaic by James Sutherland

By T. Hutama - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51134936

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupont_(TTC)

This appears to be the TTC's high-point.

 

[steveintoronto]

Corten isn't exactly slum housing materials (if only! though it definitely is an acquired taste)

OK, now I know what all the hype is about. I was renting studio space from the most noted and respected stone-mason in the wide region surrounding Guelph for five years, became very good friends, and his stone work is spectacular, but as is the wont of many talented people, they shun their specialty for a 'hobby' in their spare time, and his was wood-working, and....wait for it...heat treating stamped and unworked metal to do what Corten claims to be. I see no reference to heat-treatment in any of what I'm reading on this now, someone's missing an essential step to stabilizing this process, whatever....I could never quite understand his fascination with the stuff, save that it was radically different than stone-work. (Edit to Add: In *complementary* use, it can be wonderful, contrasted with sculptured wood benches, for instance, or carved limestone, sandstone and other interesting stone, and where people are brushing against it...*sealed with a polymer or varnish*)

But here is exactly Salsa's concern (and this stuff is rampant among other artists in Guelph right now)(albeit I guess none do the heat treating stage):

What's all this architect love for COR-TEN steel?

Lloyd Alter (@lloydalter)
Design / Green Architecture
June 13, 2014
[...]
I continue to be puzzled by this current fascination with COR-TEN steel. Neil Young must have been thinking of it when he wrote that rust never sleeps. Its manufacturer continues to tell designers that they shouldn't use it for architectural purposes:

Special attention must be paid to the drainage of storm water to prevent staining of surrounding structures, sidewalks and other surfaces....The tight oxide skin of COR-TEN® Steel reforms after abrasion from snow, ice, sand, dirt and hail.... As the skin reforms, the product actually becomes thinner and eventually will be perforated.

© Guillermo Hevia H. via archdaily

And indeed, many of the projects we have shown that are made of the stuff show the trademark rivers of rust, as seen here in this lovely office building in Chile.

Lloyd Alter/CC BY 2.0

The Barclays Center in Brooklyn is one of the biggest installations of COR-TEN around, and I saw a bit of staining when I visited it a year ago. According to the New York Times, quoted in the Atlantic Yards Report,

The steel on the Barclays Center was weathered before it ever made it to Brooklyn. Gregg Pasquarelli, a principal at SHoP Architects, which designed the arena, said the steel components spent about four months at an Indianapolis plant where they were put through more than a dozen wet-and-dry cycles a day. ...The process put about six years of weathering onto the steel.

© Norman Oder/ Atlantic Yards Report

However, these photos taken by Norman Oder of the Atlantic Yards Report show that it is still quietly rusting away.

© Norman Oder/ Atlantic Yards Report

A tenet of green building is that it should last a long time. It seems to me that using a material that you can actually watch deteriorate before your very eyes is a mistake.

© Sarah Wigglesworth Architects

In some places it can be appropriate; I have always loved Sarah Wigglesworth's gutsy Cremorne Riverside Centre from 2008, designed to look like rusting upside down boats, and replacing some shipping containers. As one user said, " "We tell people we used to operate out of a couple of rusty boxes, but that now we have a new building, we operate out of a couple of rusty boxes."

http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/whats-all-architect-love-cor-ten-steel.html

Late edit: The effects of heat-treatment on 'weathered steel' may be illusory, or limited at best:

ABSTRACT
Eight-year atmospheric corrosion tests of A 588B weathering steel were conducted in industrial, marine, and rural environments. The material was tested following two types of heat treatment: (1) quenched-and-tempered to produce a tempered martensite microstructure, and (2) normalized to produce a microstructure comprised of ferrite and pearlite. The results of these tests indicate that these heat treatments have no effect on the corrosion resistance, and that the performance of weathering steels can be estimated solely on the basis of composition.
[...]
Although the corrosion performance of weathering steels can be estimated from composition t4~, the effects of heat treatment have not been previously reported. When steel is immersed in acid solution, it is well known that corrosion may be affected by heat treatment and microstructure ts). This is because acid corrosion is controlled by hydrogen ion reduction on the steel surface which in turn depends on the size and distribution of iron carbide particles. However, this is not lrue in neutral solutions where oxygen diffusion to the steel surface is rate limiting. Based on these considerations, it is difficult to predict the effects of heat Ireatment and microstructure on the long-term atmospheric corrosion perform- ance of steel, particularly in acid-rain environments. The purpose of this work is to determine the effects of quench-and temper heat treatment and the resulting microstructure on the atmospheric corrosion performance of weathering steel.[...]

https://www.onepetro.org/conference-paper/NACE-00447
That application at Pioneer might run into trouble from bus exhaust!

 

[salsa]

 

[salsa]

https://twitter.com/jmsker/status/868071859451047937

 

[Conrad Black]

I see the TTC station is almost done but where's the GO station?

 

[Edward Skira]

GO Station. You can't see it here but work was being done today. Taken during Doors Open.

 

[Edward Skira]

The place looks good but is so massive. Surely didn't need to be this big.

 

[Edward Skira]

Andy Byford heads into the station

Multi-modal. Trains, planes and walking!

 

[drum118]

GO Station. You can't see it here but work was being done today. Taken during Doors Open.

There has been no changes to the new GO platforms since my Jan tour of the station. The work was taking place foe a section of the Barrie Line to the point a section of track was cut and move to the south so concrete work could be done and no idea what.

The station is about the same as Jan, other than having the fare gates install now.

Turn out was very low compare to York, but only been open about 90 minutes.

 

[rbt]

The place looks good but is so massive. Surely didn't need to be this big.

Maybe. The platform size is determined by firecode (2 fully loaded trains emptying in an emergency). The hole/excavation is determined by the platform/train size. So those are fixed as even a low ridership station needs to handle the same maximum panic crowd.

At that point, it's typically cheaper to leave excavated space open versus filling it back in again. Everything outside the excavated station box might be unnecessary but if it's at surface level it's also cheap to build (assuming land is free; which for Downsview it was).