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bizorky
Guest
Spice Dwarfs! Adma, you hit on an idea for an all-new girl band.
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Spice Dwarfs! Adma, you hit on an idea for an all-new girl band.
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adma
Guest
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allabootmatt
Guest
I suggest that before anyone makes hyberbolic claims about the quality of U of T's facilities like those in the article above he or she be required to visit the athletic complex of any major American university, including many much, much smaller than the UT. I'm sure this is a major (if aesthetically horrendous) improvement for the university's sporting life, but it remains an utter joke in the cross-border comparison.
And don't get me started on the ()&*@)(@&!)$ bubble.
And don't get me started on the ()&*@)(@&!)$ bubble.
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adma
Guest
Though wouldn't it reflect on the hollowness of U of T "sporting life" at large? Blues games were *always* woefully underattended.
When it comes to sports and U of T, it's tended to be more more narcissistic; like, about about Fort Jock and Hart House serving as urban athletic clubs, workout joints, on-campus Y's etc...
When it comes to sports and U of T, it's tended to be more more narcissistic; like, about about Fort Jock and Hart House serving as urban athletic clubs, workout joints, on-campus Y's etc...
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AlvinofDiaspar
Guest
allbootmatt:
The article is from U of T News, so it's by default suspect.
That said, most people don't go to U of T for the atheletics - which is something I am actually thankful for, unlike the trend in certain universities down south.
AoD
The article is from U of T News, so it's by default suspect.
That said, most people don't go to U of T for the atheletics - which is something I am actually thankful for, unlike the trend in certain universities down south.
AoD
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allabootmatt
Guest
It's also a question of the prevailing cultural attitude toward college sports; in Britain, for example, they're pretty low-key, organised on the "club" model and with the exception of a few star programs (Ox/Cam rowing, a few soccer teams), pretty much social/recreational. Then there's the American extreme at the other end, with schools like Florida State basically built around the football teams, and even the academic elite (my own alma mater included) shovelling what would by Canadian standards be staggering amounts of money at sports. Canada, except maybe UBC, falls in this as in so much else about halfway between the US and Britain.
I think it's great for U of T to make major investments in sports infrastructure, if only for the reason that, as the wealthiest American schools have found, great sports programs that leave people with great memories of watching/participating tend to up donations significantly down the road.
And let's face it: what U of T, and all Canadian universities, need most in order to build themselves as institutions is money, and lots of it. The kind of money that would make it unnecessary to put funding for a new sports complex to a student plebiscite, and then to build a cheap, ugly bubble when the vote doesn't go their way. If our hometown university has pretensions of competing academically with the Harvards and Yales of the world, it's gonna need billions more dollars (current H-Y endowment race standings are at about 29 and 21 Bil). What I hope the administration will understand is that great sports programs can in the long run help the academic side in a huge way by bringing in that kind of money.
I think it's great for U of T to make major investments in sports infrastructure, if only for the reason that, as the wealthiest American schools have found, great sports programs that leave people with great memories of watching/participating tend to up donations significantly down the road.
And let's face it: what U of T, and all Canadian universities, need most in order to build themselves as institutions is money, and lots of it. The kind of money that would make it unnecessary to put funding for a new sports complex to a student plebiscite, and then to build a cheap, ugly bubble when the vote doesn't go their way. If our hometown university has pretensions of competing academically with the Harvards and Yales of the world, it's gonna need billions more dollars (current H-Y endowment race standings are at about 29 and 21 Bil). What I hope the administration will understand is that great sports programs can in the long run help the academic side in a huge way by bringing in that kind of money.
T
tudararms
Guest
I'm curious if building an 'arts' complexe would be somehow better received than a sports one?
S
scarberiankhatru
Guest
"What I hope the administration will understand is that great sports programs can in the long run help the academic side in a huge way by bringing in that kind of money."
Only if a whole bunch of other Canadian schools do the same.
Only if a whole bunch of other Canadian schools do the same.
S
Sir Novelty Fashion
Guest
I'm curious if building an 'arts' complexe would be somehow better received than a sports one?
I don't know. Would the arts complex have a giant inflatable bubble?
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adma
Guest
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scarberiankhatru
Guest
"I'm curious if building an 'arts' complexe would be somehow better received than a sports one?"
U of T would never build that, so it'll remain a mystery.
U of T would never build that, so it'll remain a mystery.
Y
yyzer
Guest
Inflated real estate
The ROM, the Royal Conservatory of Music. . . and six storeys of inflated polyester? IVOR TOSSELL checks out the newest feature in the city's cultural district
IVOR TOSSELL
Special to The Globe and Mail
Inside a gigantic bubble on Bloor Street, Sam Li is standing on a platform, whacking golf balls into the middle distance.
"It looks smaller from the outside than it is inside," he says with a hint of awe, surveying hundreds of balls scattered across the synthetic turf.
Mr. Li, a U of T student, is one of the first to use the new Varsity Centre dome, a white polyester bubble six storeys high and the size of a football field. Designed to keep the university's new sports field in action over the winter, it is converted into a driving range every weekday morning.
Welcome to the latest addition to the area around Bloor and Avenue Road, the focal point of Toronto's recent cultural building spree. There's the revamped Gardiner Museum, the crystalline renovation of the ROM, the dramatically expanded Royal Conservatory of Music -- and next to that, the inflatable dome that houses a driving range.
Is something out of place here? "A bubble dome on Bloor Street is a strange thing," says local architect Kim Storey, whose firm designed Dundas Square. "You usually associate those things with industrial sites or suburban sites."
"Aesthetically speaking, it's a mild disappointment," adds Joshua Cramer, a U of T law student who was walking past the dome after class this week. "I can't escape the image of us putting up this massive igloo on the campus."
Built in Guelph, the dome is the second-largest in Canada, according to its manufacturers, which has just installed a similar dome at Harvard. Measuring 107 metres long by 64 metres wide, it's held aloft by air compressors.
And to Bruce Kidd, the dean of U of T's faculty of physical education and health, it's a beautiful thing. "I'm proud of the fact that in a cultural precinct, alongside ceramics and history and music, sport continues to have its place as one of the most important parts of culture in the 21st century," he says.
But how did it get there?
The dome sits in the middle of the university's new Varsity Centre, where the long struggle to replace Varsity Stadium is coming to a close. The university's modest new stadium, with its wrought-iron fences, clear sightlines -- and all-weather bubble -- was not the institution's original plan for the site. Rather, it's the end product of nearly a decade of internal turmoil, built after attempts to build grander facilities, which would have capitalized on the university's lucrative Bloor frontage, kept falling through.
In the late 1990s, the iconic 22,000-seat Varsity Stadium, which had stood since 1924, was crumbling. In 1998, U of T announced a plan that would have turned the south side of Bloor over to a $250-million private development, including a hotel, with a 5,000-seat stadium behind it. But the school's athletics faculty wasn't satisfied, and after a heated internal debate, U of T walked away from the project.
By 2002, the school had readied a new plan, proposing a stadium flanked by two new residence towers, along with student facilities and retail space along Bloor. This time, the university asked students to foot the bill -- and in a referendum, they said no. Later that year, the old stadium was demolished anyway, leaving an empty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence.
The university, meanwhile, began negotiating with the Canadian Soccer Association and the Toronto Argonauts. Architects drew up plans for a massive 25,000-seat stadium -- an idea that quickly proved divisive.
"I think it's fair to say that a number of us were uneasy," says George Baird, dean of the university's faculty of architecture, who was involved with the Argonauts proposal. As the design work progressed, he recalls, "the thing just kept getting gradually bigger and bigger and bigger."
It wasn't just size: The community was also rattled by fears of rising costs and losing control of their stadium to a sports franchise. Finally, the university's president pulled the plug, and U of T started on a new course of building a less ambitious stadium with its own money -- including an inflatable dome.
Not everybody was impressed with the proposed bubble ("You've seen such structures before, lurking beside freeways like gigantic maggots," complained an editorial in the student newspaper The Varsity). But since then, it has escaped the kind of community ire that has confronted a similar proposal at Northern Secondary School, where the Toronto District School Board would like to see an inflatable dome that would be shared with the North Toronto Soccer Club. Neighbourhood activists say the plan would lead to more traffic in a residential area, causing safety and parking problems.
And while nobody's rushing to sing the Varsity dome's architectural praises, its neighbours, relieved that the proposed Argonauts stadium wasn't built, seem willing to take it in stride.
"We're very pleased with this stadium; they've done it beautifully," says Margaret MacMillan, the historian and provost of neighbouring Trinity College, and an opponent of the Argonauts plan.
Asked about the dome, she muses, "Bubbles aren't the most beautiful things, are they?"
Barry Fenton, a developer whose firm, Lanterra, is building the luxury One Bedford condominiums across the road, says he's not troubled by the bubble, either. "People coming and going brings vibrancy to the community," he says, "so I don't have an issue with it." Still, Mr. Fenton is confident that One Bedford will do what U of T didn't, and attract higher-end retail to a stretch of Bloor previously occupied by discount stores and chain restaurants.
Meanwhile, Sandra Shaul of the Annex Residents' Association says the group -- which also opposed the Argonauts proposal and fought the One Bedford tower -- approved of the bubble when the university originally proposed it.
"I don't find it any less attractive than Fort Jock or Fort Book," she notes, referring to U of T's famously Brutalist athletics centre and Robarts Library.
Neither the Royal Conservatory of Music nor the Royal Ontario Museum was willing to comment on the dome's arrival on the scene.
But back in the dome, Mr. Li, for one, is enthusiastic. More a soccer player than a golfer, he says he's excited that his intramural league has access to the facility; after one game, he gives the synthetic turf high marks. In the meantime, he's taking advantage of the free access to the driving range that the university is promoting as an introductory offer.
"I'm a commerce student," he explains. "I figure I might eventually need to learn to golf."
The ROM, the Royal Conservatory of Music. . . and six storeys of inflated polyester? IVOR TOSSELL checks out the newest feature in the city's cultural district
IVOR TOSSELL
Special to The Globe and Mail
Inside a gigantic bubble on Bloor Street, Sam Li is standing on a platform, whacking golf balls into the middle distance.
"It looks smaller from the outside than it is inside," he says with a hint of awe, surveying hundreds of balls scattered across the synthetic turf.
Mr. Li, a U of T student, is one of the first to use the new Varsity Centre dome, a white polyester bubble six storeys high and the size of a football field. Designed to keep the university's new sports field in action over the winter, it is converted into a driving range every weekday morning.
Welcome to the latest addition to the area around Bloor and Avenue Road, the focal point of Toronto's recent cultural building spree. There's the revamped Gardiner Museum, the crystalline renovation of the ROM, the dramatically expanded Royal Conservatory of Music -- and next to that, the inflatable dome that houses a driving range.
Is something out of place here? "A bubble dome on Bloor Street is a strange thing," says local architect Kim Storey, whose firm designed Dundas Square. "You usually associate those things with industrial sites or suburban sites."
"Aesthetically speaking, it's a mild disappointment," adds Joshua Cramer, a U of T law student who was walking past the dome after class this week. "I can't escape the image of us putting up this massive igloo on the campus."
Built in Guelph, the dome is the second-largest in Canada, according to its manufacturers, which has just installed a similar dome at Harvard. Measuring 107 metres long by 64 metres wide, it's held aloft by air compressors.
And to Bruce Kidd, the dean of U of T's faculty of physical education and health, it's a beautiful thing. "I'm proud of the fact that in a cultural precinct, alongside ceramics and history and music, sport continues to have its place as one of the most important parts of culture in the 21st century," he says.
But how did it get there?
The dome sits in the middle of the university's new Varsity Centre, where the long struggle to replace Varsity Stadium is coming to a close. The university's modest new stadium, with its wrought-iron fences, clear sightlines -- and all-weather bubble -- was not the institution's original plan for the site. Rather, it's the end product of nearly a decade of internal turmoil, built after attempts to build grander facilities, which would have capitalized on the university's lucrative Bloor frontage, kept falling through.
In the late 1990s, the iconic 22,000-seat Varsity Stadium, which had stood since 1924, was crumbling. In 1998, U of T announced a plan that would have turned the south side of Bloor over to a $250-million private development, including a hotel, with a 5,000-seat stadium behind it. But the school's athletics faculty wasn't satisfied, and after a heated internal debate, U of T walked away from the project.
By 2002, the school had readied a new plan, proposing a stadium flanked by two new residence towers, along with student facilities and retail space along Bloor. This time, the university asked students to foot the bill -- and in a referendum, they said no. Later that year, the old stadium was demolished anyway, leaving an empty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence.
The university, meanwhile, began negotiating with the Canadian Soccer Association and the Toronto Argonauts. Architects drew up plans for a massive 25,000-seat stadium -- an idea that quickly proved divisive.
"I think it's fair to say that a number of us were uneasy," says George Baird, dean of the university's faculty of architecture, who was involved with the Argonauts proposal. As the design work progressed, he recalls, "the thing just kept getting gradually bigger and bigger and bigger."
It wasn't just size: The community was also rattled by fears of rising costs and losing control of their stadium to a sports franchise. Finally, the university's president pulled the plug, and U of T started on a new course of building a less ambitious stadium with its own money -- including an inflatable dome.
Not everybody was impressed with the proposed bubble ("You've seen such structures before, lurking beside freeways like gigantic maggots," complained an editorial in the student newspaper The Varsity). But since then, it has escaped the kind of community ire that has confronted a similar proposal at Northern Secondary School, where the Toronto District School Board would like to see an inflatable dome that would be shared with the North Toronto Soccer Club. Neighbourhood activists say the plan would lead to more traffic in a residential area, causing safety and parking problems.
And while nobody's rushing to sing the Varsity dome's architectural praises, its neighbours, relieved that the proposed Argonauts stadium wasn't built, seem willing to take it in stride.
"We're very pleased with this stadium; they've done it beautifully," says Margaret MacMillan, the historian and provost of neighbouring Trinity College, and an opponent of the Argonauts plan.
Asked about the dome, she muses, "Bubbles aren't the most beautiful things, are they?"
Barry Fenton, a developer whose firm, Lanterra, is building the luxury One Bedford condominiums across the road, says he's not troubled by the bubble, either. "People coming and going brings vibrancy to the community," he says, "so I don't have an issue with it." Still, Mr. Fenton is confident that One Bedford will do what U of T didn't, and attract higher-end retail to a stretch of Bloor previously occupied by discount stores and chain restaurants.
Meanwhile, Sandra Shaul of the Annex Residents' Association says the group -- which also opposed the Argonauts proposal and fought the One Bedford tower -- approved of the bubble when the university originally proposed it.
"I don't find it any less attractive than Fort Jock or Fort Book," she notes, referring to U of T's famously Brutalist athletics centre and Robarts Library.
Neither the Royal Conservatory of Music nor the Royal Ontario Museum was willing to comment on the dome's arrival on the scene.
But back in the dome, Mr. Li, for one, is enthusiastic. More a soccer player than a golfer, he says he's excited that his intramural league has access to the facility; after one game, he gives the synthetic turf high marks. In the meantime, he's taking advantage of the free access to the driving range that the university is promoting as an introductory offer.
"I'm a commerce student," he explains. "I figure I might eventually need to learn to golf."
B
buildup
Guest
And to Bruce Kidd, the dean of U of T's faculty of physical education and health, it's a beautiful thing. "I'm proud of the fact that in a cultural precinct, alongside ceramics and history and music, sport continues to have its place as one of the most important parts of culture in the 21st century," he says.
So the gym teacher likes it...I'm on board. Oh, I forgot, the Gym teachers killed the Millenium proposal so I guess they need to put on a brave face.
The cardinal rule is "never solicit quotes from gym teachers..."
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adma
Guest
Hate to say it because it's contrary to a certain UT party line, but even now that it's a fait accompli, I *still* find the bubble more benign than offensive or eyesoreish. (And hey, if it's, er, good enough for Harvard...)
Even the critical comments in the G&M article seem strangely muted. I guess George Baird might call it "first-rate second-rate urbanism"...
Even the critical comments in the G&M article seem strangely muted. I guess George Baird might call it "first-rate second-rate urbanism"...
C
CanadianNational
Guest
What's with the equivocal, uncritical tone of the coverage around this...thing? It's a cheap, ungainly, puffed up pre-fab carbuncle made all the more unavoidably awful by its stellar, urbane setting.
The papers must not want to ruffle someones feathers. How else can you account for the sad, grim, "Oh, I guess it's not too bad..." nature of the quotes? Urgh. Or is it just Torontonian politesse?
Personally, I'd like to take a javelin to it - or a vat of Compound W.
The papers must not want to ruffle someones feathers. How else can you account for the sad, grim, "Oh, I guess it's not too bad..." nature of the quotes? Urgh. Or is it just Torontonian politesse?
Personally, I'd like to take a javelin to it - or a vat of Compound W.