Toronto 2 Carlton | 250.65m | 80s | Northam | Arcadis

[Ramako]

So, with these buildings, we're looking at a total of six buildings with a big wavy design motif in the stretch of Yonge between Carlton and Bloor.

Seriously, can't we get some more originality?

There is a dearth of originality, creativity and pride among the architects and the development community in this city. You either get generic glass boxes or (poor) imitations of the few creative designs that do manage to somehow get built. There is Teeple, Hariri Pontarini and everyone else to varying degrees. I like aA but as competent as they are, they're dull as hell.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Indeed - like honestly how much more can we iterate the balconies to create interest - instead of tedium?

AoD

 

[maestro]

There is a dearth of originality, creativity and pride among the architects and the development community in this city. You either get generic glass boxes or (poor) imitations of the few creative designs that do manage to somehow get built. There is Teeple, Hariri Pontarini and everyone else to varying degrees. I like aA but as competent as they are, they're dull as hell.

Teeple does inspired, deconstructed boxes. HP does inspired, expressionist boxes . aA doe inspired, mid century, glass boxes. They all pretty much have the same level of creativity once you get past their preferred style.

It's an investor driven market. Creativity isn't very marketable.

 

[ProjectEnd]

I'm not entirely against Picasso but I really don't get the love-on for Teeple lately. While they do excellent institutional buildings, their blocky residential nonsense isn't creating many useful suites.

For example, from a recent rezoning package:

I absolutely pity whomever has to live in 531 in the future. What's more, the unit faces north and lies on the lower floors. It's also not nearly the only bad layout in the building.

Just terrible...

 

[Ramako]

I'm not entirely against Picasso but I really don't get the love-on for Teeple lately. While they do excellent institutional buildings, their blocky residential nonsense isn't creating many useful suites.

For example, from a recent rezoning package:

I absolutely pity whomever has to live in 531 in the future. What's more, the unit faces north and lies on the lower floors. It's also not nearly the only bad layout in the building.

Just terrible...

You get what you pay for. Somewhere out there is someone who couldn't otherwise afford to live in this area but who will gladly trade off paying a lower price in order to live in an awkward suite in favour of accessing this area. I know we wouldn't have been able to afford our downtown apartment if it weren't for the fact that it faced north and looked into an office building, but the view wasn't high on our priority list.

 

[Adjei]

Can we get some more outside firms who are not based in Toronto to do more buildings. It seems the architects in Toronto don't have a creative bone in them. They design the same buildings, use the same cheap materials, and the majority the buildings are all glass with no colour. The developers need to work with more Dutch/ European architects who actually know good design. These developers don't care about the city and how it looks, all they care about is their money. Why should we even blame them. The politicians and people living here dont seem to care much either.

We need a variety of buildings like these instead of the same garbage that we get:

http://images.adsttc.com/media/imag...9/large_jpg/foto_6©ThijsWolzak.jpg?1396572790

http://i.imgur.com/GDdjxcW.jpg

 

[adma]

I love thoughtful brutalist architecture, as well as 1950's modern. 2 Carleton, however, looks like someone stacked a motel on top of an elevated parking garage. It would be right at home in a Southern California suburb.

Actually, I'd argue that that's part of the delight and the charm of 2 Carlton--which is also why I (knowingly) referenced Morris Lapidus in my NYC reference; roughly this is really more of a piece with clumsy-over-the-top "Lapidus Modern" than ohsoperfectlytimeless "SOM Modern". And if it's (as I suggested in a previous post) the "queerest" of its ilk in Toronto, it's more a "John Waters" kind of queer. And to use an image of roughly the same era and aesthetic, this might as well describe the naysayers, under the circumstance

That said, I'd stop short of *overstating* 2 Carlton's merits (it always had an implicit rep for being a garish ugly ducking next to Dickinson's Westbury); my point being more that "it might not be a masterpiece, but must it be *all* about masterpieces?" And the proof is in how, well, *lifeless* the Goldsmith/Borgal heritage assessment for the developer is compared to my own earlier attempt to capture 2 Carlton's essential qualities in this thread...

 

[ProjectEnd]

You get what you pay for. Somewhere out there is someone who couldn't otherwise afford to live in this area but who will gladly trade off paying a lower price in order to live in an awkward suite in favour of accessing this area. I know we wouldn't have been able to afford our downtown apartment if it weren't for the fact that it faced north and looked into an office building, but the view wasn't high on our priority list.

View is one thing. Any semblance of natural light and cornering conditions is another. It takes a profound lack of understanding of your typology (multi-unit residential) to lay something out that poorly.

 

[am29]

I think the bland architecture is because real estate is thought of as investment vehicles and not places of residence. Investors would not care about the design as they won't be living there and want the lowest cost possible. Of course this is also in response to the increased demand as people are flocking to cities at crazy rates.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Not to mention that roads and transit are already choked in that area, indicating against even more increased density.

Ok...so which is it....build the high density on subway lines to promote public transit use....or stop doing it because it promotes too much public transit use?????

One could also argue that all these downtown residential buildings actually promote walking and cycling more than if these residential units were built elsewhere, so in a sense, helps to decrease road and transit overcrowding by increasing walking/cycling modal split.

And perhaps we should start electing politicians that actually have the guts to do what it takes to solve the problem...invest in more infrastructure to match growth...not try to stop the growth. That's their job.

As for the current building....well, I'm afraid that kind of 50's modernism does not take well to "updates". It's subtleties require it to remain in pristine original condition, (and that is unlikely to happen). Ideally, this building would have it's facade restored to absolute original and replace the POS on the SE corner with an interesting contemporary tower instead. If that were the case, we would end up with one of the best intersections in the city in terms of something nice from different eras on every corner.

 

[maestro]

Small narrow units with balconies does put limits on design. There'

Can we get some more outside firms who are not based in Toronto to do more buildings. It seems the architects in Toronto don't have a creative bone in them. They design the same buildings, use the same cheap materials, and the majority the buildings are all glass with no colour. The developers need to work with more Dutch/ European architects who actually know good design. These developers don't care about the city and how it looks, all they care about is their money. Why should we even blame them. The politicians and people living here dont seem to care much either.

We need a variety of buildings like these instead of the same garbage that we get:

http://images.adsttc.com/media/images/533e/0284/c07a/80d9/e300/0019/large_jpg/foto_6©ThijsWolzak.jpg?1396572790

http://i.imgur.com/GDdjxcW.jpg

We have some great architects but there's only so much you can do with a repeating floor plan of many small, narrow units that all have to have a balcony. That's the market we have. The properties cost too much. The project investors want a high rate of return, the city wants their cut and, the buyers want to pay as little as possible over how it looks.

 

[maestro]

Wait until Teeple has designed dozens towers and attracted dozens of clones. People reacted to Spire way back when the same way they react to Picasso now. The natural conclusion is they'll get bored of Teeple too.

 

[maestro]

Ok...so which is it....build the high density on subway lines to promote public transit use....or stop doing it because it promotes too much public transit use?????

One could also argue that all these downtown residential buildings actually promote walking and cycling more than if these residential units were built elsewhere, so in a sense, helps to decrease road and transit overcrowding by increasing walking/cycling modal split.

And perhaps we should start electing politicians that actually have the guts to do what it takes to solve the problem...invest in more infrastructure to match growth...not try to stop the growth. That's their job.

As for the current building....well, I'm afraid that kind of 50's modernism does not take well to "updates". It's subtleties require it to remain in pristine original condition, (and that is unlikely to happen). Ideally, this building would have it's facade restored to absolute original and replace the POS on the SE corner with an interesting contemporary tower instead. If that were the case, we would end up with one of the best intersections in the city in terms of something nice from different eras on every corner.

It's hardly an ideal situation to have to walk from Carlton & Yonge to Bay & King. You can increase density without affecting quality of life but spending more and more on infrastructure just becomes prohibitively expensive. We will need more than just the Relief Line the direction downtown is going given our current road capacities.

 

[Skeezix]

It's hardly an ideal situation to have to walk from Carlton & Yonge to Bay & King. [...]

Sounds like an awesomely ideal commute to me.

 

[Lenser]

Same here. Sounds like a pretty sweet arrangement.