Toronto College Park Redevelopment | 344.29m | 96s | GWL | Hariri Pontarini

I suppose I ought to share my contribution to this architectural debate, originally made in the Concord Sky thread:

NY99 said:
I think thats what gets me the most. Its such an ingrained habit that even well-designed developments like this will do it. Another, even worse example, is the proposed College Park completion. For absolutely zero reason, they decided to separate the beautiful masonry podium from the handsome tower cladding by adding in a staircase-shaped curtainwall gap.

Why? I have no goddamn clue. It makes the building look worse!!

It has being repeatedly observed in studies that people prefer symmetry in building design. Not only that, but all else being equal, a symmetrical design is simpler, lowering building complexity and therefore costs. Win-win!

Despite these facts, the pupils of the Toronto school of architecture have this to say:

am-i-so-out-of-touch-v0-CRAkkxZoC4EhLMF0xrdwjjZVUWqwyZkfo4EF0jlsQKE.jpg
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Thoughts? I’ll try to tone down the snarkiness, as I know some UT contributors are in the architectural field themselves — most of you do great work I’m sure!

But the tower designs here do genuinely bother me a lot — because they're close to being great. With the asymmetrical clutter, I almost feel like they dishonour the legacy of the site by deviating so much from the gorgeous original tower proposal.
 
NY99 said:
I suppose I ought to share my contribution to this architectural debate, originally made in the Concord Sky thread:



Thoughts? I’ll try to tone down the snarkiness, as I know some UT contributors are in the architectural field themselves — most of you do great work I’m sure!

But the tower designs here do genuinely bother me a lot — because they're close to being great. With the asymmetrical clutter, I almost feel like they dishonour the legacy of the site by deviating so much from the gorgeous original tower proposal.
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It looks like a bunch of different ideas inelegantly glommed on to each other, as though they gave one architect the north side, another architect the south side, then switched to a third architect half way up. A setback here, a balcony there, a random cut out here, some glass over there, and some random precast over here. Incoherent, asymmetrical, disjointed mess that is typical of Toronto architecture. All it's missing is the inevitable mechanical box that someone at Hariri Pontarini will remember to staple on at the last minute.
 
...I think HP Sauce is trying to work too hard with the hand that was given to them here. As the site itself is a hodgepodge of ideas built up over the years on the original project that fell though some 90 years ago or so.

Either way, they really do need to tone it down a bit. Not make it boring or mediocre...just make so it's easier to look at.
 
The obsession with "breaking up massing" or "visual interest" in this city is a real problem. It's why we end up with weird cut-outs, buildings that have different treatments on different sides, etc. I think this is an attempt to solve the "grey glass condo" problem, but done entirely the wrong way. The answer isn't making buildings more visually complex, it's using warm colours, and natural materials (vs endless spandrel). This project is better in terms of those two things but still falls into the trap of being overly complex in terms of shape/massing sadly.

And this obsession with "visual interest" is often encouraged by either the planning department or the DRP.

There is a real aversion to not even minimalism, but just like, clean lines. The basics of the designs of these towers are good, but there's just too much happening in the name of "visual interest" that they look messy. The North tower is the best in that at least it's symmetrical and the breaks in the facade are regular-ish. The other two are messy. Luckily they are going to be built later so there's time to fix them.
 
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TossYourJacket said:
The obsession with "breaking up massing" or "visual interest" in this city is a real problem. It's why we end up with weird cut-outs, buildings that have different treatments on different sides, etc. I think this is an attempt to solve the "grey glass condo" problem, but done entirely the wrong way. The answer isn't making buildings more visually complex, it's using warm colours, and natural materials (vs endless spandrel). This project is better in terms of those two things but still falls into the trap of being overly complex in terms of shape/massing sadly.

And this obsession with "visual interest" is often encouraged by either the planning department or the DRP.

There is a real aversion to not even minimalism, but just like, clean lines. The basics of the designs of these towers are good, but there's just too much happening in the name of "visual interest" that they look messy. The North tower is the best in that at least it's symmetrical and the breaks in the facade are regular-ish. The other two are messy. Luckily they are going to be built later so there's time to fix them.
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I respectively disagree with your position. You call the encouragement of ‘visual interest’ some kind of obsession and ‘a real problem’. I don’t understand how ‘visual interest’ is a negative thing. This city desperately needs more visually interesting buildings. Anthony Bourdain, in a rather hyperbolic way, called the architecture in Toronto ‘butt ugly’, ‘Soviet chic’, and ‘crypto-fascist Bauhaus.’

I understand we all have our preferences, but visual interest is a big plus for me. I guess it depends on your definition of it. Are the Gehry buildings a problem for you because there are different treatments on different sides?

There is no aversion to ‘clean lines’ in Toronto. Just look at all the aA buildings in the city that, for the most part, are versions of the same building. They almost all rely on ‘clean lines’.

I like what HPA are attempting here. No doubt it’ll get refined, but I sure hope it doesn’t end up as 3 uninteresting boxes.
 
Tarazet said:
I respectively disagree with your position. You call the encouragement of ‘visual interest’ some kind of obsession and ‘a real problem’. I don’t understand how ‘visual interest’ is a negative thing. This city desperately needs more visually interesting buildings. Anthony Bourdain, in a rather hyperbolic way, called the architecture in Toronto ‘butt ugly’, ‘Soviet chic’, and ‘crypto-fascist Bauhaus.’

I understand we all have our preferences, but visual interest is a big plus for me. I guess it depends on your definition of it. Are the Gehry buildings a problem for you because there are different treatments on different sides?

There is no aversion to ‘clean lines’ in Toronto. Just look at all the aA buildings in the city that, for the most part, are versions of the same building. They almost all rely on ‘clean lines’.

I like what HPA are attempting here. No doubt it’ll get refined, but I sure hope it doesn’t end up as 3 uninteresting boxes.
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I think their point is that in Toronto, a randomly cut-out shape or an overhanging ledge is often considered "visual interest" and a marker used to pass the review. But in reality does very little to actually make the structure interesting. Often it just looks an incongruent mess.
 
Tarazet said:
I respectively disagree with your position. You call the encouragement of ‘visual interest’ some kind of obsession and ‘a real problem’. I don’t understand how ‘visual interest’ is a negative thing. This city desperately needs more visually interesting buildings. Anthony Bourdain, in a rather hyperbolic way, called the architecture in Toronto ‘butt ugly’, ‘Soviet chic’, and ‘crypto-fascist Bauhaus.’

I understand we all have our preferences, but visual interest is a big plus for me. I guess it depends on your definition of it. Are the Gehry buildings a problem for you because there are different treatments on different sides?

There is no aversion to ‘clean lines’ in Toronto. Just look at all the aA buildings in the city that, for the most part, are versions of the same building. They almost all rely on ‘clean lines’.

I like what HPA are attempting here. No doubt it’ll get refined, but I sure hope it doesn’t end up as 3 uninteresting boxes.
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My take on what’s being said isn’t that buildings that are interesting to look at are bad. I understood it as Toronto uses odd massing, weird balcony and window patterns, and gimmicks in the glazing to create “visual interested” that’s while yet “visually interesting” isn’t actually visually pleasing. It’s done to pass the checkbox test of “it’s not monolithic because we used two different types of spandrel”.

You can see it in all the proposals that get VE’d to death, look at 252 Church for example, it had angled stacked boxes like a skyscraper version of BIG’s KING but as the cuts started coming we ended up with windows that just varied in width which alluded to the original design but is really just a flattened idea of what originally was.
 
Tarazet said:
I respectively disagree with your position. You call the encouragement of ‘visual interest’ some kind of obsession and ‘a real problem’. I don’t understand how ‘visual interest’ is a negative thing. This city desperately needs more visually interesting buildings. Anthony Bourdain, in a rather hyperbolic way, called the architecture in Toronto ‘butt ugly’, ‘Soviet chic’, and ‘crypto-fascist Bauhaus.’

I understand we all have our preferences, but visual interest is a big plus for me. I guess it depends on your definition of it. Are the Gehry buildings a problem for you because there are different treatments on different sides?

There is no aversion to ‘clean lines’ in Toronto. Just look at all the aA buildings in the city that, for the most part, are versions of the same building. They almost all rely on ‘clean lines’.

I like what HPA are attempting here. No doubt it’ll get refined, but I sure hope it doesn’t end up as 3 uninteresting boxes.
Click to expand...
Sorry if i didn't make my point quite as well as I could have, I meant "visual interest" in a somewhat sarcastic way, in that the buildings aren't actually visually interesting, they're just pretending to be to check a box, if that makes sense.

As others said above, my point was more about doing things like weird massing or cutouts for the sake of making it "look interesting" rather than like doing things like interesting detailing, or variations in textures. The Gehry buildings are to me what visual interest (no quotation marks needed here) should be. Using textures, and variations in massing in a way that like feels like there was a vision behind it, not just that it was being done for the sake of making something not just a box. The Gehry buildings were designed to be visually interesting from the beginning, rather than "oh we did something wacky with the balconies, that's architecture, right?" As for the multiple treatments thing, it just again, has to make sense. Too many proposals look like 2 buildings randomly glued together, and then maybe also have no relation to the podium below them. It can be done well, but often it isn't. It's not that the fundamental concepts being used are inherently bad, it's that they're being used badly in a lot of projects.

This is far from the worst example (it just happens to be one close to my house so it came to mind), but if you look at the 543 Yonge St proposal, the front half of the building just looks like some weird addition they made to the rest of the tower. It has no relation to the main structure in terms of materials, massing, or window design. IMO the whole thing would have looked better with just a slimmer front section in the same materials and window design as the rest of the front building instead of the white portion. You'd still have some interesting changes in massing due to their being a wide rear section and a narrower front section, but it wouldn't look like 2 buildings were awkwardly glued together. Alternately, maybe it would work better even if just that the white part used the same window design as the brick part to keep visual consistency. Anything to reduce the weird disjointedness between the two parts. In comparison, the two textures on the Gehry buildings compliment each other, but at 543 Yonge, they seem kinda unrelated, and just exist for the sake of breaking up massing, not because it's good design.

I think it was a DRP review of Social on Church where a panelist bemoaned that "balconies are not architecture" and that stuck with me since. A lot of architecture in this city has trended towards gimmicks rather than actual architecture, because it is cheaper then actually doing good architecture.

Also I fully agree that the aA boxes everywhere are equally bad as the Kirkor style "way too many textures" buildings or the random cutouts. aA's love of all-glass street levels might also be my single most hated architectural trend in the entire city.

And yeah, I'm hopeful HPA can find a balance here as these are refined. They're one of the best firms we have and usually don't resort to the kind of nonsense I was complaining about which is why I was somewhat surprised to see it here.
 
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TossYourJacket said:
Sorry if i didn't make my point quite as well as I could have, I meant "visual interest" in a somewhat sarcastic way, in that the buildings aren't actually visually interesting, they're just pretending to be to check a box, if that makes sense.

As others said above, my point was more about doing things like weird massing or cutouts for the sake of making it "look interesting" rather than like doing things like interesting detailing, or variations in textures. The Gehry buildings are to me what visual interest (no quotation marks needed here) should be. Using textures, and variations in massing in a way that like feels like there was a vision behind it, not just that it was being done for the sake of making something not just a box. The Gehry buildings were designed to be visually interesting from the beginning, rather than "oh we did something wacky with the balconies, that's architecture, right?" As for the multiple treatments thing, it just again, has to make sense. Too many proposals look like 2 buildings randomly glued together, and then maybe also have no relation to the podium below them. It can be done well, but often it isn't. It's not that the fundamental concepts being used are inherently bad, it's that they're being used badly in a lot of projects.

This is far from the worst example (it just happens to be one close to my house so it came to mind), but if you look at the 543 Yonge St proposal, the front half of the building just looks like some weird addition they made to the rest of the tower. It has no relation to the main structure in terms of materials, massing, or window design. IMO the whole thing would have looked better with just a slimmer front section in the same materials and window design as the rest of the front building instead of the white portion. You'd still have some interesting changes in massing due to their being a wide rear section and a narrower front section, but it wouldn't look like 2 buildings were awkwardly glued together. Alternately, maybe it would work better even if just that the white part used the same window design as the brick part to keep visual consistency. Anything to reduce the weird disjointedness between the two parts. In comparison, the two textures on the Gehry buildings compliment each other, but at 543 Yonge, they seem kinda unrelated, and just exist for the sake of breaking up massing, not because it's good design.

I think it was a DRP review of Social on Church where a panelist bemoaned that "balconies are not architecture" and that stuck with me since. A lot of architecture in this city has trended towards gimmicks rather than actual architecture, because it is cheaper then actually doing good architecture.

Also I fully agree that the aA boxes everywhere are equally bad as the Kirkor style "way too many textures" buildings or the random cutouts. aA's love of all-glass street levels might also be my single most hated architectural trend in the entire city.

And yeah, I'm hopeful HPA can find a balance here as these are refined. They're one of the best firms we have and usually don't resort to the kind of nonsense I was complaining about which is why I was somewhat surprised to see it here.
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I appreciate the clarification. Cheers.
 
kashkanemusic said:
Streamline moderne. Sorry for AI Choppiness and blurriness.
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...that wouldn't work here as it would require the rest of the towers to be that style. The original building (and proposal) was more neoclassical than art deco, to my understanding.
 
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