Glass Box Condo Typology

[TrickyRicky]

The answers to this question depend on what aspect of the building you are interested in. The primary issue of discussion in this forum is exterior aesthetic consideration. You can tackle this interesting question and I will leave others who know more about it to carry on.

Personally, I think exterior aesthetic considerations in buildings is about as deep as judging someone by the kind of hat they are wearing. In some respects A church converted to a condo is more similar to a 100 storey condo building than it is to another church. Is a Victorian house Victorian if you update all the mechanical systems so that it functions like a McMansion built in 2013?

Here is a question we don't talk about much when we talk about Toronto's condo boom, parking. Do other cities have such a dense array of parking? Parking is probably a subject that has a larger impact on a building, it's users, and how it relates to the rest of the city as any aesthetic considerations.

 

[Johnny Au]

I do not want to imagine a condo with EIFS exteriors. Glass is the lesser evil, as long as they do not create a heat ray.

 

[SP!RE]

I do not want to imagine a condo with EIFS exteriors. Glass is the lesser evil, as long as they do not create a heat ray.

If you are reducing the discussion about cladding materials for condos down to EIFS vs. fully-glazed, you are misleading yourself and others about the long list of potential materials that can be (affordably) used to clad a residential tower.

Also, the architects designing these towers would never use EIFS, largely because 1) it is a cost-saving system with major vapour and aesthetics related issues, often employed by engineers and others interested primarily in saving up-front/capital costs and 2) it is not a material that the OAA will even stand behind with insurance.

As for calling these window wall towers the "lesser evil"... we will see about that in 15-20 years, when the systems fail. They are generally rated/expected to last about that long. If you deny this, you are buying into developers' propaganda. No, not all window wall systems are bad, but in Toronto, most are (especially with our climate the way it is). I live in a 5-year-old condo and a fair number of the window wall system is already looking a lot like cheesecake, with seals failing. I know a lot of UTers will try to assure you that the media has overblown the doomsday stories about our window-wall condo boom, but I urge you to speak with some good building scientists or practising architects (off the record, ideally, given the loyalties toward particular systems that many architects hold dear) before you make up your mind.

Pre-cast systems and composite cladding systems present a wonderful variety of different solutions for cladding a tower (aesthetically, functionally, and environmentally).