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AlvinofDiaspar
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From the Globe Real Estate Section:
THE PERFECT HOUSE
'Twisted Sisters' not just another dumb box
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
As the 21st century stops being new and gets seriously under way, it's looking increasingly as if curves, billows and twists will constitute our new millennium's signature style in residential skyscraper design. You don't have to look far to understand why.
First, there is the everlasting tendency of people to get bored. In this case, some younger architects find themselves bored stiff with the last half-century's straight lines, endlessly repeated in structure after structure down to the present day. An entry-level architect recently described one of his boss's new projects to me as "just another dumb box." His attitude is hardly rare.
Second, we have to thank new imaging technologies — I am thinking here especially of the popular Computer-Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application, or CATIA — that enables designers to model architectural forms freely in the round, then translate their ideas into extraordinarily precise engineering sketches. (CATIA is also used for designing aircraft, submarines and other large objects that aren't all about straight lines.)
Also, some things, such as curves, just seem to be in the air these days. Our globalizing age is witnessing a revived interest among architects in several notions rooted in old-fashioned architectural modernism, notably the celebration of spatial flow, and smudging the strict line between inside and outside. I suspect the old modernists would not claim as their own some slinky things coming out of contemporary architects' studios, even though the paternity of these new forms is obvious enough.
Citizens of Halifax will get a first-hand opportunity to see what computer-powered neo-modernism can do for their historic downtown if United Gulf Development Ltd. gets to build a proposed two-tower, 27-storey hotel and condominium project designed by Toronto architects Hariri Pontarini.
Right now, there is some doubt about whether the scheme will get the green light. Approved by local politicians earlier this year, this arrangement of gently turning towers — the project has no official name yet but has been wonderfully nicknamed "Twisted Sisters" by some Haligonian wag — has run afoul of heritage groups that believe it will block views of the harbour from Citadel Hill and loom over nearby historic sites.
Situated just two blocks from the harbour, Twisted Sisters will be only a stone's throw from Historic Properties, where privateers are said to have stored their booty in the War of 1812, and the place where Alexander Keith started brewing his ale in 1820. The heritage people are appealing City Hall's decision to a provincial body with the clout to stop what it doesn't like.
Whatever the outcome on the political front, Hariri Pontarini's project is worthy of note by anyone interested in new directions being taken by Canadian tall-building designers. Slated to rise on a sloping site recently occupied by a parking garage and service station, the $150-million scheme (the firm's second design using CATIA software) combines three elements: a slender block containing a 260-suite hotel, a larger tower housing about 250 condominium residences, both atop a four-storey pedestal.
Of course, a three-part composition is hardly an unusual way to do a tall building complex. What's different about this one is all in the details. The exterior walls of the larger tower appear to fall loosely over the interior volumes, concealing rather than expressing the inner structure of the building. In order to make way for a crucial sightline from the Citadel to the harbour, a corner of the same tower has been pulled round smartly, while the opposite side curves quietly inward to embrace an elevated garden between the two tall components.
In the hotel tower, glass planes are draped gracefully over its flaring, irregular volumes like an elegant skirt, cut away delightfully at one corner to reveal a bit of architectural leg. The outer flange of the podium, which will be devoted to retail, also defies predictability, with entrances to shops and restaurants taking the form of irregular jogs in the walls of glass, stone and brick.
It would be possible, I suppose, for an architect working at a drafting table to draw off Hariri Pontarini's lovely and eccentric project, or at least the general idea of it. What computers are good for, and good at, is quickly figuring out economical, practical ways in which an architect's visual ideas can be realized in the hard stuff of architecture.
By any measure, this is a remarkable technical accomplishment, saving hours and dollars and a vast amount of human effort. But the proof of CATIA's lasting value, and that of related cybernetic technologies, will be in the new art such tools make possible.
As in any important new venture of the creative spirit, everything remains to be seen — though Twisted Sisters is a herald of good things to come.
AoD
THE PERFECT HOUSE
'Twisted Sisters' not just another dumb box
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
As the 21st century stops being new and gets seriously under way, it's looking increasingly as if curves, billows and twists will constitute our new millennium's signature style in residential skyscraper design. You don't have to look far to understand why.
First, there is the everlasting tendency of people to get bored. In this case, some younger architects find themselves bored stiff with the last half-century's straight lines, endlessly repeated in structure after structure down to the present day. An entry-level architect recently described one of his boss's new projects to me as "just another dumb box." His attitude is hardly rare.
Second, we have to thank new imaging technologies — I am thinking here especially of the popular Computer-Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application, or CATIA — that enables designers to model architectural forms freely in the round, then translate their ideas into extraordinarily precise engineering sketches. (CATIA is also used for designing aircraft, submarines and other large objects that aren't all about straight lines.)
Also, some things, such as curves, just seem to be in the air these days. Our globalizing age is witnessing a revived interest among architects in several notions rooted in old-fashioned architectural modernism, notably the celebration of spatial flow, and smudging the strict line between inside and outside. I suspect the old modernists would not claim as their own some slinky things coming out of contemporary architects' studios, even though the paternity of these new forms is obvious enough.
Citizens of Halifax will get a first-hand opportunity to see what computer-powered neo-modernism can do for their historic downtown if United Gulf Development Ltd. gets to build a proposed two-tower, 27-storey hotel and condominium project designed by Toronto architects Hariri Pontarini.
Right now, there is some doubt about whether the scheme will get the green light. Approved by local politicians earlier this year, this arrangement of gently turning towers — the project has no official name yet but has been wonderfully nicknamed "Twisted Sisters" by some Haligonian wag — has run afoul of heritage groups that believe it will block views of the harbour from Citadel Hill and loom over nearby historic sites.
Situated just two blocks from the harbour, Twisted Sisters will be only a stone's throw from Historic Properties, where privateers are said to have stored their booty in the War of 1812, and the place where Alexander Keith started brewing his ale in 1820. The heritage people are appealing City Hall's decision to a provincial body with the clout to stop what it doesn't like.
Whatever the outcome on the political front, Hariri Pontarini's project is worthy of note by anyone interested in new directions being taken by Canadian tall-building designers. Slated to rise on a sloping site recently occupied by a parking garage and service station, the $150-million scheme (the firm's second design using CATIA software) combines three elements: a slender block containing a 260-suite hotel, a larger tower housing about 250 condominium residences, both atop a four-storey pedestal.
Of course, a three-part composition is hardly an unusual way to do a tall building complex. What's different about this one is all in the details. The exterior walls of the larger tower appear to fall loosely over the interior volumes, concealing rather than expressing the inner structure of the building. In order to make way for a crucial sightline from the Citadel to the harbour, a corner of the same tower has been pulled round smartly, while the opposite side curves quietly inward to embrace an elevated garden between the two tall components.
In the hotel tower, glass planes are draped gracefully over its flaring, irregular volumes like an elegant skirt, cut away delightfully at one corner to reveal a bit of architectural leg. The outer flange of the podium, which will be devoted to retail, also defies predictability, with entrances to shops and restaurants taking the form of irregular jogs in the walls of glass, stone and brick.
It would be possible, I suppose, for an architect working at a drafting table to draw off Hariri Pontarini's lovely and eccentric project, or at least the general idea of it. What computers are good for, and good at, is quickly figuring out economical, practical ways in which an architect's visual ideas can be realized in the hard stuff of architecture.
By any measure, this is a remarkable technical accomplishment, saving hours and dollars and a vast amount of human effort. But the proof of CATIA's lasting value, and that of related cybernetic technologies, will be in the new art such tools make possible.
As in any important new venture of the creative spirit, everything remains to be seen — though Twisted Sisters is a herald of good things to come.
AoD
