Toronto 1 Yorkville | 183.18m | 58s | Bazis | Rosario Varacalli

Today. The 3D cladding looks great in person!

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Really wish they painted it or something. There will be a noticeable difference in these sections it looks.
 
Love love love this one. The difference between this and the crap aA is proposing at 55 Charles East is shocking.
 
Contra said:
Really wish they painted it or something. There will be a noticeable difference in these sections it looks.
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I suspect that is a test panel. There will surely be some insulation in a backpan along those sections.
 
I'm relieved that they're not using full panels of spandrel on the concrete wall portions. That had me worried.

Thanks for the update!
 
isaidso said:
Love love love this one. The difference between this and the crap aA is proposing at 55 Charles East is shocking.
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I personally think that 55 Charles is pretty good! The movement and the texture of the balconies make it look interesting and a little less boring than the typical glass/spandrel condo tower. Plus the podium seems pretty clean too. However, just across the street, Charles at Chruch.....
 
Charles on Church will turn out better than it looks I think. It's got a lot of curtain wall elements in it. But yea, it's probably not going to be winning any awards.
 
Roll your eyes if you must, but it's a sentiment that every layperson walking around the city would share. I appreciate aA's attention to detail, but I can't count how many times I've heard a visitor to Toronto comment on how samey and bland our new buildings, and by extension the city as a whole, looks. "Samey and bland" is not a good look, no matter how well it's executed. 1 Yorkville, on the other hand, is going to standout as a recognizable Yorkville landmark.
 
Varacalli also has windows up in front of exposed concrete at Exhibit Residences in the parking ramp area, viewable from Avenue Road, iirc. So, this is a thing for him.
 
greenleaf said:
Varacalli also has windows up in front of exposed concrete at Exhibit Residences in the parking ramp area, viewable from Avenue Road, iirc. So, this is a thing for him.
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Interesting. I'll try to hunt down a photo to see how it turned out. Given what Varacalli has given us so far I feel he seems to know best.
 
More of this please. People obsess over building heights but what's problematic for a city and the public realm is the street level. Slim towers like this one with a small foot print on the ground level help a lot to maintain vibrancy and walk ability on the street level, whereas giant, overpowering podiums that took up an entire city block (most of them big enough to have multiple towers coming out of them) really ruin it. I think a small foot print is a lot more important than height.
 
One thing 19th-century Toronto did really well was to create streetscapes with great variety of facades, which happened thanks to long and narrow lots that were developed by thousands of different parties across the city. Every part of the city with that 19th century commercial urban fabric you see on Queen Street West or on Dundas in the Junction is easy to like, even if it's rundown. It has this intrinsic value that is the antithesis of the sterility and monotony of the long wall of glass you see on too many a condo podium.

If we want to have a great city, we have to keep those varied blocks standing with their architectural variety, rhythms, and textures. New development should fit in with the old like this project does. The Massey Tower on Yonge Street is another great example. Alternately, it should create an interesting new rhythm, like the Honest Ed's redevelopment project with its variety of narrow facades.
 
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