Toronto 16 York | 154.83m | 32s | Cadillac Fairview | a—A

I'm more amazing and impressed that this is being launched.
I'd love to know what other North American cities have this many office projects at various levels of construction or development
Architecture may be a let down, but growth of office workers downtown Toronto is impressive and for that - we should be happy!
 
kris said:
thing what people dont understand is this building is for office- they have a height limit here and going box ensures you can get good square footage-
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Really? First I'm hearing of this, could you elaborate? I didn't think southcore had much in the way of height limits. I'm sure if they brought an office building 10, 20 (or more?) stories higher, the city would approve it instantly.
 
Xray_Crystal_Junkie said:
Really? First I'm hearing of this, could you elaborate? I didn't think southcore had much in the way of height limits. I'm sure if they brought an office building 10, 20 (or more?) stories higher, the city would approve it instantly.
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Yeah, i doubt there is any height limits here for office bldgs....
if im not mistaken, 45 Bay and 30 Bay sites are approved for proposed office structures of over 200 meters
 
There are height limits, but I am sure if they could have gotten a change in the zoning bylaw if that's what the proponent wanted (which they did, for Ice) The economics for a taller tower with the same square footage wouldn't have made sense - large contiguous floor plates is a selling point for potential tenants - plus you are looking at higher cost (due to height) for lower benefit.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
AKS:

I thought it was granite they used at Brookfield Place?

AoD
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Yes, you're right. From a distance they look a bit like pre-cast. But I recall now that I've seen it upfront and it's stone. That solidifies my point in pre-cast then. It will look like 1 Yonge :mad:
 
re: cladding

I think the widespread use of unitized curtain walls in the past 10 years maybe one reason we don't see other materials being used anymore (given the speed and cost advantages offered)?

16 York might be separated into a different thread later on.

AoD
 
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Ramako said:
Renderings and video from http://www.16york.ca

...
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I hope the lights are part of the plan (now to get artists involved to make it less generic); Although conservative, it's a handsome building. With Ice right behind it, I think an overly adventurous architecture could look tacky. I would like to see some more new design used in the entrances. With BCE Place (Brookfield Place now?) so well regarded in this city, I'm a little surprised at the obsession of High Modernism in most of the new office tower lobbies.
 
pw20 said:
I'm more amazing and impressed that this is being launched.
I'd love to know what other North American cities have this many office projects at various levels of construction or development
Architecture may be a let down, but growth of office workers downtown Toronto is impressive and for that - we should be happy!
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Calgary and others actually.
 
taal said:
Calgary and others actually.
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Just looking at the database on SSP for office towers over 100 metres, we've got 4 under construction (Bremner Tower, RBC Waterfront Place, Queen Richmond Centre and inevitably Bay-Adelaide East) and 6 proposals at various stages (16 York, 100 Adelaide West, 90 Harbour, 388 King West, 43 Simcoe and 45 Bay).

Calgary has 1 under construction (Eight Avenue Place II) and 3 proposed (Herald Square, City Centre I and Century Gardens).

What are we missing in Calgary? What other North American cities have 10 office towers either under construction or proposed, outside of New York?
 
Ramako said:
Just looking at the database on SSP for office towers over 100 metres, we've got 4 under construction (Bremner Tower, RBC Waterfront Place, Queen Richmond Centre and inevitably Bay-Adelaide East) and 6 proposals at various stages (16 York, 100 Adelaide West, 90 Harbour, 388 King West, 43 Simcoe and 45 Bay).

Calgary has 1 under construction (Eight Avenue Place II) and 3 proposed (Herald Square, City Centre I and Century Gardens).

What are we missing in Calgary? What other North American cities have 10 office towers either under construction or proposed, outside of New York?
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I'd trade quantity of banality for quality.
 
CanadianNational said:
What a letdown. Just what this intersection didn't need.

There's no ornamental reason for the offset, no integral reason, no functional reason, no exciting reason, no innovative reason - no reason at all, actually. Just a lame, middling, useless gesture in place of any genuine innovation, creativity, or compositional sense. It makes me think of a 50's businessman putting his hip out trying to do this new thing called the 'twist'.
I like to look at aA through rose-coloured artistic glasses, but buildings like this confirm the other truth - that they can be a bunch of silver-heeled corporate sellouts just as gutless and boring as the rest of them.

aA does a lot of good work a lot of the time within their limits, but this building is just horrible, really, when you think of all the possibilities. Depressing, actually, given the surroundings. They could have done us all a favour, but I guess they thought maybe Karma would look less useless if they doubled it and turned it office space. If you're going to fail at a gesture, at least make it a good one. I don't think it's a stretch to say an opportunity has been lost here, and aA lost it. Southcore really, really badly needed something with art, brains and style, not another grey box. This ain't it. Congratulations.
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The wider issue here may be the way in which South-bore is emerging as an urban area, which is to say not very urban at all. Once again, there is a very business-park approach to development here which to be fair is as much a fault of the developers and city planners as it is the designers and architects.

In Toronto we are proving ourselves fairly useless when given 'carte-blanche' tracts of land to develop, and especially when dealing with lands in the central city. Many areas are falling prey to this, including City Place, South-Snore and stretches of the Waterfront. On a brighter note Toronto does seem to be doing a much better job at in-fill and developing smaller scale, less central areas. Perhaps the existing/adjacent urban fabric is the helpful guide that is missing in larger undeveloped areas?
 
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