Lachlan Holmes
Active Member
Personally, I have quite an affinity for simple, elegant, and austere architecture - international style being an early example; neomodernism being a more recent example. Traditionally, I've found aA to execute on these designs very well, and frankly, they're probably my favourite Toronto firm.
These towers, however, are not strong.
I don't mind the wraparound balcony trend, myself. I especially don't dislike them when the alternative is more than likely just the window wall being made more prominently visible - and ultimately, wraparound balconies have the advantage of covering up spandrel, mullions, etc. in favour of a cleaner, but simpler exterior expression. (A good example is the tower on Stanley Condos, which would have been absolutely brutal with it's window wall had it not been for the strongly fritted wraparound balconies)
But if you're going to employ wraparound balconies, there has to be an investment in attention to detail and overall design cleanliness to end up with a quality end product. Unfortunately, while these are usually some of aA's strong points, I'm not seeing much evidence of them here.
For example, let's look at the heights of the floors on the towers. A quick eyeing of the renders show that there are about a dozen floors that don't conform to the standard floor height used here (which is 2.95 metres, in case you were wondering) and while I haven't had the time to look too closely through the plans, I feel pretty safe in making the educated guess that those floors are used for booster pumps or other mechanical uses necessitating the increased floor-to-floor height.
While I'm not an expert on these things in any way, I am under the understanding that there are ways to reduce the number of these floors and/or the visual impact of them. Take for instance the condominiums at Harbour Plaza, which are two very similar towers to the currently under-construction Sugar Wharf towers by the same architect and developer, which have no visible variations in floor-to-floor height (other than penthouses) except for one or two storeys with presumable mechanical uses at about 2/3rds of the way up, enabling a much cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing design.
Casa 2 does the same thing - a single visible floor for presumably mechanical uses about half way up the tower - and it results in a clean, aesthetically pleasing, and well geometrically proportioned tower. Compare that to these, which have a jumbled, inelegant, haphazard, and cheap look about them, in a large part because of the variation in floor-to-floor heights.
If whatever system or design used at Casa 2 and Harbour Plaza to enable the uniform floor heights had been employed here, for me at least, it would solve one of the weak points of the design.
Then there's the shift in balconies on the squared towers. I imagine the design rationale for that is to break up the height or create visual interest or something like that. I don't think it's working. It seems to me like another haphazard, jumbled element of the design, and I'm not convinced that it's a better design option than just keeping all of the balconies in line. If you paired that with fixing the varying floor heights, you may be moving towards an understated, but attractive tower. I'd much rather that, a simple and plain well-executed building, than a poorly-executed building with design for the sake of design that's doomed to fail.
Longer post than I was planning, but in summary - I don't like these, and not because they're simple or boring, but because they're simple done poorly and cheaply.
These towers, however, are not strong.
I don't mind the wraparound balcony trend, myself. I especially don't dislike them when the alternative is more than likely just the window wall being made more prominently visible - and ultimately, wraparound balconies have the advantage of covering up spandrel, mullions, etc. in favour of a cleaner, but simpler exterior expression. (A good example is the tower on Stanley Condos, which would have been absolutely brutal with it's window wall had it not been for the strongly fritted wraparound balconies)
But if you're going to employ wraparound balconies, there has to be an investment in attention to detail and overall design cleanliness to end up with a quality end product. Unfortunately, while these are usually some of aA's strong points, I'm not seeing much evidence of them here.
For example, let's look at the heights of the floors on the towers. A quick eyeing of the renders show that there are about a dozen floors that don't conform to the standard floor height used here (which is 2.95 metres, in case you were wondering) and while I haven't had the time to look too closely through the plans, I feel pretty safe in making the educated guess that those floors are used for booster pumps or other mechanical uses necessitating the increased floor-to-floor height.
While I'm not an expert on these things in any way, I am under the understanding that there are ways to reduce the number of these floors and/or the visual impact of them. Take for instance the condominiums at Harbour Plaza, which are two very similar towers to the currently under-construction Sugar Wharf towers by the same architect and developer, which have no visible variations in floor-to-floor height (other than penthouses) except for one or two storeys with presumable mechanical uses at about 2/3rds of the way up, enabling a much cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing design.
Casa 2 does the same thing - a single visible floor for presumably mechanical uses about half way up the tower - and it results in a clean, aesthetically pleasing, and well geometrically proportioned tower. Compare that to these, which have a jumbled, inelegant, haphazard, and cheap look about them, in a large part because of the variation in floor-to-floor heights.
If whatever system or design used at Casa 2 and Harbour Plaza to enable the uniform floor heights had been employed here, for me at least, it would solve one of the weak points of the design.
Then there's the shift in balconies on the squared towers. I imagine the design rationale for that is to break up the height or create visual interest or something like that. I don't think it's working. It seems to me like another haphazard, jumbled element of the design, and I'm not convinced that it's a better design option than just keeping all of the balconies in line. If you paired that with fixing the varying floor heights, you may be moving towards an understated, but attractive tower. I'd much rather that, a simple and plain well-executed building, than a poorly-executed building with design for the sake of design that's doomed to fail.
Longer post than I was planning, but in summary - I don't like these, and not because they're simple or boring, but because they're simple done poorly and cheaply.
