Toronto TeaHouse 501 Yonge Condominiums | 170.98m | 52s | Lanterra | a—A

Or they could animate the street/ surrounding area by building units around the parking levels as per Market Wharf. I'll take that option 10x before anything shown above.
 
SP!RE said:
Or they could animate the street/ surrounding area by building units around the parking levels as per Market Wharf. I'll take that option 10x before anything shown above.
Click to expand...

I believe parking was hidden behind condos in the same way at Uptown.
 
SP!RE said:
Or they could animate the street/ surrounding area by building units around the parking levels as per Market Wharf. I'll take that option 10x before anything shown above.
Click to expand...


personally, i'd rather have units start at a higher level with a podium of parking than units that start lower that has parking within as above.
i'd have safety, CO emission leakage concerns, too much noise from Yonge street, etc.

from CN's images, the ones that seem acceptable don't appear as heavy with massing. either completely enclosed in glass which allow people to see/be seen from the street/inside, or have at least large open areas, say 70/30 glass/concrete, so it doesn't feel like a block of concrete was dropped from the sky.
 
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Frankly, I feel that to use that thing squatting atop Wellesley Station as a scare tactic is cheap. Because, that *is* an execrable example. The 2 Carlton example is better, even if half a century old.

And to be honest--face it: on a site like this, if you're going to redevelop at any significant scale, you'd most likely need an above-ground garage. Thanks to the subway swerve, it's a site of exceptional circumstances. Even if you don't have overground parking elsewhere, you're going to need it here. So, why not make aesthetic/urbanistic hay out of it, rather than whipping out the Wellesley Station squatter to scare people. And yes, I know there's a green argument against martyring design to excessive parking requirements; but let's not pretend that's going to be universally accepted dogma this instant.

Sure, let's allow for debate. But in the end, if it's a lemon, make lemonade.
 
Here 't goes again:

This is a bit better looking as a render. The base height here as double height retail (18'), and 5 floors of parking atop it (50'). The towers both top out at 600' from ground level, or roughly 58 floors. The towers are a bit slimmer and placed at right angles to each other.


From above:
youngun3.jpg



From above:
youngun4.jpg



Base massing, from slightly above:
youngeun7.jpg



Corner at Alexander and Yonge, looking north:
render1.jpg


Walking north on Yonge from Alexander under imagined overhang:
render3.jpg



Looking south from Breadalbane (aura not included in this one):
render2.jpg


But after working on the renders...I can say that if the base is really well done, at might at least lessen the impact of the towers. That's not much of an endorsement, though.
 
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Great work CanadianNational.

I think your rendering above shows that if the street level of this project is handled appropriately, it will make no difference whether the towers above are 90 metres or 195 metres. Let's hope that Lanterra has it in them to envision a podium as lively as you have. Maybe the public art contribution from this project will come via the exterior facade of the parking podium; perhaps something similar to the glass artwork at Murano, but more engaging. The City needs to hold Lanterra's feet to the fire on this one.
 
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Nice renders CN. 2 round towers with parking at the base sounds to me like Marina City in Chicago. Could we perhaps see a 2011 Toronto version of these iconic towers???
 
TonyV said:
...Why not round, a nod to Vaseline Tower further along Alexander Street? How about buildings that are even more slender? How about balconies with an external pattern that spirals its way up?
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Not to nitpick, but technically Vaseline tower is hexadecagonal, not round. Wait, that's totally a nitpick :).

In all seriousness, I'm totally digging the idea of twin round spiraling towers. In fact, I believe I shall be disappointed if anything else is proposed for this site now!
 
While better than the first, this base still doesn't adhere to the "20 foot Rule" that is needed psychologically to make street life interesting. It is a scientific fact that if the facades change and break up every 20 feet or so then pedestrians will slow and take notice, even stop and look in windows. When the facade is flat and relatively featureless, or the storefronts uniform except for signage, then pedestrians motor on by and the whole block becomes sterile.

If in the next render you tried to make the frontage of 501 more mimic the West side on Yonge. Modern but with varying storefronts, randomly, slightly recessed and protruding from the building-line, while also holding a three-floor visual line of the Victorians across the street AND then the parking slightly recessed and more uniform above it. I think it would be perfect.

(I am just trying to learn Google Sketch-Up, or I would have drawn an example myself.)

Oh, And I love the idea of round towers here.

render2.jpg
 
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