Moriyama & Teshima Architects imagine and re-imagine the Toronto Reference Library

This is an article I wrote for Canadian Architect magazine.

The Toronto Reference Library (TRL) is the flagship of the world’s busiest urban library system. Occupying over 416,000 square feet, it is a landmark situated adjacent to one of the city’s liveliest intersections—Yonge and Bloor—at the junction of two subway lines. The TRL opened its doors in 1977. Designed by architect Raymond Moriyama, the robust five-storey building was clad in red brick, its mass scaled back by terracing the façade along the diagonal. Bands of mirrored glass suggested an inner world within. The narrow corner entrance, flanked on two sides by a colonnade, drew patrons into the building’s soaring interior. With escalating demands on the library system, the TRL recently completed an extensive five-year phased revitalization led by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, though its cofounder Raymond has since retired.

The renewal of the TRL presented an opportunity to create a library of the future for Torontonians: a technologically advanced public space to meet a growing need for innovation, research and collaboration. Outreach strategies include an expanding range of programming. Here, you can take a workshop, get a flu shot, publish a book, or make a 3D-printed model.

“The key,” says Raymond’s son Ajon Moriyama, who was partner in charge of the revitalization (he has since left the firm), “was creating as much flexibility—physically, operationally and socially—in the space as possible.”

The building buzzes from top to bottom. It is centred on a vast tiered atrium inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The interiors are bright, airy and uncluttered. Over the last five years, a series of interventions were thoughtfully integrated: a refurbished gallery, a freestanding theatre, a cultural and literary salon seating 600, enhanced spaces for quiet individual study and group work. A double-height rotunda dedicated to special collections reinterprets the romantic feel of old libraries with a distinctly modern material palette of concrete, titanium and dark wood. Each venue provides opportunities for people to meet, interact and exchange ideas.

While the TRL’s role as a social gathering place grows, the written word still lies at its core, both in physical and digital form. Over four million items reside on site—novels, periodicals, films and maps. The building employs concealed mezzanines to maximize overall storage capability, amplified through the use of space-saving compact shelves. Open-plan layouts were rezoned for easier self-navigation; stacks were reconfigured to facilitate research. The library continues to explore and adopt emerging technological tools to better monitor collections and support learning and discovery.

Beyond the rows of books and computers are labs and maker spaces—means by which the TRL helps drive digital literacy through experiential learning. Access to laser cutters and audio mixers turns patrons from content consumers into creators.

The library’s re-envisioned design recalls Raymond Moriyama’s visionary initial design concept of a glass box, which the City dropped in favour of a brick-clad volume. The revitalization provides a more open and transparent interface with the street: a reading lounge invites glimpses in, a bustling café entices passersby. The formerly dark, deep entrance now takes the dynamic form of a rotated glass cube. At night, it appears as a glowing beacon. The building reclaims its corner site, its evolving mix of paper and pixels drawing from—and contributing to—the downtown milieu.

Stephanie Calvet is a Toronto-based architect and writer.

Vertigo – without ever leaving the ground

Photos by Tom Ryaboi.

Not many of us yearn to experience the literal ‘life on the edge’. Toronto-based photographer Tom Ryaboi does. He stealthily climbs to the uppermost reach of skyscrapers to capture some pretty incredible cityscapes. His (mostly clandestine) ‘rooftopping’ exploits have taken him across the globe. His images present an entirely new perspective on urban photography.

Shots from Toronto, Chicago, and Hong Kong – cities that know a thing or two about towers – are on display at the Canary District Presentation Gallery in Toronto. Paired with Tom's photography is another vertigo-inducing work named “Aletide”, as part of an exclusive art exhibit called Cities of the Future.

“Aletide”, an audiovisual interactive installation by Italian artists Fabio Giampietro, Ilaria Vergani Bassi, and Paolo Di Giacomo, comes to Toronto from Milan where it was first exhibited last year. The trio collaborated with composer Alessandro Branca to create a sensory artwork that recalls our first childhood experience on a park swing – but amped up. The swinging movement, surrounded by oscillating visuals and wind-like sounds, according to observers’ first comments, “feels like soaring over a concrete and glass canyon.”

[vimeo 83590704 w=500 h=281]

Aletide - Interactive installation from Paolo Di Giacomo on Vimeo.

The photographs are on view from October 18th-30^th at the Canary District Presentation Gallery at 398 Front Street East in Toronto. For more information see www.CanaryDistrict.com.

Recalling Lake Ontario’s lost edge with steel and grass

A version of this post appeared in the October 10^th edition of The Fort York Foundation's website. For more information, see www.fortyorkfoundation.ca/. The much-anticipated Fort York Visitor Centre is now open – to positive reviews.

The long, linear building recreates the lakefront bluff that defined the Fort’s 19^th century geography and has taken root below the hulk of the elevated Gardiner Expressway. Its main exterior façade is composed of a sequence of monolithic weathered steel panels and a ”liquid landscape” of meadow plants, aligned with the contours of the original shoreline. The Visitor Centre inhabits the space behind this industrial escarpment, partially buried under the Commons. It is an ingenious approach to working with the landscape as a form of historical narrative.

The building is a joint project by Vancouver's Patkau Architects and Toronto-based Kearns Mancini Architects – the result of an international competition held in 2009.

There is a remarkable similarity between the winning competition drawings and the final building. This is rare. Although the project underwent a comprehensive value engineering process, the original concept was not diminished nor was a more conventional approach to design taken.

The most significant change was in the superstructure –the "Ghost Screen"– a self-supporting layer that proved to be expensive and difficult to turn into an implementable piece of construction. Without compromising the essential imagery, the screen is (re)presented instead as a semi-translucent cast glass channel wall, which defines the building's uppermost volume along its length. “We decided to get more pragmatic about it”, says Patricia Patkau. “I think in some ways the project may have benefitted from that.”

A very rich landscape idea was presented as part of the winning submission, reflecting the historic harbour and telling the story of the site. Budget constraints, however, made certain key features undeliverable. These enrichments can be added as more funding becomes available.

To complete the weathered steel façade, an additional 37 inclined panels need to be installed. This extension of the wall from the east end of the Visitor Centre would demonstrate how the natural escarpment contributed to the Fort’s defences. As part of the liquid landscape, expanses of softly moving grasses will continue all the way along this steel edge, creating the illusion of the lake that, until the 1850s, came right up to the Fort itself. A series of illuminated raft-like objects and boardwalk circulation routes will help recall the former presence of the lake.

The full master plan also calls for a large terrace –"Events Dock"– reaching out into the liquid landscape. This will be the site for a slew of activities and here, at its highest elevation 20m up, the massive concrete and steel overpass will act as a huge covered canopy. (Just this past weekend, it was the site for a video installation during Nuit Blanche.) Imagine art installations hanging from its underbelly, and space for theatre, for concerts, and for kids to play. This is where the Fort York National Historic Site welcomes the modern city with diverse large-scale public events.

“There is a long list of enhancements that are not essential to the scheme but will make it richer. We hope that, over time, they can be phased in,” says John Patkau. After all, these details are the elements that we interact with most closely – they are the parts we see and touch.

The building is the result of a collaborative partnership between two innovative firms. It is not always obvious how two design firms can act as a team. In this relationship, there was no ‘master sketcher’, no single person taking the lead. The idea of the architect as solitary genius is outdated. Instead, it was a discussion, a conversation at all stages. “It's two complimentary, compatible design firms that are able to work together”, says Jonathan Kearns. “It’s almost like having a built-in peer review. We have a shared understanding and common goals." Toronto-based landscape architecture firm Janet Rosenberg & Studio was also an important part of the discussion.

The Fort York Visitor Centre will help Torontonians engage in the history of this site and the city. The designers, City of Toronto Culture, and community partners are committed to seeing some of the important missing elements that were described in the competition come to fruition. It’s just a question of when. The Fort York Foundation will continue to campaign and will need your support to realize this vision.

Stephanie Calvet is a Toronto-based architect and writer specializing in architecture and design. For over a decade she worked in architecture and planning firms in Boston, designing projects in the hospitality, multi-unit residential, education and healthcare sectors. In addition to consulting, she writes for the popular press, trade publications, corporate organizations, and academic journals.

An Urban Forest: June Callwood Park Opens in Toronto

A version of this post appeared in the October 6^th edition of UrbanToronto.

There’s a new kid on the block. And it’s kid-friendly too. On Saturday October 4^th, Fort York neighbourhood residents and those from beyond gathered to welcome a much-anticipated public space at its heart: a new urban park with a richly varied forest and striking pink covering. June Callwood Park injects colour and a dose of street life into the urban landscape.

The festivities celebrated the opening of the park and the legacy of June Callwood, one of Canada’s leading social activists who passed away in 2007. Coinciding with the kick-off of the all-night art crawl Nuit Blanche, City of Toronto officials in partnership with the Garden Club of Toronto welcomed the gatherers. Following a short speech by Callwood’s daughter, author Jill Frayne, and an appropriately floral ribbon-cutting ceremony, local art group Shadowlands Theatre engaged the crowd in a performative experience, leading visitors through an interactive tour of the park’s features.

The park is located amidst a quadrant of tall condo buildings on a wedge-shaped corridor spanning from Fort York Boulevard to Fleet Street. It is a key element in reconnecting the Fort to the Lake Ontario shoreline, which has incrementally moved south with infilling over the decades. The area has seen rapidly increasing residential density —including a growing number of kids— and, most recently, has garnered additional attention with the unveiling of the Fort York Visitor Centre.

Dedicated in 2005, the new 0.4-hectare park honours Callwood’s role in the development of social aid organizations and her fervent championing of children’s causes, through its design and art installation. The design, by Toronto-based multidisciplinary firm gh3, was the result of an open, two-stage international competition, which included extensive public consultation led by the City’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation division.

It was a visual representation of the words of Callwood that formed the basis of the winning design. During one of her final interviews she was asked if she believed in God or in the afterlife. Her response, “I believe in kindness,” is a physically mapped voiceprint whose undulations create a path running north to south through the park, with an abstract geometric pattern of clearings within the groves. It is a contemporary urban vision of a park and garden.

The $2.6-million park includes an ephemeral reflecting pool, granite paving and benches, pole lighting, classic wooden park benches painted pink, and bright pink rubberized benches and surfacing. The forest is planted with over 300 trees, including plantings of native Canadian tree species, a sampling of the specimens that would have dotted the shoreline at the time the area was settled.

The park is loosely divided into six clearings, each with its own unique spatial character: the Puddle Plaza is made up of depressions that collect rainwater to create splash pads; the Ephemeral Pools act as a splash pool in the summer and a mist garden in the fall; a hedge Maze; the Pink Field boasts a wide rubberized play surface; the Puzzle Garden features a series of maze-link benches; and, the Time Strip Gardens borrow from a variety of native landscape and European settlement themes. A lone apple tree —the Callwood Tree— stands at the point where all of the park's paths converge. The park is a series of gestures that reads at the neighbourhood scale, and at the human scale.

Callwood had envisioned this park for toddlers and their caregivers. The new park’s spaces are open to a broader array of experiences and ageless activities that could range from tai chi by the mist garden, hide-and-seek in the maze, and lunch among the poplars. There is no grass. The cushioned rubberized surfacing in bright pink makes for an especially inviting playground for kids.

As a complement its sound-inspired layout, the park integrates a permanent sound installation – Toronto’s very first – by Douglas Moffat and Steve Bates of Montreal who work together as soundFIELD. The artists derived the concept for the innovative sound work, entitled OKTA, from Callwood's own experiences of gliding through the clouds: "Flying is like entering another dimension where your body becomes flexible and gravity lets go. I once flew through a cloud - I thought it would be warm and fluffy, but it was ice cold. In the sky there are always discoveries," said Callwood.

A sensor aimed at the sky reads current cloud cover. The shifting shape and movement of clouds overhead triggers the sounds released across a field of 24 sculpted sound-columns, creating an ever-changing experience for the listener.

Good planning ensures good interaction between public space and the diverse nature of public life. The site, which until recently sat empty, was revitalized using open space as a physical framework and shifts from being a transit street to a destination. By inviting social, recreational and meditative activities, Fort York’s new neighbourhood park creates space to foster positive relationships and healthy lifestyles while also providing long-term environmental benefits.

Snippets from the evening can be seen below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoZRppxxIxQ

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and a writer specializing in architecture and design. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Nuit Blanche: Toronto’s all-night exploration and celebration of art

It is art, collaboration, dialogue, and discovery. For one night only this Saturday October 4^th from sunset to sunrise, Toronto will once again become the hive of activity that is Nuit Blanche. City spaces and neighbourhoods will be transformed by temporary exhibitions, installations, design, film, performance, and live talks.

Nuit Blanche was conceived in Paris in 2002 in an attempt to make contemporary art more accessible and engage the audience to examine its impact on public space. Toronto was the first North American city to fully replicate the Paris model. The international success of the festival has expanded its reach to sleepless cities around the globe – from Riga to Melbourne, Kyoto to La Paz.

Now in its ninth edition, Toronto’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche showcases more than 120 projects created by over 400 local, national and international artists. Below is a small sampling of what you can discover…

Piece by Piece

Clare Twomey

Internationally renowned for her interactive interventions in prestigious British and American museums, Clare Twomey creates a spectacular commissioned performative installation about making and collecting, to honour the Gardiner Museum’s 30^th anniversary. Piece by Piece features an army of over 2,000 ceramic figurines – inspired by the Gardiner’s rare Commedia dell’Arte Harlequin collection – that demonstrate the conflicting emotions of everyday life. During the exhibition, her Canadian premiere, an on-site artist/maker will create more statuettes to add to the ever-growing ghostly white world.

The Garden of Renova

Luigi Ferrara and The Institute without Boundaries

Renova’s coloured and scented toilet paper line is the raw material in a temple-like environment reminiscent of a garden of earthly delights. Using the bathroom tissue over substructures, the installation features a labyrinth, hedges, poppies, garden ornaments, and a 3D-printed fountain. Creator Luigi Ferrara, Dean of the Centre for Arts and Design at George Brown College, and his team at IwB invite the public to interact with the paradise surroundings.

LandMark

Multiple Artists

Curated by Exhibit Change, LandMark is an interactive photographic installation focused on the dynamic nature of community engagement and city building. Large-scale photo essays showcased throughout St. James Park share stories of some of the city’s unsung heroes and reveal the many layers of Old Town Toronto’s history. The initiative seeks to strengthen community partnerships in the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood.

Walk among Worlds

Máximo González

In this immersive installation Argentine artist Máximo González explores the effects of light and lightness, while reflecting on the political divisions of the world. The piece is composed of 7,000 beach balls printed to resemble globes; each representing one million of the inhabitants of the planet. The globes, made of a petroleum derivative, require the introduction of human breath to give them their geoidal shape. They come in three different sizes, alluding to the concepts of “first” and “third world.”

Good News

Antoni Muntadas

Barcelona-based Antoni Muntadas is considered one of the pioneers of media art and conceptual art in Spain. This installation examines the duality of media as a source of information and an instrument of manipulation. The piece displays a wide range of headlines in order to incite the viewer into rethinking the meaning of the messages, creating a defiance in the uniformly constructed "media flow". A stream of information engineered by advertisers is to be consumed as a whole.

Melting Point

LeuWebb Projects

In the sound and light installation Melting Point, Fort York's two south-facing cannons are stocked with "an artillery of glowing good feelings", pouring forth "sparkling tributaries of light". The work reflects on the drivers, both cultural and natural, that have shaped the historic site – a preserved battlefield surrounded on all sides by condominium towers, raised freeways and train lines. Accompanied by the immersive sounds of rolling waves and trilling harps, LeuWebb's project lays a defense against the swirling market forces beyond, countering hard with soft and dark with light.

Solar Dehydrator

José Andrés Mora

Toronto Hydro searched for artists to submit proposals for a contest to repurpose an old fridge, in support of their Fridge & Freezer Pickup program. Mora’s winning design, inspired by the appliance’s already existing insulation and components, transforms the refrigerator into a solar dehydrator.

Project REACH

Student artists from the Toronto Catholic District School Board

Project Reach is a collaborative installation authored by students from 201 TCDSB schools across the GTA celebrating the value of charity and how it transforms lives. Visitors are greeted with hundreds of human hands – symbol of our ability to reach out and change the world. They beckon us to come closer to discover what these students want to communicate through personal messages, imagery, and found objects.

Implied Geometries

Valerie Arthur

In Implied Geometries, Valerie Arthur seeks to uncover the otherwise invisible characteristics of a place. By simultaneously recreating all of the flight paths in a series of tennis games it will reveal the space within the court as much more than an empty void. The court will become a web of movement and speed, exposing the underlying forces that truly define it and inviting the audience to experience moving through the courts in a new way.

Wisdom of the North: Moose Cree and Attawapiskat

Johan Hallberg-Campbell

This exhibition presents a photo essay documenting the time artist Johan Hallberg-Campbell spent alongside the Canadian Red Cross, photographing volunteers working in the communities of Moose Cree and Attawapiskat. These images include engaging large portraits, vast landscapes and touching personal moments captured by one of Canada's leading photographers.

Global Rainbow

Yvette Mattern

The high specification laser light projection Global Rainbow will blaze through Toronto’s night sky. From Chinatown to the CN Tower, it will cast beams of colours up to 60 kilometres. Created by New York- and Berlin-based artist Yvette Mattern, it has been displayed in cities around the world since 2009. It literally "paints the sky" with seven simple but distinctly powerful lines of colour representing the rainbow spectrum to create an artwork that is performative, sculptural, painterly, and minimalist in form. As a powerful and luminescent symbol of peace and hope, it embraces geographical and social diversity.

June Callwood Park

gh3

Amongst Nuit Blanche’s one-night-only discoveries is the opening of a new permanent space in the city, the June Callwood Park. The gH3-designed park slots trees in amongst pavers, garden strips, and high-tech cushioned pink surfaces all laid out in the waveform of journalist and activist June Callwood speaking the words "I believe in kindness." Montreal artists Steve Bates and Douglas Moffat created the accompanying sonic public art installation, OKTA, transmitted by speakers arrayed throughout the grove.

This year, organizers have expanded the event into new neighbourhoods, including Chinatown, Fort York and Roundhouse Park. The festivities kick off at 6:53pm. For the full schedule of events, see www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca

Toronto's Fort York Visitor Centre Opens

A version of this post appeared in the September 19^th edition of UrbanToronto. 

The Official Opening of Toronto's Fort York Visitor Centre was held today. By most definitions, the city’s newest attraction, which is embedded into the ground, makes a bold statement whilst being minimally intrusive. The project is the result of a collaborative partnership between two design firms, Patkau Architects, an innovative studio based in Vancouver, and local associate architects Kearns Mancini.

"Right from the beginning, my feeling was that it could not be a little building sitting here because it would just look trivial beneath the Gardiner,” says architect Patricia Patkau. “Somehow it had to take on a different persona, like a landscape. It needed to be something of great scale, but without the height.”

Built in 1793, Fort York, now a National Historic Site, is known as the location where the Battle of York came to its violent climax in 1813 during the War of 1812. Today it is home to one of the oldest collection of fortifications in Canada, enclosing the country’s largest collection of 1812-era military structures within its defensive walls. Where the Fort is powerful in its history, it is not in its physical presence. Characterized by low-lying buildings, on a site landlocked between roadways and rail corridors, it has been almost invisible to passersby. Many Torontonians are not even familiar with its existence.

The Visitor Centre now changes this balance. Located on Fort York Boulevard, almost immediately below and just north of the elevated Gardiner Expressway, it acts as both a gateway and an interpretative hub for the entire 43-acre Fort York National Historic Site, considered the birthplace of Toronto. The new building is itself a key component in the ongoing restoration and revitalization of the city’s founding site, which includes not only the seven acres within the Fort's walls but also the archaeological landscape, Garrison Common, Victoria Memorial Square, the Fort York Armoury and Garrison Creek parkland to the east. For the architects, the building was not simply seen as a Visitor Centre but an opportunity to provide a sense of connection both historically and physically with other parts of the site.

The 27,000 square-foot Visitor Centre provides Fort York’s first secure exhibit space and enables the display of artifacts from the City’s collection that tells its 200-year story. Its green roof is an extension of the Common. Ground-embedding the building made it sustainable from an energy perspective and easier to develop as a Class A museum-quality interior: well insulated and unaffected by daylight. Toronto exhibit designer Reich + Petch also had a hand in shaping the environment, which includes a 2900 sq. ft. exhibit gallery; a climate-controlled vault designed to display iconic and light-sensitive artifacts; and, an Orientation Theatre. In addition to permanent and changing exhibits, it also provides facilities for education, research, staff and community use.

The Visitor Centre snakes along the base of the monolithic structure that looms above. It aligns with the original shoreline of Lake Ontario, now set back some 500m, altered by two centuries of infill. Lined by a series of inclined Corten steel panels, its main façade recalls the original lake bluff, which contributed to the Fort’s natural defences. The modularity of those weathering steel panels, in considerable 8’x24’ proportions, is broken by sections of glass at building entry points. An array of glazed slits between the panels, along the length of the building, allow thin segments of natural light to permeate the main reception area and sunken exhibition gallery.

The building’s workings are best illustrated in section. “This is sort of an ‘upside down’ landscape, in terms of its archaeology, where the visitor enters on a lower contemporary landscape and rises up into an archaeological landscape. It is an interesting inversion of how it usually happens. The history, then, is the upper landscape and the modern world is the lower landscape,” explains architect Johnathan Kearns.

The procession through the building tells the story. The immersive "time tunnel", a digital media space along a gentle inclined plane that zigzags back, takes the visitor through a virtual re-enactment leading up to the Battle of York. When emerging out of the end of it, the visitor is directly facing the Fort itself, with the backdrop of modern-day Toronto. Visitors can then go forth and explore the Fort, armed with a deeper understanding of its background and an appreciation of its importance as a national historic site.

Hosted by The City of Toronto, The Fort York Foundation and The Friends of Fort York, the Opening Ceremonies began with fife and drum music by the Fort York Guard Drum Corps under the Gardiner Expressway. The musical prelude was followed by a welcoming and remarks by dignitaries, and then the ribbon cutting. On Saturday and Sunday, from 12 to 7pm, at the On Common Ground Festival, the public is invited to experience a free weekend of performances and exhibitions with culturally diverse music, dance, theatre, craft-making, kidzone, community village and local food. For a full schedule of events, please see link.

The Centre is open but not quite finished; visitors will find that several exhibits have yet to be installed, and most of the landscaping remains to be started, let alone completed. A number of enhancements will be added as more funding becomes available. In particular, the full master plan calls for the placement of an additional 37 steel panels to recreate the escarpment, and expanses of softly moving grasses recalling the waters of the lake. And the project team envisions the extension of a large terrace under the Gardiner that, here, at its highest elevation, will act as a covered canopy for a great diversity of public events. Still, there is much to see now, and celebrations continue.

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and a writer specializing in architecture and design. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Athletes at Home in Toronto's 2015 Pan Am Games Aquatics Centre

A version of this post appeared in the September 10^th edition of UrbanToronto.  The Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC) located at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus began operating this week. Under the official name “CIBC Pan Am/Parapan Aquatics Centre and Field House,” the venue is the largest sport new-build for the 2015 Pan American/Parapan American Games set to take place in July.

Co-owned by the university and the City of Toronto, the $205-million centre is the sole aquatics facility in the region that meets the latest international competition standards and represents the largest single investment in Canadian amateur sport history. It will play host to the Games’ swimming, diving, fencing, modern pentathlon, sitting volleyball and roller sports events.

The Organizing Committee (TO2015) and its partners set out to create an inspirational beacon for health and sport. Designed by NORR Architects of Toronto, the LEED Gold building provides “world-class” training facilities and a venue to host national and international competitions. It is also home to Canadian Sport Institute Ontario, which provides science and sport performance services to high performance athletes and their coaches.

But once the Games have concluded, the facility will become joint campus-community recreation space for university students and Scarborough residents to use and enjoy, while giving youth a place where they can train, play, gather and compete. “From our perspective as a university, we believe we can do a lot with community engagement. Many areas around here were former priority neighbourhoods with no facilities. The hope is that this centre attracts people, that they feel connected to a university and that it creates opportunities for them to set goals they might not otherwise have had,” says Andrew Arifuzzaman, UofT Scarborough Chief Administrative Officer.

The Aquatics Centre includes two internationally sanctioned 50-metre, ten-lane swimming pools; a warm-up pool; a 5-metre deep diving tank with 3-, 5-, 7.5- and 10-metre platforms; and dryland training facilities with dive pits and trampolines. It doubles the number of Olympic-sized pools in the Greater Toronto Area, which until recently stood at two. (By contrast, Sydney, Australia, a smaller city than Toronto, has 42). Adjusting the mobile bulkheads increases the versatility of the practice and competition pools, allowing them to be divided and programmed in multiple ways. In both, the acoustical hanging baffles on the ceiling were arranged such that the gaps between the panels align directly above the swim lines below, a small detail that provides a valuable reference point to help backstroke swimmers keep on course. The training pool, shown below, includes a 25 m2 movable floor area to provide a variety of shallow-water fitness activities and facilitate access for individuals with disabilities.

The Field House features flexible gymnasium space for training and competition, an indoor track, and a fitness area complete with the latest in cardio and weightlifting equipment. Among the building’s more high-tech features are a (section of) runner’s track with pressure sensors and motion-capture technology and state-of-the-art performance diagnostic tools. Add on the sport medicine mini clinic with its heat chambers and medical therapy rooms and you’ve got the best athletically endowed campus in Ontario.

Creating a sense of animation throughout the building was a key design driver. By using a high level of transparency in the interiors, the two primary corridors have been programmed as strong public spaces. Lined with glass, they overlook the centres of activity. The indoor climbing wall located just off the main lobby entrance contributes to the feeling of liveliness. There was a concerted effort to get young kids to see and potentially be inspired by elite athletes.

The combination of building form and its glazed components combine to bring a sense of dynamism to the street, with exercise rooms radiating their creative energy, a combination of play and light. However the large facility has not overwhelmed the low-rise neighbourhood. The redevelopment strategy of the site required a complete remediation because it had been a brownfield. Excavating it gave the design team the opportunity to sink the building inside the hole, with benefits on two fronts: keeping the scale of the building within that of the existing context and bringing lots of indirect natural light into the spaces, eliminating glare on fields of play.

The TPASC is 100% accessible, exceeding Ontario codes and meeting London, UK’s stricter Standards for Accessible Design in every program area throughout the building. Since its inception, the University has been committed to becoming one of the most accessible universities in the world. This would be one element within the University’ mission, “to strive to create a respectful and inclusive environment that promotes opportunity and overall well-being through physical activity.” They have demonstrated this through the use of accessible washrooms and change rooms, fitness equipment that can be operated by someone in a wheelchair, the use of vertical actuation bars (in lieu of push plates), modesty panels, and washing stations to accommodate those with religious practices.

In addition to the investment in new facilities that are being constructed, there will be millions of dollars spent on the renovation and alteration of existing facilities for the upcoming Games. These buildings will serve as a lasting legacy as much-needed sport infrastructure for Canadian athletes to train and compete at home.

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and a writer specializing in architecture and design. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Creative Thinking Adapts a King West Commercial Building

A version of this post appeared in the August 12^th edition of UrbanToronto.  Another adaptive reuse project has won out in Downtown Toronto. The modest building at 545 King Street West is being rehabilitated by Hullmark and will see new restaurants and offices occupy its five floors. It is a refreshing change from the tactics of some developers who, keen to maximize real estate values, can succumb to demolishing the historic fabric of the neighbourhood rather than considering the role adaptive reuse can play in the city.

The street has radically transformed in the past decade. Its potential was unleashed back in the mid-90s when changes to zoning allowed King-Spadina (one of the “Two Kings” reinvestment areas), once-restricted to industrial, to open up to new uses. Since then, King Street W has been flooded with award-winning restaurants, corporate headquarters, nightclubs and condo buildings. The spin-off effect since the planning policy was introduced has seen this creatively oriented and vibrant part of the city emerge as a highly desirable urban lifestyle community.

Originally built in 1921, with a rear addition completed in 1981, 545 King Street W is characterized by brick and heavy timber beam construction, once commonly found in the former Garment District. No drastic changes were made to the exterior in the Quadrangle Architects-led renovation. It is constituted of an updated façade treatment with new windows and sills, cleaned and repaired brickwork and the addition of graphics and material accents. Because of the building’s narrow proportions and the existence of windows on its side elevations, the designers were inspired to build on the idea of natural ventilation. Casements replace existing glazing, with coloured fritted glass emphasizing their operable function and animating the façades. “Our intention was a subtle augmentation of the building while maintaining the existing character to add a new layer of contemporary expression,” says Richard Witt, a principal at Quadrangle.

The interiors, however, are getting a major facelift. The building was stripped back to its exterior walls and bare floors and ceilings, which presented the architects with the opportunity to completely reinvent its spaces. Popular restaurants Pizzeria Libretto and Porchetta & Co. will open up secondary locations on the lower level, and a software company is to set up shop on the 5th. BrightLane, a co-working space for entrepreneurs and start-ups, will continue to occupy the remaining levels and its members have access to the 3rd floor roof terrace. The top floor has a 2-storey volume office space capped with a skylight.

A particularly interesting angle to the project is the revitalization of the dreary 153’ long by 12’ wide laneway immediately adjacent. It previously served a warehouse loading dock at the rear that the architects have transformed into the main commercial entrance and new ‘front door’. (The building’s existing ‘front door’ on King Street W becomes a convenience entrance for the upper levels.) The flanking laneway, once dedicated to deliveries, is converted to a pedestrian area with a restaurant patio and spill-out space from the new lobby.

BrightLane, the building’s primary tenant, hosted an ideas competition seeking inspiration from the public for ways to make the narrow, marginal space more appealing. “We’re looking for something interesting and sustainable that can be easily implemented,” said its General Manager, Susy Renzi. The call for submissions was made via video headlined 'Can you make this sad space AWESOME?' It drew over 180 entries from local and international creatives, whose ideas ran the gamut from forest oasis, outdoor market, and playgrounds for adults (with and without a giant waterslide).

The winning scheme proposes to brighten the space by suspending fragments of primary-coloured acrylic in wavy shapes above it. As the sun travels over the lane, coloured moving shadows are cast onto surrounding surfaces; the experience being equally evocative at nighttime, when illuminated by floodlights. The canopy of colour represents the energy and interdisciplinary environment that BrightLane fosters. The simple but dynamic concepts applied to the façades and laneway provide better visual connection into the building and extend the street life.

The difficulties associated with adaptive reuse can be a deterrent to many developers. Unforeseen discoveries on site – from mould to hidden fuel tanks – can have negative impacts on cost and schedule and the added complexities often require creative solutions. Despite the challenges, the benefits are multi-fold. Rehabilitated and repurposed buildings not only help meet city-mandated density requirements, but they contribute to the fabric of city life and the continuity of collective memory.

With a long-time specialty in retrofit and adaptive reuse, Quadrangle brings agility and nimbleness when working with existing conditions. A synergy clearly exists between the developer and the architects – this is, after all, the third collaboration of similar objective between them. “Hullmark understands that buildings like this have value and that value is worth working hard to unlock”, says Witt. Under the direction of Jeff Hull, Hullmark’s vision as city builders, previously known for their large residential developments, has taken a more urban focus and set its sights on high quality inner-city tenants. By renovating and turning a former warehouse into a vibrant employment and amenity hub, the building both reflects its history and becomes relevant to the future of King W.

Other than the alleyway installation, the 545 King Street West project is scheduled for completion this summer.

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and a writer specializing in architecture and design. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Developer Ken Tanenbaum Talks about Toronto's Pan Am Athlete's Village

A takeaway from past Olympic Games’ host cities that spent big in a short burst of activity for the temporary event is a prescient reminder of the potential that well integrated planning for long-term transit and urban regeneration can bring. Toronto now has that same rare opportunity: the city is hosting the 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Olympics next summer. While it is relying on mainly existing infrastructure throughout southern Ontario for the sporting venues, an entirely new development is being built just east of downtown to house the 10,000 athletes and officials. I recently met with Kenneth Tanenbaum, Vice Chairman of the Kilmer Group to discuss the Athletes’ Village. Revitalization plans will transform the former industrial site into a mixed-use community with affordable housing, condominiums, a YMCA and a dormitory for George Brown College students, branded post-Games as ‘Canary District’.

A version of this post appeared in the June 30^th edition of UrbanToronto.    

Tell us how it is that Toronto is about to get a new Athletes' Village and then a new neighbourhood in this former industrial area at the mouth of the Don River.

The genesis of the West Don Lands Pan Am Athletes Village and Canary District really begins with the government of David Peterson in the mid-1980s, which expropriated this land in the Downtown East with a view to allowing the city to grow in this direction. The market and environmental conditions of the site were such that the land sat derelict more or less for 25 years until a moment in time when forces converged with the Pan Am Games being announced, and Waterfront Toronto’s planning mandate was able to finally execute the vision that Peterson’s government had.

How did Dundee and Kilmer collaborate towards this proposal?

Kilmer has been in the heavy civil construction and materials business for three generations. I represent the third generation. I grew up in asphalt paving and aggregates and shifted towards engaging in public/private partnerships. Our firm, Kilmer Van Nostrand, has developed an expertise and set of core competencies in this area. We are not traditional real estate developers. Dundee, on the other hand, brings very deep experience in traditional real estate development. It was a very complimentary set of skills that brought us together and it was through that partnership that we’ve been recruited as the project delivery team.

We are very lucky because all the stakeholders are aligned to a single mission: deliver on time, on budget design excellence.

Big games bids run over budget in general. The demonstrations in Brazil are a current example. Given the background of cost overruns, what are your thoughts on best practices in cost management?

Infrastructure Ontario set up a procurement process that allocated risk properly between the public sector and the private sector. We worked with EllisDon and Ledcor to achieve a GMP or ‘guaranteed max price’ and there is significant skin in the game for those contractors if they are not delivering. DundeeKilmer’s objective is to make sure the team is marching together. Lots of tried-and-true building technologies were used here. We weren’t pioneers in anything.

What lessons have you taken from the 2012 London Olympics or 2010 Vancouver Olympics or other regeneration projects around the world?

Lessons were learned by spending time in Vancouver and interviewing people engaged in project delivery. Infrastructure Ontario, the procurement agency for the province, internalized those lessons and delivered a procurement model that I think set us up for success and which I believe represents a great export opportunity for other cities building Athletes’ Villages. It was an enormous undertaking to design, procure and finance a billion dollars’ worth of work in 90 days, which was the task we were given to do. We brought together a great team of designers, engineers, and contractors to do that.

Hundreds of lessons were learned from jurisdictions that didn’t have the right balance between private risk and public risk. What risks rightfully belong with the private sector? What risks should government continue to take? To Infrastructure Ontario’s credit, they came up with the right balance. I think Waterfront Toronto, insofar as planning was concerned, gave us a canvas on which to paint our architects’ view of the village. That was another important foundational piece for success – the precinct planning by Waterfront Toronto.

One of the areas where Vancouver where got off the rails is they were innovating in green building design. That’s all well and good and there are lots of green elements in our design as well but, when you have to spend $1M a day, everyday, you can’t be innovating or learning on a job site like this. You have to incorporate LEED best practices that are off-the-shelf. The right allocation of risk and the right team gets us to the right results.

The Pan Am Games is the largest event that this city has hosted and will host for a long time. It is a great opportunity for us to celebrate the great things about Toronto – a multicultural, pluralistic society, and a beacon on the planet. We have to tell a great story for Toronto. The Athletes’ Village is just one small element. It is part of the success story but it is not the story. The story is that we have 10,000 athletes and officials coming with their families from 41 countries who may at some point look at Toronto as a place to live, or invest but in the meantime they will be here spending dollars and going to restaurants.

Are you involved in creating any sports facilities?

No. Dundee Kilmer has only one mandate: to deliver the Athletes’ Village, on time and on budget.

Pan Am does not only exist in the Canary District. There are many other areas. How do they connect up? Is there a master plan?

We are building something called the Transportation Centre south of Mill Street, on provincially owned land. It will be effectively part of the secured perimetre where buses will come in and out to move athletes from the Village to their games venues. The strategy of TO2015 was to have the Games be hosted by Southern Ontario so the venues are dispersed in Welland, Milton, Durham Region, Scarborough, and York University. That also enhances their legacy. All the sporting venues that are being used will have a post-Games life. Again, it is a lesson learned from other Olympic or multi-sport games where you have elements that become white elephants. You won’t have that here.

You’ve established some of the criteria for success. How will you know you’ve been successful?

I’ll know if the athletes aren’t sleeping in my basement! In all seriousness, success is an on-time, on-budget delivery of an Athletes’ Village in accordance with the IOC/Pan Am Games specifications. But, to me, the most important measure of success is in realizing a once in a lifetime opportunity to be a part of shaping Toronto’s next great neighbourhood.

What is there that exists already that drives momentum for that? Is it managing the overspill pressure from Downtown Toronto?

I think Toronto’s future really pivots on its ability to continue to attract 100,000+ migrants a year. How do we do that in an environment that is governed by provincial policy, Smart Growth, and Places to Grow (focused on intensifying the urban core), and do it in a way that does not lead to more traffic congestion and less liveable neighbourhoods? I think that Canary District really fits the bill in terms of Smart Growth: it integrates walkability, liveability, and transit. I think of the acronym HOME – housing, opportunity (jobs), medical care and education. A number of those elements are being built, or being planned. The YMCA will be an incredible amenity for this neighbourhood in addition to the public realm that really serves as outdoor therapy, which is vital for a healthy city.

You have chosen Canary District as the post-Games residential brand for the area.

The name ‘Canary’ comes from a restaurant at the gateway to this site. The heritage building (which we are restoring) had a bit of a chequered past. It was a school, then a brothel, and then a greasy spoon called Canary Restaurant that was famous for filmmakers and truckers who would stop in this area.

How will the buildings be repurposed after the Games, as condos and apartments?

Immediately after the Parapan Am Games end in August 2015, the Village is turned back to us and we have the task of taking out temporary dividing walls, painting, putting in the hardwood floors and the kitchens – essentially making the units new again.

The biggest challenge from a post-games constructability standpoint is you don’t have the man and material hoists on the outside of the building so you have to preload and use the elevators as much as possible and optimize material in and waste out. There is a lot of planning going into it; in fact, logistics is the most complicated part.

This area is considered the largest urban village in the city’s history. How will it be different than another major urban revitalization in Toronto, that of Liberty Village?

This was a very long time in the making. It reflects the thoughtful nature of Waterfront Toronto in terms of community and urban planning, and brings in Jane Jacobs’ principles of liveability and density. You won’t have canyons of glass towers here. It will be a much more liveable environment with the ‘eyes on the street’ concept.

So, in terms of differentiators, first it is the historical/planning context. The genesis is different in Downtown East than Liberty Village in that it involves much more master planning and more heritage elements, being adjacent to the Distillery District, and incorporating the brick buildings at the Cherry Street gateway to this site.

Further, I think the province made a very significant investment in the pubic realm, with the 18-acre Corktown Common park, the linear park (along the Front Street spine through the village), and Underpass Park. A brand new tunnel called the Bala Underpass will allow residents to enter Corktown Common without crossing a road and end up on the Don River Trail system and be able to bike to Edwards Gardens, to Sunnybrook. It is not an 18-acre park you’re adjacent to, but more like an 1800-acre park—through what is Toronto’s greatest natural asset, the ravines—and what many Torontonians don’t really get to appreciate because it’s very difficult to access.

The third differentiator from Liberty Village is the proximity to Downtown. We don’t think about Spadina being equidistant from Yonge as Cherry Street is. Torontonians’ view of Downtown is tilted to the west, and what we see is the Village/Canary District beginning to tilt back to a bit more equilibrium. What we are seeing in real time is just a beautiful evolution happening along those Front Street and King Street corridors.

The fourth and final differentiator is the design aesthetic. In addition to public realm piece, what we DundeeKilmer aspire to is the absolute highest level of design excellence. So we brought a team onboard headed by architects Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB and Peter Clewes of architectsAlliance and they in turn recruited a team to create what they called ‘cohesive diversity.’

One element that really excites me is the porous nature of the neighbourhood. The designers were very deliberate in terms of opening the development blocks up to people migrating through them. So, there are laneways that pass through the blocks which is a really nice way to animate the space rather than forcing people to do right angles and walk around buildings, as you have in conventional block development.

Does Canary District become an appendage to Downtown or does it co-habit with Downtown with its own identity?

There are no physical barriers to here (e.g. river, expressway) from Downtown. It should become a natural extension of Downtown with a narrative that is very connected to the Don River and Martin Goodman trails. People talk about what makes for a great neighbourhood and I think it’s about diversity of interests, cultures, and economics. And it’s what makes a city great, it’s natural diversity, it’s the ability to transform, invent, and change. The unique challenge here was to deliver an entire neighbourhood and have it feel like a neighbourhood. A lot of thought went into the design, the programming, the unit mix in buildings (1, 2, and 3 bedroom suites), the type of retail and how it’s programmed to have a health and wellness theme that’s complimentary to the Distillery's retail programming.

The masterplan of the community was generated by architects, planners, and Waterfront Toronto. How was LiveWorkLearnPlay engaged here? They have created many villages and recreational places for Intrawest, with precedents like Blue Mountain and Whistler. But that is not the same as a year-round real liveable place?

I think of it as Waterfront Toronto providing the frame and the canvas on which to paint. They defined certain elements for our architectural team to conform to.

LiveWorkLearnPlay is our retail consultant, retail programmers so-to-speak. It’s not in their mandate to shape the urban fabric. They have the task of running a process to populate the retail opportunities within the Canary District under a general theme of health and wellness. Their mandate doesn’t extend beyond essentially animating the storefronts.

What we’ve relied on LiveWorkLearnPlay for is their expertise in creating the balance of a Village and the task of figuring out the right mix between restaurants, retail, and services.

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and a writer specializing in architecture and design. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Turning a forgotten penthouse into office space

A version of this post appeared in the June edition of  Canadian Facilities Management & Design. 

When rental company Park Property Management (PPM) required an additional office, it searched its apartment inventory. It unearthed 2,000 square feet perched atop a north Toronto building, 15 storeys up. Long forgotten, the penthouse had been relegated to a storage depot, stashed with cleaning supplies, gym equipment and the superintendent’s found treasures. PPM called on Quadrangle Architects’ Interiors Group to see if there was any hope for its rehabilitation and conversion to a workplace.

When the designers walked into the space, they immediately saw potential. With its concrete folded plate roof, open span, and enveloping daylight, it was evident that it had good bones. Unfortunately, it served as little more than a glorified broom closet. “This is wonderful!” stated principal and interiors group lead, Caroline Robbie. “How could (one) have been sitting on this for so long and not done anything with it?”

Having outgrown its current digs, PPM needed to manage some 12 buildings from this location. The program was simple: two private offices, workstations for a small number of staff, file storage, a meeting area, a kitchen, and a space to greet visitors. PPM also wanted the flexibility to grow.

Completed in November 2013, the project didn’t involve a great deal of building; the space was mostly in desperate need of a clearing out and freshening up. Original inherited features including the terrazzo floor and radiators were retained, and the exposed concrete folded plate ceiling was stripped of random adhesive tiles and clad in drywall. Small storerooms were demolished and an updated HVAC system was installed. The biggest ticket item was the perimeter’s total window replacement, which in turn had a positive effect on light quality and energy efficiency.

The design direction for the interiors was borne of the building’s early 60s vintage and the space’s strong architectural language: align the interior design with the architecture by emphasizing its mid-century modern heritage. Walnut veneer is used in the millwork, extending to the furniture and accessory pieces, while accent details are co-ordinated in black or satin bronze finish, right down to the tiny tapered cabinet pulls.

The new Mad Men-inspired office blends commercial and residential; PPM, after all, is in the business of where people live. Just as building superintendents and managers come to the office to discuss operations, tenants come to sign leases or negotiate sublets. “We wanted to give it a warm, residential feel, but without seeming false, folksy or artificial,” Robbie said.

Visitors step off the elevator into an intimate vestibule, only seven feet in height. A wiry carpet recalls an entrance mat and the painted black walls are adorned with an overlay of repeating company logos in gold leaf, simulating custom wallpaper. Period-correct wall sconces complement the residential aesthetic.

From there, the low ceiling gives way to reveal a light-filled and lofty open plan space peaking at 12 feet. Simple white lighting fixtures hang overhead. Underfoot, carpet tiles are grouped to resemble area rugs, picking up green, grey and brown tones of the terrazzo flooring.

The waiting area, more akin to a living room, is distinguished by a carefully curated collection of signature Eames pieces: lounge chair, coffee table and compact sofa. This classic design furniture by Herman Miller is mixed with a row of crisp white contemporary workstation systems tucked under the profiled ceiling, channeling a retro feel. “It resonates with a certain generation of people but it still looks modern. To me, modernism still looks fresh — it doesn’t look dated,” Robbie said.

Two private corner offices follow. The remaining open area has a meeting space with bright orange Eames shell chairs and banks of files. The area can easily be added to or reconfigured. A kitchen and powder room complete PPM’s new office.

File storage was a priority. Going paperless is a growing trend, with many workplaces now managing information electronically. But the rental industry, with its paper-based origins, is in a transitional phase. Leases are still penned and copies must remain on site as long as leases are active, amounting to loads of paper records. With that in mind, designers stacked some filing cabinets three high and turned them into work surfaces. They also arranged some filing cabinets singly, so the cabinets can double as upholstered benches. Kept low, they don’t create a wall, visually or practically. “We tried to do it in a way that the stuff didn’t get in the way of the people,” Robbie said.

And where they could refurbish, they did, often with a sense of whimsy. A 60s Sputnik chandelier was re-appropriated from another property, and a glitzy pinball machine reinvented by one of the company’s owners was placed upright as artwork.

The renewed interior not only makes more efficient use of the real estate, but it offers a highly functional and comfortable workplace where one had not been envisioned.

“A building’s lifespan has to grow and change over time,” Robbie said. “As a designer, you’re seeing its attributes and its potential where someone else might not.”

Stephanie Calvet is a Toronto-based registered architect and a writer specializing in architecture and design. She has 11 years’ experience working in architecture and planning firms in Boston, designing projects in the hospitality, multi-unit residential, education and healthcare sectors.

Live-Work Units

(this is an article I wrote for UrbanToronto) From a historical perspective, there is nothing groundbreaking about the live-work model. People have been living and working under one roof for centuries; think shopkeepers with their dwellings upstairs. Artists have built on that paradigm, transforming warehouses to accommodate the amenities of a home as well as open studio space to create and store finished artwork securely.

While commercial loft space – retrofitted with the necessary utilities – has always been a hot commodity amongst the creative community, the advent of live-work space has made the concept of living close to one’s work even more appealing, and – as developers realize – marketable.

This trend seems to fit well with our changing economy. With the recession many have shifted to self-employment, but more than that, the norms have changed. The stable, sequential career paths of a few decades ago are far less common, and a growing number of people work from home, facilitated by technology and online connectivity. Although many live-work spaces are marketed specifically towards retaining local, professional artists, the set-up gives greater opportunity to entrepreneurial residents. It describes a new take on an old idea.

There are a number of facilities designed and built especially with a live-work purpose in Toronto’s building stock. One of the newest is DUKE, a mid-rise residential development by Quadrangle Architects for TAS in the retro Junction neighbourhood. The seven-storey structure will add 109 condos to the area, including five live-work units aimed at creative entrepreneurs.

While the building will turn its most animated face to Dundas Street West, featuring a mix of high-ceilinged retail shops at grade, located along the quiet laneway to the rear of the building, with south facing frontage, will be the 2-storey live-work units.

These suites are well suited to artists, designers, small business and anyone who needs a distinctive work address, with living quarters above.

With direct access from the street, their lower level is designed such that the front can serve as a showroom or work area with a back section that has storage and a washroom.

It is a reinvention of creative urban living where owners can conduct business during the day and return to their private quarters off-hours. The units are decently sized, averaging 1150sf with one model at 1548sf.  Each has a small patio at the front to provide a bit of privacy from the sidewalk.

Also on offer are 2-storey townhomes nestled among the houses along Indian Grove – a more conventional living space for urban families.

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and a writer specializing in architecture and design. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Film Enthusiasts Flock to Toronto's Hot Docs 2014 Festival

Hot Docs 2014 has arrived in Toronto, a city that hosts over 70 film festivals annually. It features 197 different selections from 43 countries covering a wide range of topics—essentially the best documentary films from across the globe made in the last year. I've narrowed down a small sampling: some are urban stories; others look at poverty, popular culture or women's issues; while others highlight Russian, Asian and Southern European cultures. For a detailed screening schedule see hotdocs.ca.

Sacro GRA  (Tales from Rome's Ring Road)

Sacro GRA

Running along the perimeter of Rome, the Grande Raccordo Anulare (translated literally as the Great Ring Junction) is a motorway of remarkable scale and prominence connecting all corners of the city. Taking inspiration from Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities—a pensive exploration of the concepts of city, memory and imagination—seasoned filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi crafts a winding tale of distinct narratives bridged by a colossal, sweeping stretch of pavement. From the paramedic worker tending to collision victims along the GRA to the botanist studying audio recordings of the interior of palm trees in order to detect and poison the destructive pests dwelling within, Rosi follows these offbeat stories and elusive characters with an astute, observational gaze. This winner of the Venice Golden Lion is an enchanting portrait of life along a vast, arterial stretch of urban highway and the everyday moments that take place on the edges of The Eternal City.  Lisa Plekhanova       Watch Official Trailer

SLUMS: Cities of tomorrow

 Slums: Cities of Tomorrow

One billion people on our planet—one in six—live in shantytowns, slums or squats. Slums: Cities of Tomorrow challenges conventional thinking to propose that slums are in fact the solution, not the problem, to urban overcrowding caused by the massive migration of people to cities. The film explores communities in India, Morocco, Turkey, France, New Jersey and Quebec, offering an intimate look at the inhabitants and families who, through resilience and ingenuity, have built homes that suit their needs for shelter. Experts like Robert Neuwirth (Shadow Cities), Jeremy Seabrook (Pauperland) and architect Nicolas Reeves explode the notion that a slum must be a breeding ground for criminal activity. The reality is quite different: slums are as diverse as the cities they surround, often offering a more accurate representation of what community ought to mean—an experience where sharing is essential and social hope can flourish. Lynne Fernie     Watch Official Trailer

Tomorrow We Disappear

Tomorrow We Disappear

Described as India’s “tinsel slum,” the Kathputli artist colony in New Delhi is home to over 1,500 families of puppeteers, acrobats, painters and magicians. That’s all about to change. When the government sells the land to private developers, traditional life is set to be razed for the city’s first skyscraper. Where outsiders see the slum’s rancid water and shacks, debut filmmakers Adam Weber and Jimmy Goldblum find stunning colours in death-defying performances. Whether bathed in sunlight or exploding against night skies, magnificent fire-eaters, sleight of hand magicians and glorious puppets radiate beauty in crisp, brilliant detail. But will the artists’ resolve to preserve their culture overcome the push for progress? As in-fighting breaks out among colony leaders, spilling out into confrontations with developers and government, the clock ticks onwards to the bulldozing date. Gorgeous and inspiring, Tomorrow We Disappear is a splendid tribute to fading artistry and the tenacity of tradition. Myrocia Watamaniuk        Watch Official Trailer 

The Creator of the Jungle

 The Creator of the Jungle

Just outside a Catalonian village, a recluse has been building elaborate tree houses and more in a bid to life as he chooses, as Tarzan. Forced by local officials to tear down his architectural creations in the name of modernization, The Creator of the Jungle rebuilds as soon as he can. Years later an American curator discovers Garrell, our self-styled Tarzan, and his creations, and records them. Now, with the curator's footage and Garrell's homemade Tarzan films, director Jordi Morató explores the mind and creations of a man uniquely driven to build and inhabit a world of his own making. Craig White       Watch Official Trailer

Pipeline

Pipeline

Cross seven borders and even more social classes as cameras follow the route of a Russian natural gas pipeline from Siberia to sunny Europe. Eccentric people, quirky locales and ever-Westernizing political climates astound in this award-winning visual road trip.  Savvy and beautiful, Pipeline visually traces the disparity between people who live above untold wealth and those who actually enjoy it.      Watch Official Trailer

Penthouse North

Penthouse North

Agneta Eckemyr, an aging Swedish actress turned fashion designer, lives in a roof terrace penthouse with a stunning view of New York's Central Park, $2500 rent to pay monthly, but no income anymore. Penthouse North tells the story of former tour-de-force now at a breaking point, trying to keep her piece of the city even as the cards are now stacked against her. Craig White

Advanced style

Advanced Style

A hat-obsessed, bike-riding, part-time vintage store employee who trades shifts for clothing items. A mild-mannered lounge singer with the longest, most carefully groomed eyelashes you’ve ever seen. The advice-spouting owner of the popular boutique Off Broadway. These are the subjects of director Lina Plioplyte’s inspiring documentary Advanced Style. Pulled from the strongest entries on renowned fashion photographer Ari Seth Cohen’s popular blog, Advanced Style tells the fabulous true tales of seven of New York’s most stylish elderly women. Ranging in age from 62 to 95, these women flaunt their eclectic styles and embrace their individuality through their clothes and personal stories. Filled with colourful vitality, each vignette bursts with life, humour and, of course, style. Like the mantra for its characters, Plioplyte’s affirming doc reminds us that age is just a number and beauty is forever. Michael Lerman     Watch Official Trailer

Everything will be

Everything Will Be

Vancouver has one of the most famous and bustling Chinatowns in North America, but the patrons that the Chinese grocery merchants depend upon are moving out to the suburbs as condos begin to replace the older homes in the area. Will Chinatown survive? In Everything Will Be by Eve & the Fire Horse director Julia Kwan, a new neon art installation in the neighbourhood assures EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT, but it is cold comfort for many in a gentrifying city. Craig White  

The songs of rice

The Songs of Rice

Winner of the Fipresci Award at the Rotterdam film festival, The Songs of Rice is a kaleidoscopic homage to the staple food, rice. Through the window of rice cultivation in rural Thailand, we see how harvest celebrations, bullfights, music and firework displays intertwine with the land and its traditions.       Watch Official Trailer

The Beijing Ants

The Beijing Ants

Move over Tokyo, London and New York! Beijing, where rents have reached over $11,000 CAD per square metre, is soon to be the most expensive city in the world. With prices out of reach, house-hunter and filmmaker Ryuji Otsuka decides to target the suburb of Tongzhou instead. The Beijing Ants provides a snapshot of a couple’s maddening experience with a society in transition, revealing as much about changing attitudes as it does about the rising cost of living. Shot using hidden and handheld cameras, the apartment search is given a citizen activist aesthetic. Conflict lurks in the family’s dealings with movers, police, landlords and local business owners. Racial slurs, threats and contract negotiations not normally caught on camera are aired for public consumption in this cautionary tale about capitalism and customer service in modern China. Behold the rise of a new consumer, one who agitates as well as she negotiates. Angie Driscoll     Watch Official Trailer

New Ryerson gallery has simple, dynamic design

A version of this post appeared in the April edition of  Canadian Facilities Management & Design. 

The new Paul H. Cocker Architecture Gallery Ryerson University in Toronto is a simple but dynamic design intervention.

Completed in October 2013 at a cost of $465,000, the renovated space within the Department of Architectural Science building adds a contemporary sensibility to the robust concrete interior of a dated facility. It not only enhances its functionality, but also gives it a more powerful presence.

Facing the building’s main entry, the gallery opens up the public space in a dramatic fashion. Its gleaming white envelope pushes into famed Canadian architect Ron Thom’s brutalist atrium, sharply contrasting its heavy concrete structure. Red felt wraps the entrance’s exaggerated frame to create a “ceremonial threshold”, while oversized glass pivot doors have the potential for various configurations. Unbounded by the space, white floor tiles visually extend the gallery limits and spill out into the atrium, their surface flush with the quarry tiles.

Ryerson’s Department of Architectural Science had previously lacked a secure, formal gallery. The school put out the call for proposals for the design of a flexible, multipurpose space within its existing facilities. Gow Hastings Architects (GHA) was awarded the project, allowing the local firm to build on its previously completed works at the school, including office renovations, grad labs and a bold red branding exercise.

GHA was drawn by the challenge to find potential within the existing structure, says principal Valerie Gow, who likens renovations to “opening a can of worms.”

As with most projects, this one wasn’t without its unique challenges. The gallery project inadvertently coincided with a total building HVAC upgrade. Fortunately, it happened early enough in the design stage that the designers could make the necessary mechanical changes and co-ordinate all services to fit above the established datum line without compromising the ceiling plane.

Before the building’s transformation, visitors faced a blank wall clad in particleboard, which concealed storage. By reconfiguring the first floor interior layout and relocating the storage area, a small team of architects led by Gow carved out a rounded 3,120 square feet of bright white gallery space, distinct in character from the rest of the facility.

The perimeter wall is faceted to maximize the mountable flat display area. While this wall steals space from the graduate studio directly behind it, its gentle curve softens the intrusion. It is also covered with red felt, optimizing pin-up wall space for drawings and sketches.

Large but thin porcelain tiles, in accentuated lengths, radiate across the floor. A sticky film with a graphic in a non-slip texture can be applied to the tiles. In this way, the floor becomes another canvas for display, an application the architects had not anticipated.

To the immediate right of the gallery entry is a white feature wall listing university donor and sponsor dedications, fitted with a small bench. Its opposite side serves as a backdrop for students to showcase their digital fabrications.

Aside from marking the threshold, the felt wall covering has many practical uses, particularly where hard surfaces abound. It is tactile and tack-able, provides sound absorptive qualities and visually warms the space with colour.

The glazed wall between the first-floor studio and the atrium was set back in order to gain additional floor area, and pin-up space was achieved with a two-sided magnetic white board floating in the centre of the wall. It provides general privacy to the typically messy studio space beyond, while offering visitors glimpses into it.

With space to host critiques and travelling exhibits, and as a venue for the student body and faculty to display their work and research, the new gallery has become an extension of the three-storey lobby atrium, which is the primary gathering space for department-wide events and activities. Adjustable track lighting and a hanging metal framing system enable the gallery space to be completely reinterpreted with each new show.

The gallery’s modest insertion is designed to reflect the institution’s collegial and collaborative spirit. In fact, GHA even engaged students in the project, assigning them the feature wall’s ever-changing exhibition and incorporating student-made display cubes into the gallery’s initial opening.

“I just love the energy of students,” Gow says. “Working together with them is lively and makes the design richer. It reminds me of being back in the school environment myself.”

Faculty members from other departments have expressed interest in using the space — an opportunity for the cross-pollination of ideas. While the gallery remains a successful interior intervention, there are discussions in the works of how its presence might be articulated on the building exterior.

Stephanie Calvet is a Toronto-based registered architect and a writer specializing in architecture and design. She has 11 years of experience working in architecture and planning firms in Boston, designing projects in the hospitality, multi-unit residential, education and healthcare sectors.

Totem Condos Stacks Up Well Against Average High-Rises

(this is an article I wrote for UrbanToronto) The poignant nature of the high-rise is to identify itself in the urban skyline. Toronto has developed a tall condominium vernacular of floor-to-ceiling glazing but if you ask many a Torontonian, the city is saturated with much of the same: the generic glass tower that does little to make a positive long-term contribution to the public realm.

Totem Condos is a new residential building downtown by Worsley Urban Partners in conjunction with local architectural practice RAW Design. The 18-storey structure will house 120 units as well as a three-level below-grade parking garage with slots for cars and bicycles. The building has a very compact footprint and uses its space to the maximum, with very little left to waste.

RAW continues the evolution of the local condominium architecture with a proposal that sets itself apart from the rest. The building was conceived as a series of glass and dark steel framed boxes, carefully stacked. The eye is drawn skyward as the building’s geometry gently shifts left and right. Small blue ‘fins’ on the south elevation provide some additional visual interest, reflecting light in unique ways, and, when viewed from the interior, creating angled sightlines. In contrast to the sleek surfaces, stone cladding at the base provides texture where the building meets grade.

Lower Manhattan’s award-winning New Museum, a showcase for contemporary art and an icon of urban modernism, inspired the design. Taking cues from the block forms in its surroundings, the Museum stacks seven anodized aluminum mesh-clad rectangular boxes one on top of the other. The shifting of the boxes as they ascend yields a variety of open, fluid, and light-filled internal spaces and gives the building its dramatic shape.

The design firm responsible for the branding and marketing of Totem is The Walsh Group – and it’s not your typical ad agency. Under the creative direction of Shakeel Walji, the firm had a strong hand in influencing the built form. “We consult, direct the architect or interior designers working in conjunction with the developer to see what kind of look we want to create. It’s more of a collaborative effort between all parties involved and we like it that way because we feel the product is better, and we feel confident in moving forward in selling.” This sharing of creative control is not always welcome and can rub some team members the wrong way.

But Walji is quick to praise the building’s bold design, saying, “This is a better reading of a point tower in the city compared to most.” He refers to what he finds are all too similar forms in the skyline as a direct result of the need to comply with either mid-rise or high-rise guidelines, which he claims, limit innovation. His criticism is cutting. “The architects spend a lot of time developing the podium on which the building sits, take a coffee break as the building rises, and then there’s a cap at the top. Totem doesn’t have that reading at all.”

Totem is located in ‘the village’ on Dundonald, a leafy street lined with 2- and 3-storey Victorian homes that retains much of its early 20th century appearance as a residential subdivision northeast of Yonge and Wellesley. The site is currently home to the Commercial Travellers’ Association of Canada Building. The 2½-storey structure, built in 1956, was included on the city’s inventory of heritage properties in 2010, acknowledging the cultural heritage value of its Modern design, popular in post-war Toronto. Highly representative of the style, it features a grid of solids and voids with turquoise-hued glazed brick, travertine, aluminum and concreted cladding; façades are organized into bays where concrete piers divide tiers of strip windows with travertine spandrels and panels.

It is separated from the street by a small landscaped courtyard. The original structure will become the base of Totem, adding context, history and texture to the building’s design. Although the prevailing character of Dundonald is composed of low-rise buildings that make up the balance of the streetscape, the scale jumps up: immediately to Totem’s west is the 24-storey brick-clad Continental Tower apartment building from the early ‘70s. Behind it is 22 Condominiums, a glazed 23-storey residential tower at 22 Wellesley St. East by Peter Clewes of architectsAlliance.

Although City Council has since overturned the office building’s heritage designation, large elements of its modernist façades will be retained and will inform the overall design of the development. Integrated into Totem’s base, the original building will be dismantled and re-built, while above, offset floor plates will cantilever at various levels.

“The City, the TTC (which owns adjacent land), the planners and councillor were very interested to see how we could make this building happen, how we could have a piece of architecture that we could all be proud of,” says Walji. “Our city needs more of this. We should keep elevating the things we offer.”

“When we have architects that develop buildings that are of some stature, that adds to the visual language of our cityscape. It will be more inviting, more tantalizing. NYC is a great example—every corner is like a little gem—it’s memorable.”

Building form aside, the amenities are pretty swish and, “above and beyond your basics,” notes Walji. The second level will house a gym, a private dining room, and a lounge/bar that opens onto a small exterior space for dining and BBQ.

A roof deck tops the tower and its programming provides the access to outdoors where the building’s mainly small recessed balconies fall short. Residents can enjoy a dining area and lounge with a fire pit and panoramic city views.

The building has a Walk Score of 100 and a large appeal of the location is the access to the Wellesley TTC station. Its street entrance is set in one of the four bays on the north façade, where the building's main entry was previously situated, under a protective angled canopy. Totem residents can walk through a secured passageway from the main floor lobby directly into the subway station. “This was the biggest selling feature used to entice brokers to investors and buyers”, says Walji “and it’s the first building in Toronto to have it.”

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and architectural writer based in Toronto. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Mario Ribeiro of Triumph talks Howard Park Residences

(this is an interview I did and article I wrote for UrbanToronto) UrbanToronto’s Stephanie Calvet sat down with C.E.O. Mario Ribeiro of Triumph Developments to talk about Howard Park Residences, an urban infill project at the intersection of Dundas and Howard Park in Toronto's Roncesvalles neighbourhood. The first phase, an 8-storey building (far right)   is under construction. Now the company is bringing its Phase Two western counterpart to the market. They will be joined by a multi-storey linking element, with the common entry and courtyard located between the two.

The site, with its odd triangular geometry, was previously home to a service station, aging garages and warehouses (see above). Removing these former industrial activities is an opportunity to tie eclectic Dundas and Roncesvalles Avenues, and to rethink the site as an active part of the public flow with a typology that combines high build density with a commercial program.

RAW Design, a local architecture firm with a portfolio of innovative mid-rise infill projects, crafted the buildings to the site and low-rise residential surroundings, breaking down the scale through massing and detailing. Vegetation that grows on each of its stepped metal terraces at the top floors imparts a softness to the elevation, inextricably part of the ‘look’ of the building that Triumph is committed to providing.

The project required an amendment to the existing zoning by-law to convert it from industrial to residential and mixed use. How has the project been received by the community?

It was well received. We've had no community pushback and lots of support from planners and the councillor. The community asked if commercial space was possible and we integrated that idea into the design.

What sorts of establishments would you like to see occupying the first floor retail/commercial spaces?

We are not looking for large franchises. This is a trendy neighbourhood. We are subdividing the space and hoping to get a variety of small shops, a daycare, maybe a bookstore…

There is more than the typical mix of unit types here. Who is your intended end-user? Is there anything larger than a 2-bedroom plus den?

We have a vast array of styles catered to a lot of different tastes: units tailored to the young professional, units with patios, units for families, including 3- and 4-bedrooms... Our biggest unit is 1400sf. We also have five 2-storey townhomes.

What building amenity program did your team develop that, from your standpoint, is in line with what residents want and need, practically speaking?

Because of the nature of the neighbourhood, there are lots of local amenities within walking distance. To keep construction costs and condo fees down, we provide typical meeting rooms, lounge, a media room, and gym but no pool.

The base building is charcoal-coloured brick and glass and then at the 6th floor, there is a shift both in plan and in exterior cladding. What material is used for the remaining storeys?

It is metal cladding and it goes with the window system. It is also perforated to allow plants to grab onto it.

Incorporating vegetation on the façade will give the building a very interesting presence on the street and from afar. This amount of 'building green' is unprecedented in Toronto...

The cascading vines, green roofs and planters will be maintained by the Condo Board as part of the 'common area’, and not up to each individual owner to maintain. That will keep it looking uniform. There is no stormwater tank but water will be dealt with on site through a combination of stormwater management solutions.

The site has access to transit (streetcar, subway, one of the stops of the new Union Pearson Express), lots of grade-level bike storage and a great Walk Score. What is the buildings’ parking ratio? Any provision for electrical vehicles?

The parking ratio is around 65-70% suites to parking stalls. At the moment, we’re seeing only 1 out of every 2 units asking for parking and the explanation is that the building is so well serviced by transit. On the other hand, bicycle spots are aplenty and they are in big demand. As for electrical vehicles, that is not final yet. In Phase 2, we provide storage lockers on the upper levels – so that residents have a locker almost across the hall. It became possible because we had to be creative in utilizing the oddly shaped resultant spaces in the core so we located storage lockers and services there.

It is great that parking and service access will be situated along the shared laneway off Howard Park Ave, making the lengthy (650') Howard streetfront more pedestrian-friendly and accessible for building, townhome and retail entries. Was it a challenge to locate it behind the building?

It might have been easier to situate it between the two buildings but it would have destroyed the look of the complex, and we didn’t want to interrupt the sidewalk. This way it’s off the laneway into Phase 1 and the parking garage under both buildings is all connected.

The building integrates many green initiatives: infill site, brownfield, green roofs, geothermal, stormwater, bike storage, etc. Are you going to take it through the LEED certification process?

Not LEED, although the plaque would look great on the wall! I’ve gone through the process as a trade on other projects and it is painstaking and very difficult administrating all the paperwork. We will comply with Toronto Green Standard Tier 2.

Incorporating geothermal systems (for heating and cooling) in condo building is not common practice in Toronto but the City gives government rebates and interest-free loans to help residential developers ‘go green’. Would you have incorporated it anyways because of the policy of your company or were government financial incentives necessary to make it reach the ROI you were expecting?

We didn’t get any government incentives. We started the process 3 years ago. Geothermal made economic sense in the long term because, if well implemented, it will save on the operation of the building.

Triumph has a keen focus on advancing and promoting sustainability, much like developers like TAS, Minto, and Tridel claim. Any market difference between them and yourselves?

Our scale of projects is smaller. The green initiatives on our buildings are maybe not as cost effective at this scale as Minto would do it. But we’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do – that’s the initial motivation – not for marketability reasons.

You have a European background. What aspects of European planning and design would you like to see inform building in Toronto?

Families living in mid-rise buildings is very common in Europe and we don’t see it as much here but I think there is a demand and a trend moving in that direction. I’d like to see buildings inserted into established neighbourhoods so families have access to amenities for their day-to-day, where they can can live and work close by, and people may even be able to go home for lunch. Large courtyard features, shared backyards, schools within walking distance, and several generations living in the same building – these are intimate living examples that I was familiar with. There is a sense of family and unity. We had these ideas in mind for our first project, Roncesvalles Lofts, and they continue to be valid for Howard Park. It is not a 25-storey structure; this is a place that makes sense to have an 8-storey building. It is a ‘community’ where you get to know your neighbours. The project will house 96 units – not a huge amount of people – and it is not intended to be transient with mainly short term rentals. Hopefully people move here and stay for a lifetime.

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and architectural writer based in Toronto. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Toronto's Harmony Village Sheppard Offers Boomers Healthy Active Living

(this is an article I wrote for UrbanToronto) For some time now real estate and aging-related research experts have been predicting the massive sell-off of big homes by baby boomers seeking smaller quarters. With the kids out of the nest and retirement approaching, people are looking to simplify their lives and trim expenses, housing being the major one. This expected downsizing trend has yet to be reflected in national housing data, and many doubt it will become a large enough exodus to affect home prices. Boomers have solid reasons for moving from their existing home, however.

CEO of City Core Developments, Jack Pong, is confident of this demographic shift and his company’s new market research supports his theory. Their online survey polled 508 randomly selected Ontario homeowners 50 years of age and older who are considering purchasing or renting real estate, and it showed that 59 per cent are looking to downsize within 5 years. Top reasons cited were: reducing maintenance work, lowering the cost of living, moving to a smaller home, and increasing their ability to travel more. Many plan to tap home equity to help finance their retirement.

“This approaching wave of downsizing will further boost the condo market, especially for facilities that are offering the upscale comforts and lifestyle communities that Boomers will be demanding,” explains Pong. “This current survey confirms that this demographic places the highest importance on maintaining an independent lifestyle in an urban setting.”

Pong is the developer behind Harmony Village Sheppard, a residential complex planned for today’s baby boom and senior generations in Toronto’s Scarborough district. Now set for public launch, the Page+Steele/IBI Architects’-designed development will consist of two 33-storey towers joined by a shared four-storey podium structure at Sheppard and Warden Avenues. The feel is more traditional than "urban village vibe", and it is meant to promote an integrated community that offers comfort and convenience.

The vision for the project as set forth by its developer was to reach the next generation of seniors by moving beyond what is currently available in the market, and exploring new opportunities to provide a life enriching environment. Harmony Village Sheppard offers a new approach to condo living and is designed to help residents sustain a healthy and physically and socially active lifestyle without having to leave home. The “age-in-place” concept provides a full range of amenities and services people need as they move toward retirement, including on-site home healthcare and full meal plans. Universal design concepts are also built into suites; think lowered light switches, raised electrical outlets, and easy-access shower entrances.

The 35,000 sq. ft. indoor amenity space comprises: a state-of-the-art aquatic centre; multiple dining venues including a fine dining restaurant and cappuccino bar; entertainment room; library; and, full service beauty salon. On-site year-round leisure and event programming will offer a plethora of activities from art classes and cooking demonstrations to gardening and swimming. And, just as thoughtfully considered as the interior are the exterior spaces, coordinated by NAK Design Group, such as a lushly landscaped forecourt, Zen garden and community terrace where residents can enjoy rooftop planting beds.

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and architectural writer based in Toronto. She can be found at www.stephaniecalvet.com

Sustainable Design a Key Component of DUKE Condos

(this is an interview I gave and article I wrote for UrbanToronto) Stephanie Calvet sat down with Michelle Xuereb, architect and sustainability strategist at Quadrangle Architects, to discuss the green aspects of DUKE Condo’s design. The mid-rise building, which takes its name from an amalgam of Dundas and Keele streets in The Junction, is under development by TAS.

TAS has been trumpeting the lengths they are going to, to create a sustainable condominium building in Toronto's Junction neighbourhood since launching DUKE Condos last year. It is encouraging to see a developer raise the bar beyond what the building requirements call for.

For TAS, it is about building community, about being a good neighbour, and understanding there is a social, economic, cultural and ecological side to everything. TAS is motivated to build their business philosophy, outlined in their ‘Four Pillars of Sustainability’, into all of their projects.

Was the decision at DUKE to ‘go green’ to the degree that it is in anticipation of new energy efficiency regulations in the building code?

For this site, they have to comply with City of Toronto Tier 1 and the Green Roof Bylaw. Anything above that is their own initiative.

High window-to-wall ratios are a current condominium design practice in Toronto, a feature that seems market-driven, not rooted in energy performance. How do we reconcile that with the fact that significant energy savings are available in building envelopes with less glazing?

I think it is actually more developer driven, and also driven by economics. Putting up a window wall system is straightforward and quick – it makes everything happen faster. Sales took off on this building and it is not floor-to-ceiling glass. I believe you have to put something out there so people realize they want it. DUKE has a specific character and people are attracted to that – and the scale is right, the materiality feels good, and it is just standard materials: windows, brick, and some metal siding. It is quite simple but it is a different approach than just cladding in glass.

Which aspect of the building’s design do you think has the biggest impact in terms of sustainability? Through which methods did you assess net energy savings?

The envelope is key. It’s about getting window-to-wall ratio down— 40-50% is where you want to be—using the best glazing possible, and reducing thermal bridging as much as possible. The window will always be the weakest link in the building so the more you can shrink that aperture, the less heat you’re losing. At DUKE we’re using aluminum frames and the glazing is argon filled with a low-e coating. At Quadrangle, we design what we think is the right thing to do and we have to be asked to do less. We feel we have to lead that way. The bonus from the recent Toronto Green Standard changes is that it makes it a level playing field for all developers – everyone has to do this. We do energy modelling early in the process.

There’s great citywide interest in local and organic food. DUKE’s south side terraces are being lined with built-in planters that can be used for home gardening. Are you ‘leading the way’ by incorporating this feature into the design or is it in response to social shifts and increased demand for urban agriculture in residential developments?

There are various non-profit organizations out there advocating food policy in buildings, trying to push legislation, trying to speak to developers about how to make food happen. We too are working with these companies to help promote and push these initiatives – for one, we put food production ideas in our renderings. There’s no reason your front garden can’t have edible food. And TAS has been doing it from their side as well. We are all hoping that it really takes off. And the planters came out of another reason as well: affording neighbours to the south some privacy by having the depth of this green buffer, rather than just a railing. When there are multiple reasons why an element makes sense, it’s likely to stay ingrained in the building, and not get value engineered out.

Standard suites include engineered hardwood flooring, water-conserving fixtures, energy efficient appliances, programmable thermostats, and Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERV) to reduce energy demands and enhance air quality. Have these innovations come down in price so that the developer can provide them as part of the standard offerings?

There are a lot of things that have become more standard, like low-VOC flooring or paint, and it has become a requirement to provide energy metering to each suite. ERVs haven’t really come down in cost – the additional ductwork costs everybody more – but TAS has elected to do this anyway because it’s about improving indoor air quality and it’s something they can market.

A total of 25% of the parking stalls will be equipped with an electrical outlet for plug-in and provisions were made for future energizing of the other spaces. Will you provide a central bank of dedicated charging stations? What does that mean for the electrical capacity of the building for each space to have the possibility of EV chargers? Why go this route instead of the (less costly) car-share option?

This is a goal of TAS’ to do this. At one point we had a car share vehicle space within the building but there’s enough within the neighbourhood. The way things are going in the future, it will become more and more economical to have a plug-in electric vehicle. People in North America are pretty attached to their individual car ownership. To provide infrastructure for people to have plug-in electric is about future-proofing the building. But as for how it’s specifically going to work at DUKE, whether they will run it to a panel that is individually metered, we haven’t finalized it yet.

As per the city’s Green Roof Bylaw, certain % coverage of the roof is required to be a green roof, based on the building’s gross floor area. Which system will you provide at DUKE?

It will be a drought-resistant, low-profile, extensive green roof (vs intensive – where you can plant trees and shrubs). Probably a tray system. Green roofs raise your top of roof that much higher, so you have to be careful of how you distribute the heights because you lose potential area if the roof is too thick, plus you have to consider structure. There is always a trade-off.

The benefits of a green roof are multifold. Do you believe that in the near future, sky-gardens will become both desirable and inevitable as part of a growing cityscape?

I wish it would become more prevalent because we see it as a positive attribute. Right now, green roofs cost more money and the market isn’t necessarily looking for it, so we’re not there yet. And the Bylaw % requirements aren’t high enough in terms of how much you are obligated to provide for anything more than something quite basic, i.e. a low-profile extensive roof. If the developer wants to build a lot more, it’s just additional expense and if they can’t use it as a marketing tool, chances are they won’t opt to go that route.

How do you think we can best encourage that sustainable strategies be followed on all building projects, from conception through construction to furnishing?

There have to be financial incentives and legislation, otherwise it won’t happen, as well as the fact the City of Toronto itself has taken a leadership position on this: 15% better than the current building code. That level is really the 2017 version of the code. It’s those sorts of energy initiatives – being a certain percentage better than code – that have been happening at the municipal and the provincial level, which have been pushing the envelope.

There is always cost involved with change, i.e. change from traditional to sustainable construction practices. Consumer awareness about conservation and low impact development issues is key and people might be interested in ‘doing the right thing’, but when the rubber meets the road, they aren’t always willing to pay more. What could be the facilitating mechanism that will encourage consumers to make the extra effort for eco-friendly avenues knowing that payback will come later?

I’d say it’s the consumer, the purchaser. At the end of the day, it’s the cost per square foot, and they want to know they are getting a certain kind of countertop. Right now, what I’m hearing from marketing folk is that people don’t want to pay for ‘green’ initiatives, they think that the buildings should come with them. The green is just part of the story that people are expecting to see as opposed to it being an add-on, and having to pay more for it. To me what would be interesting would be a developer who would work really hard to bring those numbers (maintenance fees) down and the way to do that would be to provide an extremely durable building.  

Stephanie Calvet is an architect and architectural writer based in Toronto. She can be found at  www.stephaniecalvet.com

Nest Condos Adds Density and Vibrancy to Toronto's St. Clair W

(this is an article I wrote for UrbanToronto) The rising demand for urban life calls for increasing residential density. In Toronto, the Official Plan calls for much of the new development to be built along our main thoroughfares; it's called the Avenues plan. Developers and architects who are sensitive to context can create architecture that contributes in a meaningful way to the visual identity of these predominantly low-rise corridors. A growing number of innovative infill developments on Toronto's Avenues prove that mid-rise can be attractive and practical. Examples of this sort are popping up on Ossington, Queen (both East and West), King Street East, Dundas Street West, and so on.

One such residential development coming to the market is called The Nest, by Toronto builder The Rockport Group. This 9-storey condominium block will anchor the southwest corner of St. Clair West and Hendrick Avenue in the city’s budding Hillcrest Village. On part of the site now stands a KFC wrapped by a swath of parking. We are happy to see that coming down.

A mature neighbourhood that dates back to the early 1900s, Hillcrest is populated with large turn-of-the-century homes and lush tree-lined streets. The area was originally a large estate known as Bracondale Hill until 1909 when it was divided up into an exclusive subdivision. These days, the established low-rise neighbourhood is popular for its parks, independent shops, cafés, supermarkets and streetcars along St. Clair Avenue. The Nest is the first significant new structure on this stretch of St. Clair since the rebuilding of the St. Clair streetcar line in 2010.

The convenience of the new separate right-of-way for the streetcar is now attracting new retailers, restaurateurs, and residents alike. The Nest itself will contribute 10,000 sq ft of ground level retail to the street.

Designed by Toronto-based RAW Design, the building looks like an asymmetrical stacking of box upon box. The surface of the façade jogs in and out, with projecting bays clad in complementing shades of greys and white, and balconies or terraces strung in between. This interplay of volumes and voids creates a unique texture and spatial composition. From an interior perspective, the building’s layout forms units in a range of sizes and configurations - 48 different types amongst its total 123 suites, to be exact. Each has floor-to-ceiling windows to maximize sightlines and sunlight inside.

Above the 5th floor, the structure begins to terrace back on the south side, providing suites with views looking towards the city skyline. North-facing residences overlook bustling St. Clair Avenue. The building is clad in brick and German-engineered glass-fibre reinforced concrete or ‘fibreC’, a sustainable product that evokes natural materials like stone, twigs and straw. Nearly every dwelling has private outdoor space, which varies in size, up to nearly 570 sq ft at the penthouse level.

For large gatherings, the building provides residents with communal multipurpose space on both the main and roof levels. “We like projects where we can create a community where people can feel at home,” said Jack Winberg, chief executive officer for The Rockport Group. A large, welcoming flex space on the first floor comprises a full kitchen, library and fireplace, opening onto an outdoor patio. Similarly, comfortable indoor amenity space on the rooftop is extended into what is envisioned as an ‘outdoor living room’ and provides plenty of lounge area and a built-in kitchen/BBQ station for multi-group entertaining. A green roof on the east side wraps the building to the south, softening the terrace’s edge.

The builder partnered with local firms II by IV Design for the suite and common area interiors and Janet Rosenberg & Studio on the design of the landscaped portions.

Rockport has taken an approach to whole-building sustainability in this project which exceeds the City’s Tier 1 Green Standards with various measures to help to decrease its carbon footprint, including: geothermal heat pump; insulated windows; energy efficient lighting; low-flow fixtures; and, individual suite metering for utilities consumption.

The Nest is interesting not just for its variety and inventiveness but its green initiatives. Perhaps this thoroughly modern, modestly scaled addition will serve as a model for the sort of development this city needs. With Nest and other similar buildings in the works, hopefully they will convince sceptics that intelligently designed mid-rise is a viable option in a growing city that has almost taken the term ‘vertical living’ to the extreme. Innovative infill urban communities such as this one add to the eclectic urban fabric that is Toronto.

Toronto's CentreCourt Developments’ Core Condos Step Onto The Scene

(this is an article I wrote for UrbanToronto) Core Condos is the latest addition to CentreCourt Developments’ portfolio of downtown residential towers targeting the urban professional. With INDX, Karma, and Peter Street Condominiums underway, Core Condos is another opportunity for those who want to live, work and play in the downtown core.

The site for the new 24-storey tower is the northeast corner of Shuter and Dalhousie Streets, just blocks from the Eaton Centre, St. Michael’s Hospital and Ryerson University. It meets the developers’ corporate philosophy in two key aspects: in terms of location, it allows their demographic buyer to be in close proximity to work, transit and amenities; and secondly, in terms of value. “How we offer value proposition to the end consumer is really a combination of great design, both interior and exterior, and price point,” says Andrew Hoffman, president and founder of CentreCourt Developments.

The project went through several iterations until the City and the previous developer Queensgate reached an agreement on height and general massing. Queensgate continues on as a joint venture partner with a minority interest in the project but it is CentreCourt, who bought the land in November 2013, that is leading the development. Armed with a new vision—while still working within the building envelope parameters established earlier—it has partnered once again with Page + Steele / IBI Group Architects for the overall building design and with Cecconi Simone on the interiors.

The tower exterior is divided into two components separated by an architectural slot, which helps to break down the massing. It is clad in curtain wall glazing and metal panel with skewed facets that are largely sculpted. The white, slightly taller element looks east while the western face is outlined with a defining black trim and interrupted by balconies. From a design standpoint, the building has a distinctive look that “suits the urban professional who wants something in terms of architecture that is modern and stands out from the rest,” says Shamez Virani, Vice President of CentreCourt Developments.

The project will provide a total of 220 residential units ranging in size from 390 square feet to 775 square feet, a small commercial space at grade, and 84 parking spaces in a five-level underground parking structure. The building’s main residential entry will be located on Shuter Street and the retail entry and parking and service access will be situated on Dalhousie.

On the site currently are buildings numbered from 64 to 70 Shuter Street, listed on the City of Toronto's Inventory of Heritage Properties. According to the Heritage Impact Assessment prepared by E.R.A. Architects, two of the four existing buildings, 64 and 66, have undergone an “extensive remodelling of their exterior and interior” and as a result, will not be retained. The podium will incorporate a portion of the roof, two chimneys, and south façade of 68 and 70: a 3-storey, 19th century Georgian-style row house with buff coloured brick and limestone lintels and sills by architect John Tully, who also designed Walnut Hall, similar row houses which once stood further down the street.

The team developed a building amenity program that, from its standpoint, is in line with what its end user, the young professional, wants and needs, practically speaking. Features such as pool and spa are replaced in favour of a large 3,000 square foot open-concept lounge space with café/bar, beanbag and hanging chairs where residents can “socialize and just kick back, outside of their suite,” adds Hoffman. A landscaped exterior terrace wraps the N, E, and W sides of the building, also at the fourth level. In the same vein, the ground floor lobby is a double-height space with fireplace and central seating that is intended to impress every time a resident enters/exits the building. Residents are likely to walk to work and to neighbouring amenities, as opposed to being more reliant on a vehicle.

Core Condos is currently in pre-development and will be launched for sale early this year.

Brooklyn Community Planning Board Leader Advises Toronto

(this is an article I wrote for UrbanToronto) Unprecedented building activity in the GTA coupled with the public’s frustration in engaging the development process is creating a shift towards participatory planning practices. Community Planning Boards may be a way to provide a conduit between the community and city government. The Centre for City Ecology (CCE) invited longtime Brooklyn civic leader Craig Hammerman to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Community Board model and provide insight into what might work in Toronto.

For over 20 years, Craig Hammerman has served as District Manager of Community Board 6 (CB 6), a diverse microcosm of NYC that represents 104,000 residents in a medium density community from Park Slope to Columbia Waterfront. He takes great pride in the work he does: empowering residents and advocating for the betterment of his district. Annabel Vaughan, the CCE’s interim director, summoned Hammerman because of his impressive track record. “He has created such a robust dialogue in that the community has a real say in community issues in the neighbourhood,” Vaughan said.

NYC is divided into 59 Community Districts. Each has its own distinct Community Board (CB), a concept established in 1975 that enables citizens to play an advisory role in their government. CBs are made up of 50 appointed volunteer board members – caring, committed people who represent a diverse range of perspectives and interests. Although getting a group of 50 to make a decision might seem like 'herding cats', parliamentary procedures in place facilitate the process. The CB hires a District Manager as the agency head and operates with a budget of $200,000 with little room for waste.

Aside from being the voice of their community, CBs monitor the delivery of city services, review land use, and are involved in budget formation. They are extremely effective at identifying capital needs in their districts because members live there and deal with the problems every day. All matters are sorted out in various topical committees (e.g. economic development, transportation, education) that meet monthly and report to the full board.

It is interesting to note how CBs intersect with the government. They are required to review and comment on applications to the Department of City Planning; however, as Hammerman emphasizes, “We are advisors – we make recommendations. We are not in a position to implement anything. We need to be as savvy as we can about influencing the decision-makers – that is really what it comes down to.”

Some boards are more effective at negotiating and at handling challenges than others. Fortunately, there is a collegiality among them and a sharing of best practices. In order to deal with each large-scale development proposal, CB 6 devised a Responsible Development Policy that is given to the applicant with instructions to address neighbourhood priorities (i.e. environmental standards) before it presents its case at the hearing. “The more we can anticipate, the more we can build into the process,” says Hammerman. Although they try to be proactive in the planning of their neighbourhoods, CBs are often too busy being reactive to the number of applications flooding in. (There are no planners on staff.)

Hammerman is focused on improving the workings of the board by reviewing: composition criteria; recruitment; public awareness and interaction; communication infrastructure; participatory-discretionary budget; funding model; and, a connection to executive branch of city government. More than other districts, CB 6 is taking a creative approach to engage the public by relying increasingly on social media and crowdsourcing, and making available archived webcasts of its meetings.

Something in the process is clearly working. CB 6 saw 2,000 attend a recent community meeting, which shows that as people begin to feel heard, the turnout numbers reflect it.

There is a recognized disparity across Toronto communities in having their concerns heard at the civic level and being effective in creating change. In some districts, well-organized Resident Associations (e.g. Active 18) proactively weigh in while in others, it is difficult to get input from the local community due to both a lack of expertise and, quite simply, a lack of resident attendance and participation.

Hammerman addressed the group at Urbanspace Gallery, taking questions from an audience that included residents, planners, community activists and legislators. When asked for advice for how we in Toronto can play a more active role in our city’s governance, Hammerman said “Look at how the model of government grew up, where powers are, how decisions are being made, who the players are, and that will give a roadmap to steer where you want to take it.”

While there are clear benefits in the nonpartisan Community Board approach, practical considerations aside, it is not obvious how to apply it to what we have in Toronto: a planning system that is largely top-down oriented. NYC has distinct but connected planning entities. Toronto struggles with civil servants who lack influence and the contentious Ontario Municipal Board, which can reverse decisions made by City Council.

While the NYC model is one example, Toronto can draw from jurisdictions around the world. “Having a mechanism that is more transparent and consistent could make the planning process a more positive city building process for everyone involved,” says Vaughan.

In May of this year, Councillor Paul Ainslie [Ward 43] successfully passed a motion to launch a pilot community planning board in the suburban neighbourhood of Scarborough (Kingston-Galloway/Orton Park), an area on the verge of being hit with a wave of new development. The intent is to broaden the impact of participatory planning practices that are already at work in some communities across the city. For more information on The Centre for City Ecology and the pilot project, see cityecology.net. Currently on view at the Urbanspace Gallery is the exhibit UNDER THE TENT Envisioning Neighbourhoods.