design : Development News

The Sustainable Design Awards were handed out last week, with a three-way tie for the top prize.

"The jury's selections paralleled the variety of the submissions," says Mike Lovas, the awards' founder and current Ontario College of Design University student. "Each winning submission seemed to represent a different approach or sector of design practice: there was a mobile app, an urban plan, a piece of critical design and a designed space/furniture. All very different manifestations of sustainable design."

The winners were third-year environmental design student Hannah Smith for a green-space app that would allow community organizers to plan community gardens and improve parks; Ian Brako, a first-year environmental design student, and third-year graphic design student Laura Headley for their public-transit food system that would engage mass transit to transport locally grown food into the city; and Benjamin Gagneux from the spatial design program (on exchange from L'École de design Nantes Atlantique) for his design to create a library of sustainability resources out of recycled wooden shipping pallets.

Honourable mention went to Elliot Vredenburg for his jewellery-based carbon-credit micro-trading currency system.

The student choice award went to fourth-year industrial design student Matthew Del Degan. His entry, Obot (The Robot), was a design for a low-production-run children's toy made out of EcoPoxy, a soybean resin.

The awards were sponsored by OCAD U and presented by Sustainable TO Architecture and Building.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mike Lovas

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Last week marked the official re-opening of Osgoode Hall Law School after an extensive redesign by Diamond Schmitt Architects.

"Some cities are built at the right time, some cities are not built at the right time. Dublin was very lucky to be built at the height of Georgian elegance," says architect Jack Diamond. "Unfortunately, Osgoode Hall was not built at the height of architectural elegance."

In tackling the project on the York University campus, Diamond says, "there were several things we had as our objectives. Another flaw in the original building—it wasn't easy to find one's way around, because of the "blind" nature of the building, not only externally but internally; students never knew whether the faculty was in or out. The common room looked like a nasty sports locker room with no windows whatsoever."

The new design is a 215,000-square-foot reorganization of the 44-year-old school around an atrium, with a new 23,000-square-foot single-storey addition.

"The aim of the design was obviously to clarify the plan, to make it accessible and understandable," says Diamond, "to introduce great amounts of natural light and to improve the quality of space so that people would spend more time on campus. That whole lack of a sense of community is exacerbated now by computer, where people can work at home, have access to legal documents, without having to go to the library."

York raised $32 million for the project, which was bumped up by another $25 million through the federal and provincial governments' Knowledge Infrastructure Program.

"The net effect has been quite stunning," Diamond says of the new facility, named the Ignat Kaneff building after the lead donor, a Toronto area developer of Bulgarian extraction. "One of the problem is it's suffering from its success. It's so popular with non-law students that you have to show your law student card to get in."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jack Diamond

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If Kristyn Wong-Tam gets her way, those big white development notification signs are going to get a little more useful for the general public.

They've already taken a leap in that direction, starting in January 2011, when they started to include illustrations of the proposed development in the upper left hand corner of the sign. The printing, too, took a turn for the better, leaving behind the all caps in favour of typography that didn’t imply it was yelling at you.

But there are still two problems, as Wong-Tam, councillor for Ward 27, sees it.

"There is no consistency," she says. "This is something I've been working with the planning department on. Why in one case do I see an elevation from the street, and other times a bird-eye view? I think it's a little bit confusing, but it is something they're working on."

But more fundamental is the fact that there is nothing in the planning act that requires developers to submit completed applications. Though submitting renderings of a proposed development are part of the application process, most developers do not submit complete applications.

"Almost 99 per cent of the time, the form comes back to me incomplete," says Wong-Tam, whose downtown ward is home to an especially large number of development projects.

The councillor suggests that if people have any other concerns or suggestions regarding how proposed developments are announced, they can write to [email protected].

Writer: Bert Archer
Source; Kristyn Wong-Tam

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An Aboriginal childcare centre in Scarborough has made it to the list of finalists for the Toronto Green Awards.

Designed by Levitt Goodman Architects, the Scarborough Child and Family Life Centre was built on land owned by Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, who worked with the architects to come up with the various recognized amenities and features.

The building has been shortlisted in the green design category.

"We've been working with them for about 10 years now," says Levitt Goodman associate Danny Bartman, who worked on the project with firm partner Dean Goodman. "We recently completed their headquarters and College and Bay.

"One of the main things is because they are the building owners and operators, they were interested in geothermal heating and cooling. Although it required an increased capital investment, it saves them about $10,000 a year on operating costs."

In addition to the geothermal system, Levitt Goodman worked with civil engineers Fabian Papa and Partners to construct of swale  to contain the rain, roof and other site water in order to, as Bartman puts it, infiltrate it back into the water table. The riverbed snakes along the playground they also constructed, which consists of earth berms, log bridges, sand mountains and teaching gardens featuring traditional plantings to teach the children about their heritage.

The 7,000-square-foot, two-storey building was built on the Kingston Road site between May 2010 and October 2011.

The winners of the various categories of the Toronto Green Awards will be announced on April 13.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Danny Bartman

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One of the most innovative pieces of landscaping and public space creation in the city has entered its second phase.

Underpass Park—one hopes the name sticks—is a 1.05-hectare site in the West Don Lands. It's a bit of land that, in most cities, including Toronto, would usually barely be considered land at all, placed as it is under and around the Eastern Avenue, Richmond Street and Adelaide Street overpasses that link the central to eastern parts of the lower city.

But thanks to Waterfront Toronto, and a team including Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, The Planning Partnership and artist Paul Raff, this space has all the potential to become a definitive urban space that can be repeated in derelict places throughout the world's cities. (Think Montreal; think Los Angeles.)

Work on the portion of the site east of St. Lawrence Street and River Street has been completed, and work on the western bit, nearest Eastern Avenue, is commencing.

Waterfront Toronto estimates the work will be completed by the end of the year.

Writer: Bert Archer

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The reconstruction of Market Street is right on schedule.

The block-long street that runs along the west side of the St. Lawrence Market was the next big thing heritage redeveloper Paul Oberman had on his plate when he died in a plane crash last March.

The man responsible for the Summerhill LCBO, the renovation of the Five Thieves (with the addition of a thief or two), and the longtime owner of the Gooderham building (aka the Flatiron) had envisioned giving the city a Market Street that lived up to its name, instead of the desolate little nothing it had become.

And his widow, Eve Lewis, founder of Urbanation, who took the reins of Woodcliffe Properties and as president and CEO, is making sure Market Street turns out just as Oberman had envisioned.

"Everything is going according to Paul's original design," she says, "and we have gotten the approval for the sidewalk widening, which is the first private initiative [like that] that's ever been done in the city."

The small LCBO that had been on the corner of Front has already been moved into temporary space on Market, and construction will start on its vastly expanded space, that will take it from Front almost all the way back to The Esplanade, when the weather turns in spring. When completed, the street, with its newly expanded sidewalks, will be home to the longest stretch of bar and restaurant patios in the city.

"The model is the Summerhill plan," says Lewis, "except with a higher density of restaurants."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Eve Lewis

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Adam Vaughan was surprised by the reaction the public meeting gave the design for the proposed new Globe and Mail tower.

"I haven't had a building this warmly received in six years," the six-year City Hall veteran says.

Vaughan says between 75 and 100 people were in attendance earlier this month when KPMB founding partner Marianne McKenna presented the firm's twisted L-shape design.

"It's a modest building," Vaughan says, referring the variances it will need from the city to get planning approval, "and the design is quite startling, and the animation for that corner above and beyond the current use is quite welcome in the neighbourhood." There will be 200,000 square feet of office space for the Globe and 20,000 square feet above and beyond that for another tenant. "So the live-work thing will get a real shot in the arm."

The audience consisted largely of local residents and members of the Wellington Place Neighbourhood Association.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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The Ontario finalists for a nationwide architecture competition went on display Monday in the galleria at Brookfield Place.

The competition, called Migrating Landscapes, "explores how young Canadian architects and designers have been influenced by migration," according to the announcement.

The Ontario winners will be announced on Feb. 22, and the winners of the national competition will represent Canada at this year's Venice Biennale.

The competitions were the result of a call from the Canada Council for proposals for Canada's entry to this year’s Biennale.

"Migrating Landscapes is about the theme of migration and what it means in architecture today," says one of the three Winnipeg-based curators, Johanna Hurme. "It was informed by our own experiences coming together as first-generation architects ourselves." Hurme moved to Canada from Finland, while fellow curators Sasa Radulovic and Jae-Sung Chon came from Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Korea, respectively.

The exhibit runs until Feb. 24. The Architecture Biennale runs from Aug. 29 to Nov. 25.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Sascha Hastings

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KPMB are making one of the first moves away from what's become Toronto’s standard-issue podium-and-tower design for the proposed new Globe And Mail headquarters.

The redoubtable Toronto firm, which is also responsible for Winnipeg's brash Manitoba Hydro Place, has configured the 18-storey design into a sort of twisted 'L' shape, with the six-storey podium forming a more integral base than is usual in this city's more recent architecture.

The plan is to build the 480,000-square-foot building, which Globe editor-in-chief John Stackhouse describes as "a town square of 21st-century Canadian media," to LEED Gold standards.

The project, once considered by public meetings and if approved by city council, would be complete in 2015.

Writer: Bert Archer

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Toronto's lean towards less rectilinear architecture continues with Abacus, the mid-rise condos going up at 1245 Dundas Street West.

Designed by RAW and developed by the lawyer who represented the passengers on that famous long Air Transat glide into Portugal in 2001, Abacus will be an eye-catching seven-storey bit of pointiness in the midst of a still evolving Dundas West strip.

Developer Tony Azevedo, who also rescued a collapsing bit of Vine Avenue in the Junction last year, has told Yonge Street Media: "I really, really like modern design." Though he's only just begun, Azevedo seems cut from the same mould as Les Malins, the accidental developer who built a one-time personal investment into major mid-rise player Streetcar.

The condos are at the pre-construction registration stage now, and are being sold through Paul Johnston, with 59 Project Management, who also handled the Vine Avenue development, set to see the thing through.

Writer: Bert Archer

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Two thousand and eleven was the year the rectilinear glass tower started to turn into Duplo towers, which bodes well for our skylinear future.
 
After years of straight-up glass and steel, the form had pretty much reached its apogee with Spire and Casa and maybe the new Four Seasons (too early to tell—but all are Peter Clewes designs). There was no place left to go. At least, no place that was very interesting.

So architects and developers made the leap into the modular future together, coming up with 155 Cumberland (Quadrangle, Kingsett), Exhibit (Roy Varacalli and Bazis), Picasso (Stephen Teeple and Goldman and Monarch). Other shapes have started to emerge as well, with Teeple leading the pack (Op Art and The Hive), and Core coming up with 12 degrees. There's no Gherkin yet, but we're getting there.
 
This was also the year that green went mainstream. This is not to say that we're home free and have no more work to do, but now that practically every Tridel and Minto building is green, and often LEED-certified, it's no longer news, and is getting that much closer to be the norm rather than the exception.
 
When followed up by projects like RCMI on University, with its zero-parking, it bodes well for the atmosphere, architectural, political and actual.

Weston Village is getting a little boost that may turn into a major uplift.

Last month, it was announced that a plan to brush up John Street, the current site of a weekly farmer's market, and the future site of a Metrolinx stop on the way from Union Station to the airport, would get a $23,750 grant to help with the costs of designing and then implementing a plan to possibly pedestrianize and otherwise revitalize the street.

The grant came from the Urban Land Institute, a US-based organization that "promotes good land use and sustainable communities," according to its district council chair for Toronto, lawyer Mark Noskiewicz.

Though the grant is small, it is intended to spur investment from public-private partnerships. "The grant was announced last month, as we've already leveraged the $23,000 into $75,000 to $80,000" from the city and Metrolinx, Noskiewicz says.

The plan now is to use that money to complete the design and, if funds continue to flow in for the project, possibly even get the construction done by June of next year.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mark Noskiewicz

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The Fords want Waterfront development to speed up, and Waterfront Toronto is trying to figure out how.

On Monday, Waterfront CEO John Campbell led a public consultation in the form of a series of round table discussions on what's being called the Port Lands Acceleration Initiative.

The meeting "is the kick-off for an extensive public consultation effort," states a Waterfront news release. "Our goal is to ensure a transparent process, engage the widest possible audience and provide ample opportunities for people to be involved."

Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, councillor Doug Ford, have wanted things to move faster on the waterfront. Since the mandate for acceleration passed a vote in council on Sept. 21, Waterfront's been working with the city, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and other bodies to figure out the best course of action. Monday's consultation was the first step towards getting the public in on it.

In January, applications will be accepted for membership in the ongoing Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which will have a total of six meetings on the subject, in tandem with two more public consultations.

Currently set to take 25 years to complete, Toronto's "new blue edge," as the project has been tagged, is expected to create about 40,000 new residences and 40,000 new jobs. Waterfront Toronto was established as Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation in November 2001.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Waterfront Toronto

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According to The Atlantic magazine, Sherbourne Common is one of the best new parks in the world.

The new Waterfront Toronto park, completed this year, was listed in a recent posting on the Americans magazine's Atlantic Cities site.

According to the compiler of the list, Mark Byrnes, "[T]his former industrial site integrates a neighborhood storm-water treatment facility into its design perfectly."

The park has also just won the 2011 Design Exchange's Gold Award for Landscape Architecture.

The park was designed by Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, The Planning Partnership, Teeple Architects and Jill Anholt.

Writer: Bert Archer

Do you know of a new building going up, a business expanding or being renovated, a park in the works or even a new house being built in the neighbourhood? Please send your development news tips to [email protected].

Diamond Schmitt's latest contribution to the GTA's oeuvre of arts architecture opened last week in Burlington.

The Burlington Performing Arts Centre has a 720-seat main theatre and a 260-seat studio theatre, both connected to a "city room" meant for community use when the theatres are dark.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper attended the opening and spoke of local jobs and economic growth.

The design makes great use of wood, much like Diamond Schmitt’s recently recognized Harbour Light facility for the Salvation Army on Jarvis. The floors are terrazzo, and the main theatre features a cantilevered balcony that juts out over the orchestra seating.

The firm's other arts buildings include the Betty Oliphant Theatre, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts and the School of Image Arts at Ryerson University.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul French

Do you know of a new building going up, a business expanding or being renovated, a park in the works or even a new house being built in the neighbourhood? Please send your development news tips to [email protected].