After Junction House was announced, an interesting discussion emerged on Twitter around 2 storey suite designs.
There are, of course, many examples of multi-level apartments in the city. There’s 75 Portland by CORE Architects. There’s District Lofts and Mozo by architectsAlliance. And there’s Village by the Grange (pointed out during the discussion), which has a number of 2 and even 3 storey suites.
Another example that was raised by Gil Meslin is 14 Blevins Place. Now demolished, Blevins Place was designed in 1955 and completed in 1957 as part of the Regent Park South urban renewal project. It was designed by the British-born Toronto architect Peter Dickinson and by Page + Steele.
In 2005, prior to its demolition, the building was identified as a listed heritage building, but it was never elevated to a designated heritage building.
Perhaps most notable about the building are its “skip-stop corridors” and its 2 storey suites. See below images taken from this Heritage Impact Assessment by ERA Architects.
The reality is that modern architecture has had a long history of employing multi-level units and skip-stop corridors. Le Corbusier and Oscar Neimeyer were said to be experimenting with them as far back as the 1930s.
But I think most would agree that Toronto is a very different city today compared to what it was in the 1950s. Some still believe that no child should grow up in an apartment, but I disagree with that belief system. I lived in an apartment as a kid and somehow I survived.
As part of the National Building Museum’s Summer Block Party, Studio Gang created an installation in the Great Hall called Hive. See above picture. Note the human for scale.
Hive is an interactive series of spaces built exclusively out of lightweight and recyclable paper tubes – apparently 2,700 of them. The tubes have a polished silver exterior and bright magenta interior (love that part), and vary in size from several inches to over 10 feet. They are notched together to create a self-supporting structure.
The installation is beautiful in its own right – especially against the museum’s 19th century interior – but the idea is that each “sound chamber” within the Hive has different acoustic properties. The small chambers create a more intimate setting. And the main chamber is more grand and public. Think group yoga class or concert.
For more photos of Hive, click here. Below is also a time-lapse of the Hive’s construction. If you can’t see it, click here. (Don’t worry about turning on your sound.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvJV7m0JOF0?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Image: Tim Schenck
I had to read the following announcement a few times just to make sure it was legitimate.
A few days ago, attorney general Eric T. Scheiderman (New York State), announced that as a result of “Operation Vandelay Industries”, he was indicting an alleged fake architect named Paul Newman on 58 counts of larceny, forgery, fraud, and unlicensed practice of architecture.
After Junction House was announced, an interesting discussion emerged on Twitter around 2 storey suite designs.
There are, of course, many examples of multi-level apartments in the city. There’s 75 Portland by CORE Architects. There’s District Lofts and Mozo by architectsAlliance. And there’s Village by the Grange (pointed out during the discussion), which has a number of 2 and even 3 storey suites.
Another example that was raised by Gil Meslin is 14 Blevins Place. Now demolished, Blevins Place was designed in 1955 and completed in 1957 as part of the Regent Park South urban renewal project. It was designed by the British-born Toronto architect Peter Dickinson and by Page + Steele.
In 2005, prior to its demolition, the building was identified as a listed heritage building, but it was never elevated to a designated heritage building.
Perhaps most notable about the building are its “skip-stop corridors” and its 2 storey suites. See below images taken from this Heritage Impact Assessment by ERA Architects.
The reality is that modern architecture has had a long history of employing multi-level units and skip-stop corridors. Le Corbusier and Oscar Neimeyer were said to be experimenting with them as far back as the 1930s.
But I think most would agree that Toronto is a very different city today compared to what it was in the 1950s. Some still believe that no child should grow up in an apartment, but I disagree with that belief system. I lived in an apartment as a kid and somehow I survived.
As part of the National Building Museum’s Summer Block Party, Studio Gang created an installation in the Great Hall called Hive. See above picture. Note the human for scale.
Hive is an interactive series of spaces built exclusively out of lightweight and recyclable paper tubes – apparently 2,700 of them. The tubes have a polished silver exterior and bright magenta interior (love that part), and vary in size from several inches to over 10 feet. They are notched together to create a self-supporting structure.
The installation is beautiful in its own right – especially against the museum’s 19th century interior – but the idea is that each “sound chamber” within the Hive has different acoustic properties. The small chambers create a more intimate setting. And the main chamber is more grand and public. Think group yoga class or concert.
For more photos of Hive, click here. Below is also a time-lapse of the Hive’s construction. If you can’t see it, click here. (Don’t worry about turning on your sound.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvJV7m0JOF0?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Image: Tim Schenck
I had to read the following announcement a few times just to make sure it was legitimate.
A few days ago, attorney general Eric T. Scheiderman (New York State), announced that as a result of “Operation Vandelay Industries”, he was indicting an alleged fake architect named Paul Newman on 58 counts of larceny, forgery, fraud, and unlicensed practice of architecture.
And yes, the Seinfeld reference was entirely deliberate. Can you believe the guy’s name is Paul Newman? For over 7 years, Newman had been pretending he was an architect and had stamped drawings for over 100 buildings in Albany, Rensselaer, and Saratoga Counties.
For those of you who weren’t Seinfeld fans (I assume there are some), George Costanza liked to pretend he was an architect, among many other things. He would also sometimes go by the name of Art Vandelay – an “importer/exporter” who ran a company called Vandelay Industries. Hence the operation name above.
In any event, a funny announcement, but a not so funny reality for the hundreds of clients and building industry professionals that believed Paul Newman was indeed an architect.
Moral of the story: It’s one thing to pretend you’re an architect to meet women. It’s another thing to pretend that you actually have the professional ability to stamp building drawings.
And yes, the Seinfeld reference was entirely deliberate. Can you believe the guy’s name is Paul Newman? For over 7 years, Newman had been pretending he was an architect and had stamped drawings for over 100 buildings in Albany, Rensselaer, and Saratoga Counties.
For those of you who weren’t Seinfeld fans (I assume there are some), George Costanza liked to pretend he was an architect, among many other things. He would also sometimes go by the name of Art Vandelay – an “importer/exporter” who ran a company called Vandelay Industries. Hence the operation name above.
In any event, a funny announcement, but a not so funny reality for the hundreds of clients and building industry professionals that believed Paul Newman was indeed an architect.
Moral of the story: It’s one thing to pretend you’re an architect to meet women. It’s another thing to pretend that you actually have the professional ability to stamp building drawings.
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