Yesterday UrbanToronto.ca published a post talking about Melbourne’s laneways (something I also wrote about here on ATC a few months ago). As part of their post, they included the video that I’ve embedded below. I think it does a good job of showing the vibe and energy in these repurposed laneways, and so I wanted to share it with you all as well. What are your thoughts on these spaces? I think they’re great.
Earlier this week, a friend of mine shared this TED talk on my Facebook wall talking about the state of climate change in the world. The talk is by Nicholas Stern. And at one point he talks about the incredible urban transformation that has taken place in Beijing over the last couple of decades; specifically, the shift from a bicycle oriented city to a now automobile oriented city.
I knew that this was the case, but it got me thinking. Because alongside this mobility change, there’s also been – not surprisingly – pronounced changes to the urban fabric of the city. The most significant is perhaps the demolition of the city’s hutongs and siheyuan. Hutongs are basically narrow alleys (see above photo) and siheyuan are the traditional Chinese courtyard houses.
For centuries, these alleyways and courtyard houses have defined Beijing. And while I realize that not all of them were as glamorous as Melbourne’s laneways, only about 1,000 of Beijing’s original 6,000 hutongs remain (according to Time). Which makes me wonder: Is China making the same mistakes that we made in the 20th century?
Because as the developed world moves toward transit oriented development, bike lanes, heritage preservation, and compact urban living, China has seemingly gone and done the exact opposite. They got everyone off bicycles and into cars, and they went and erased a scale of urbanism that has been in place for centuries.
Last month Oxford Properties submitted a site plan application for the redevelopment of the rundown Cumberland Terrace in Toronto’s Yorkville neighborhood. If you’d like to browse the full application (including all the drawings), you can do that here.
The proposal is a departure from previous plans and now includes 3 buildings: a 4.5 storey building, a 2.5 storey building, and a midblock 54 storey residential tower (the lobby is shown above). There will be both retail and residential uses.
For those of you familiar with the mall, it should go without saying that Cumberland Terrace is in desperate need of redevelopment. So I’m not going to talk about that today. Instead, I’d like to mention 2 other points that stood out to me about the application.
The first is the 2 midblock connections on either side of the tower, running from Cumberland Street to Mayfair Mews in the rear (see below). Yorkville has a history of intimate laneways, and so it’s nice to see some of this being carried through in a new development. It also opens up the opportunity for an improved Mayfair Mews.
Yesterday UrbanToronto.ca published a post talking about Melbourne’s laneways (something I also wrote about here on ATC a few months ago). As part of their post, they included the video that I’ve embedded below. I think it does a good job of showing the vibe and energy in these repurposed laneways, and so I wanted to share it with you all as well. What are your thoughts on these spaces? I think they’re great.
Earlier this week, a friend of mine shared this TED talk on my Facebook wall talking about the state of climate change in the world. The talk is by Nicholas Stern. And at one point he talks about the incredible urban transformation that has taken place in Beijing over the last couple of decades; specifically, the shift from a bicycle oriented city to a now automobile oriented city.
I knew that this was the case, but it got me thinking. Because alongside this mobility change, there’s also been – not surprisingly – pronounced changes to the urban fabric of the city. The most significant is perhaps the demolition of the city’s hutongs and siheyuan. Hutongs are basically narrow alleys (see above photo) and siheyuan are the traditional Chinese courtyard houses.
For centuries, these alleyways and courtyard houses have defined Beijing. And while I realize that not all of them were as glamorous as Melbourne’s laneways, only about 1,000 of Beijing’s original 6,000 hutongs remain (according to Time). Which makes me wonder: Is China making the same mistakes that we made in the 20th century?
Because as the developed world moves toward transit oriented development, bike lanes, heritage preservation, and compact urban living, China has seemingly gone and done the exact opposite. They got everyone off bicycles and into cars, and they went and erased a scale of urbanism that has been in place for centuries.
Last month Oxford Properties submitted a site plan application for the redevelopment of the rundown Cumberland Terrace in Toronto’s Yorkville neighborhood. If you’d like to browse the full application (including all the drawings), you can do that here.
The proposal is a departure from previous plans and now includes 3 buildings: a 4.5 storey building, a 2.5 storey building, and a midblock 54 storey residential tower (the lobby is shown above). There will be both retail and residential uses.
For those of you familiar with the mall, it should go without saying that Cumberland Terrace is in desperate need of redevelopment. So I’m not going to talk about that today. Instead, I’d like to mention 2 other points that stood out to me about the application.
The first is the 2 midblock connections on either side of the tower, running from Cumberland Street to Mayfair Mews in the rear (see below). Yorkville has a history of intimate laneways, and so it’s nice to see some of this being carried through in a new development. It also opens up the opportunity for an improved Mayfair Mews.
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This is not to say that China doesn’t deserve to have the same standard of living as the developed world. It absolutely does. It just seems a bit ironic to me that the things we’ve become sharply critical of, are exactly what China seems to want to recreate.
(from the likes of Morguard and Concert Properties), but we haven’t done it at scale for decades. And that’s largely because the demand for condos has been so great.
But recently I’ve been noticing a renewed interest from the real estate community in multi-family rental assets. Cadillac Fairview also proposed a 65 storey rental building at the north west corner of Yonge Street & Queen Street last year – though they later withdrew their application.
In the US, rental apartments as a share of all new housing is also at record highs – over 30%. And that’s partly because credit remains tight (certainly compared to pre-2008) and economic growth has been tepid. But also because of demographic changes. People are having fewer children, later in life, and so many are putting off buying.
So I think we’re going to see even more rental apartments being built in Toronto in the coming years.
This is not to say that China doesn’t deserve to have the same standard of living as the developed world. It absolutely does. It just seems a bit ironic to me that the things we’ve become sharply critical of, are exactly what China seems to want to recreate.
(from the likes of Morguard and Concert Properties), but we haven’t done it at scale for decades. And that’s largely because the demand for condos has been so great.
But recently I’ve been noticing a renewed interest from the real estate community in multi-family rental assets. Cadillac Fairview also proposed a 65 storey rental building at the north west corner of Yonge Street & Queen Street last year – though they later withdrew their application.
In the US, rental apartments as a share of all new housing is also at record highs – over 30%. And that’s partly because credit remains tight (certainly compared to pre-2008) and economic growth has been tepid. But also because of demographic changes. People are having fewer children, later in life, and so many are putting off buying.
So I think we’re going to see even more rental apartments being built in Toronto in the coming years.
