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On Tuesday night I attended a great industry event that Quadrangle Architects organized about mid-rise buildings.
Mid-rise buildings (somewhere around 4-12 storeys) are all the rage in Toronto these days. But there are many challenges associated with this building typology and this was an event to talk about them and hopefully push things forward.
One of the speakers at the event was Jeanhy Shim of Housing Lab Toronto. And I’d like to share one of her slides here:
It reads:
Value = (rational benefit x emotional benefit) / price
I believe she admitted to taking it from someone at Bruce Mau Design. But that’s okay. That’s how ideas build. What I really like about it is that it attaches a value to the things that are difficult and sometimes impossible to measure: the emotional stuff.
As I mentioned in this post over the weekend, we are all obsessed with the quantitative side of our businesses. In the case of development, we look at prices, per square foot prices, apartment sizes, and the list goes on. And we often reduce our “products” to these sorts of key metrics.
But if you’re competing just on numbers, then you’re missing a big and important part of the equation. People consume things – and housing is no different – for a number of different reasons. We buy things because of how it makes us feel, how it reinforces our sense of self, how it improves or promises to improve our lives, and so on. These are all harder to measure than square footage.
But we are living in a data driven world and more and more of this type of information will become available for city building. If you and your business can get your head around it first, you’ll have a huge advantage.
The world cannot find a cure for cancer soon enough. Earlier today Quadrangle Architects here in Toronto published the following news release. For those of you not from Toronto, Quadrangle is one of the most important architecture firms in the city.
It is with great sadness that we share with you that Brian Curtner, our co-founder, colleague and friend, passed away from cancer on August 15, 2015 at the age of 64.
As an architect, Brian has been widely recognized for exemplary designs that include the award-winning BMW showroom at the foot of the Don Valley Parkway, Corus Entertainment’s state-of-the-art headquarters on Toronto’s waterfront and 130 Bloor Street West in Yorkville – all innovative responses to complex urban challenges. Equally important to his projects was Brian’s unique ability to build long-term working relationships and turn them into friendships that spanned decades.
Balancing entrepreneurship and commitments to family and friends, Brian was instrumental in creating a highly successful architecture practice, combining business acumen with design excellence, technical expertise and client service which continue to define Quadrangle today.
Together with his family, we will honour Brian’s life and achievements with a memorial celebration in the near future. We will communicate more details as soon as arrangements have been finalized. In the meantime, Brian’s family welcomes donations to either the Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care at Mount Sinai Hospital or Sunnybrook Hospital’s Odette Cancer Centre, in his memory.
In the coming days, please visit our website for additional information. Details will also be available regarding a website being created in memory of Brian.
For any inquiries please connect with Elle Fitzpatrick.
Top image from Quadrangle’s Instagram; bottom image from here.
One of the most interesting projects being proposed in Toronto right now is 363 Yonge Street, which is located downtown at the southeast corner of Yonge Street and Gerrard Street. See above hero rendering.
The project is a two tower mixed-use development with the following stats (as per their rezoning application dated April 24, 2015):
73 storey tower to the north (inclusive of podium)
62 storey to the south (inclusive of podium)
9 storey podium containing office and retail
887,752 square feet of residential
101,062 square feet of retail
186,977 square feet of office
Site area is 42,248 square feet (proposed density on the site works out to be about 27x)
1,106 residential units – 107 bachelor (9.7%), 648 one-bedroom (58.6%), 241 two-bedroom (21.8%), and 110 three-bedroom (9.9%)
289 parking spaces – 221 spaces for residents, 23 spaces for visitors, 23 spaces for retail, and 22 for office
9,790 square feet of outdoor amenity space and 23,809 square feet of indoor amenity space for the residences (the “skybridge” that connects the two towers at the 51st and 52nd floors is amenity space)
9,809 square feet of outdoor amenity space for the commercial spaces
The site also contains 2 listed heritage buildings. The Gerrard Building and The Richard S. Williams Block. The project proposes to incorporate 3 of their facades (not the entire buildings) into the base of the new development.
Here are a few images of what that might look like at street level (going from north to south along Yonge Street):
I am also delighted to see that they are planning on adding retail to the rear laneway (O’Keefe Lane) that runs behind the site, east of Yonge Street. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I think Toronto’s laneways are a huge missed opportunity. So it’s great to see developers in this city starting to recognize that.
Here’s a photo of what O’Keefe Lane looks like today (courtesy of Google street view):
Since I’ve only done one other “project profile” on this blog, I’d love to get your feedback in the comments on whether or not you find these useful.
For those of us in the industry, it’s always valuable to look at other projects and dissect the square footages, unit mix, density, parking ratios, and so on. But I recognize that this is a particular lens.
I’m also trying not to be so Toronto-centric, so it would be great to hear how this project compares to what you’re seeing in your city.
All project images: Quadrangle Architects
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