Yesterday Sidewalk Toronto released its draft site plan for Quayside. Here’s what it looks like:
There’s a big emphasis on people-first streets and on the public realm. I like the idea of a waterfront plaza at the tip of the Parliament slip and of a floating walkway bridge to Promontory Park (bottom right hand corner of the above image).
There are also a number of more enclosed pedestrian laneways and courtyards, which I am sure will result in more favorable microclimate conditions. That matters, especially on the water.
Here are some high level project stats:
All mass timber construction
Five “sites”
Buildings ranging from 3 to 30 storeys
68% residential (40% of the residential will be below-market, with 20% being affordable and 5% being deeply affordable)
20% commercial
15% flex space (retail, production, arts, community)
~2,500 residential units
A full copy of the draft site plan can be downloaded, here.
Image: Sidewalk Toronto
A few months ago when I wrote about “Toronto’s great streets” I mentioned that Queens Quay West - while magnificent – has had its share of issues. Cyclists and pedestrians often find themselves battling for space. And drivers are consistently driving in the wrong places.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the turning radii (among other things) are a bit atypical and unusual compared to the rest of the city. And so if you’re at all in mental autopilot, it can be fairly easy to make a wrong turn. You really have to be paying attention.
Below is a screenshot from Google Street View showing the foot of Lower Spadina, looking east on Queens Quay West. If you’re making a left turn from the former onto the latter, you need to end up on the left (north) of the streetcar tracks (even though the tracks themselves might be directing you elsewhere).
Last week Sidewalk Toronto held a roundtable discussion here in the city and released some preliminary design ideas and strategies for Quayside. (That’s why Dan Doctoroff was talking on BNN Bloomberg.)
I went through the full presentation this morning and below are a bunch of slides that I thought you all might find interesting.
Here is the extent of “Quayside” along the waterfront. The current land use permissions allow for about 3 million square feet of space and towers as tall as 50 storeys.
Yesterday Sidewalk Toronto released its draft site plan for Quayside. Here’s what it looks like:
There’s a big emphasis on people-first streets and on the public realm. I like the idea of a waterfront plaza at the tip of the Parliament slip and of a floating walkway bridge to Promontory Park (bottom right hand corner of the above image).
There are also a number of more enclosed pedestrian laneways and courtyards, which I am sure will result in more favorable microclimate conditions. That matters, especially on the water.
Here are some high level project stats:
All mass timber construction
Five “sites”
Buildings ranging from 3 to 30 storeys
68% residential (40% of the residential will be below-market, with 20% being affordable and 5% being deeply affordable)
20% commercial
15% flex space (retail, production, arts, community)
~2,500 residential units
A full copy of the draft site plan can be downloaded, here.
Image: Sidewalk Toronto
A few months ago when I wrote about “Toronto’s great streets” I mentioned that Queens Quay West - while magnificent – has had its share of issues. Cyclists and pedestrians often find themselves battling for space. And drivers are consistently driving in the wrong places.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the turning radii (among other things) are a bit atypical and unusual compared to the rest of the city. And so if you’re at all in mental autopilot, it can be fairly easy to make a wrong turn. You really have to be paying attention.
Below is a screenshot from Google Street View showing the foot of Lower Spadina, looking east on Queens Quay West. If you’re making a left turn from the former onto the latter, you need to end up on the left (north) of the streetcar tracks (even though the tracks themselves might be directing you elsewhere).
Last week Sidewalk Toronto held a roundtable discussion here in the city and released some preliminary design ideas and strategies for Quayside. (That’s why Dan Doctoroff was talking on BNN Bloomberg.)
I went through the full presentation this morning and below are a bunch of slides that I thought you all might find interesting.
Here is the extent of “Quayside” along the waterfront. The current land use permissions allow for about 3 million square feet of space and towers as tall as 50 storeys.
There’s lots of signage telling you not to drive onto the tracks, but that hasn’t really been working. So the tracks were recently painted in bright red. You can see what that looks like here. Some people are still getting mixed up, but it’s certainly more noticeable.
What I am wondering today is whether all of this signage and paint should be considered a symptom of poor design. In other words: Should good design require few instructions? Or, is this simply a normal part of iterative city building?
What do you think?
Here is a paving system being explored for the area. It is modular. It may melt snow. And perhaps most interestingly, it would allow for dynamic changes in road use throughout the day. This sort of thing already happens to a lesser degree on streets like Jarvis. This technology could take that much further.
One of their primary goals is to double Toronto’s usable outdoor hours. To do that, they are proposing simple weather shields (pictured below) and weather-responsive systems.
They are spending a lot of time thinking about the ground floor of buildings, which they are calling Stoa. The idea is to create flexible and porous spaces that respond quickly to changing needs and that integrate more seamlessly with the surrounding public realm.
There’s a lot on the potential hierarchy of the street network and how each will function for transit, conventional cars, AVs, cyclists, pedestrians, and so on. I was happy to see “laneways” as a core part of the pedestrian network. They are designed for walking speeds. Access would be restricted for things that move too quickly.
This image ties in the street grid and Stoa.
Finally, the goal is to build the neighborhood entirely out of timber, and more specifically, Canadian timber. If they follow through on this, I think it would really push adoption of this material forward in the city.
I would encourage you to check out the full package, which you can do here. I can’t wait for these projects to get underway along Toronto’s waterfront.
There’s lots of signage telling you not to drive onto the tracks, but that hasn’t really been working. So the tracks were recently painted in bright red. You can see what that looks like here. Some people are still getting mixed up, but it’s certainly more noticeable.
What I am wondering today is whether all of this signage and paint should be considered a symptom of poor design. In other words: Should good design require few instructions? Or, is this simply a normal part of iterative city building?
What do you think?
Here is a paving system being explored for the area. It is modular. It may melt snow. And perhaps most interestingly, it would allow for dynamic changes in road use throughout the day. This sort of thing already happens to a lesser degree on streets like Jarvis. This technology could take that much further.
One of their primary goals is to double Toronto’s usable outdoor hours. To do that, they are proposing simple weather shields (pictured below) and weather-responsive systems.
They are spending a lot of time thinking about the ground floor of buildings, which they are calling Stoa. The idea is to create flexible and porous spaces that respond quickly to changing needs and that integrate more seamlessly with the surrounding public realm.
There’s a lot on the potential hierarchy of the street network and how each will function for transit, conventional cars, AVs, cyclists, pedestrians, and so on. I was happy to see “laneways” as a core part of the pedestrian network. They are designed for walking speeds. Access would be restricted for things that move too quickly.
This image ties in the street grid and Stoa.
Finally, the goal is to build the neighborhood entirely out of timber, and more specifically, Canadian timber. If they follow through on this, I think it would really push adoption of this material forward in the city.
I would encourage you to check out the full package, which you can do here. I can’t wait for these projects to get underway along Toronto’s waterfront.
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