Tag: architecture

• Less is a bore

  

  Architect Robert Venturi died this week at his home in Philadelphia. He was 93. Here is his obituary from the New York Times.

  Robert Venturi was, along with his partner and wife Denise Scott Brown, a central figure in 20th century American architecture. He is often referred to as one of if not the father of postmodernism. But apparently he wasn’t too keen on that moniker.

  Venturi is famous for writing both “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” and “Learning from Las Vegas”. But his firm also employed somewhere around 100 people at its peak.

  Venturi was critical of modernism for its hatred of ornament and for its purist belief that “less is more.” He argued that decoration had long been used in architecture to convey meaning, hence the response: “less is a bore.”

  Out of his work in Las Vegas came the notable comparison between a “duck” and the “decorated shed.” See above. The duck is modernism. The building itself becomes the symbol. No ornament is needed.

  The decorated shed, on the other hand, uses signage and other ornament to convey its symbolic qualities. The building itself can then be fairly nondescript, which also makes it flexible to a variety of different uses.

  This decorated shed approach is what guided the firm’s work and in 1991 he was awarded the Pritzker Prize in Architecture. 

  I love that he tried to have the award go equally to his partner Denise Scott Brown. The jury declined his request but he still used “we”, instead of “I”, throughout the entirety of his acceptance speech. Good.

  Thank you, Robert Venturi, for all of your contributions to architecture, as well as to the University of Pennsylvania.

  2018.09.20

• Leading female architects

  Reed Kroloff has a noteworthy piece in the New York Times talking about how architecture is no longer just a ‘gentleman’s profession’. Though less than a third of AIA (American Institute of Architects) members are females, “offices led or owned by women are creating an ever-wider range of public buildings that address architecture and urbanism in new and invigorating ways”, says Kroloff.

  

  I am thrilled, but not surprised, to see Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang on the list (pictured above). Her firm is the design architect behind our One Delisle proposal. And I was also happy to see Magui Peredo of Estudio Macias Peredo on the list. She is based in Guadalajara and, if you aren’t familiar with her work, I recommend you check it out. I love the materiality of it.

  Image: New York Times

  2018.09.16

• Microsoft Canada moving to CIBC Square

  

  Today, Microsoft announced that it will be moving its Canadian headquarters from Mississauga to the new CIBC Square development that is currently under construction in downtown Toronto (and rendered above). 

  According to RENX, Microsoft will occupy 132,000 square feet across 4 floors in the first tower. Occupancy is scheduled for September 2020.

  I love this project. The design architect is WilkinsonEyre. And there’s going to be an elevated one-acre park spanning the rail corridor between the project’s two towers.

  But it’s also noteworthy because it is an example of a major suburban tenant deciding to relocate to a transit-oriented urban environment. (I have a post on this somewhere.) 

  Image: WilkinsonEyre

  2018.09.12

• Friluftsliv (or open air living)

  

  Johnathon Little (husband) and Zoe Little (wife) recently launched a new housing concept out of the UK called Koto, which is supposedly Finnish for “cozy at home.” 

  (Before Koto, Johnathon worked for Snohetta in Oslo.)

  The goal of the company is to create beautiful, small, and prefabricated houses and cabins that allow people to connect with nature. 

  It is inspired by the Nordic concept Friluftsliv. The literal translation is “open air living” but, more specifically, it is about the benefits of nature on our mental and personal wellbeing.

  

  Their small cabin has a footprint of 15 square meters and their large cabin has a footprint of 40 square meters. Base prices run from about £33,500 to £63,500. A bathroom is optional.

  The most obvious use case for me is that of a bunkie. For more on Koto, check out their website and Instagram.

  Photos: Koto

  2018.09.06

• Photoblog: Aga Khan Museum

  Today we visited the Aga Khan Museum here in Toronto, which is a museum dedicated to the arts of Islamic civilizations. I had been outside the building before but this was my first time inside and my first time seeing some of the collections.

  Here is the main entrance:

  

  Here is a photo looking the opposite way over one of the reflection ponds:

  

  The museum was designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki and was completed in 2014. 

  The site area is approximately 70,000 square meters and the building itself is approximately 11,600 square meters. Maki won the Pritzker Prize in 1993.

  Here is the building’s interior courtyard, which was one of my favorite parts:

  

  The glass is patterned with the Islamic eight pointed star. But since the symbol is typically represented by two overlapping squares, the patterning was placed on two different sides of the double pane glass. Or at least that’s my guess as to why they did it that way.

  Lastly, here is the Bellerive Room:

  

  It was designed to be a contemplative room that could, on occasion, also host intimate events and performances. Note the shadows being cast by the screens in front of the windows.

  If you haven’t yet been to the Aga Khan Museum it is worth a visit, even if you just walk the formal gardens surrounding it.

  2018.09.03

• New Toronto architecture bike tour

  

  I have a friend visiting from Detroit this weekend. We went to architecture school together at Penn. But unlike me, he decided to become a full fledged architect.

  Not surprisingly, he wants to see some new Toronto architecture while he’s here. I say new because he has seen the classics. So I mapped out a short bike route this morning. It’s more or less a downtown loop that starts in the St. Lawrence.

  First we head west to the Queen Richmond Centre West by Allied Properties REIT (developer) and Sweeny&Co (architect). After that I’d like to show him the main drag of King West and point out two buildings by Saucier + Perrotte Architects and CORE Architects. I don’t think Unzipped Toronto is open yet.

  Next it is north to One Spadina Crescent – home of the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. This is one of if not my favorite new building in the city right now.

  After that I figure we’ll cruise east along the Bloor bike lanes and look up at 1 Bloor East. Then it is back south to check out the River City collection by Urban Capital (developer) and Saucier + Perrotte Architects (they are getting good face time on this tour).

  Then we’ll do what every good new Toronto architecture bike tour should do and end with a drink on a rooftop patio somewhere. Maybe we’ll check out the Broadview Hotel. I like the neon in the lobby bar.

  If I missed anything critical, let me know.

  Photo by Tiffany Nutt on Unsplash

  2018.09.01

• Five year anniversary

  Today is the five year anniversary of this daily blog. That’s over 1800 posts. 

  It’s almost hard to believe that it has been that long. It seems like just yesterday I was on year 2 or 3. But at the same time, it’s almost hard for me to remember a time when I didn’t blog every day. I guess we’re calling it a habit at this point.

  One of the most common questions I get regarding this blog is: “Do you pre-write posts?” The answer is never. Okay, almost never. Sometimes I’ll pre-write a post if I know I’m going to be on a plane for 12 hours and I won’t make the timezone cutoff. But generally as a rule I don’t.

  Part of the reason I don’t is because it breaks the habit. This is something I do every day. And I like that routine. I also want the posts to be timely and I want to be able to write about things that may be on my mind that day.

  Momentum is a powerful thing. And when you’ve been doing something for a number of years, and especially something as public as this daily blog, there’s a powerful incentive to keep doing it. That’s how streaks work.

  However, in the world of development, five years is perhaps not that long. It’s maybe one project. Streaks take a lot longer to establish.

  This summer One Delisle by Studio Gang went public and you’re now starting to see (bright neon) teasers for Junction House. Both of these projects are many years in the making. The Junction House story started in early 2016.

  So I reckon that this blog needs at least another five years so that there’s enough time for the really juicy stories to surface. I’ll endeavor to do exactly that. 

  Thanks for reading and making this community what it is. See you tomorrow.

  2018.08.28

• Preliminary design ideas for Toronto’s Quayside

  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.

  

  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.

  2018.08.18

• Building height fallacy

  Studio Gang has a project currently under construction in New York City called 40 Tenth Avenue. It is also known as the “solar carve tower.” Here are a couple of progress photos taken by Timothy Schenck. The glass is beautiful. (If you can’t see the embedded tweet below, click here.)

  Status update from the construction site of 40 Tenth Avenue, our first tower in New York. It’s been exciting watching its progression, especially as the glass is installed on the building’s carved-away form, which is sculpted by the angles of the sun. Photos: @timothyschenck pic.twitter.com/Ks7RqUXEcB

  — Studio Gang (@studiogang)

  August 13, 2018

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  This is one of my favorite buildings by Studio Gang and one that we all studied when we were kicking off One Delisle. 

  The geometry of the building is a result of carve outs that maximize the amount of sunlight that is able to reach the adjacent High Line (public space). It is form driven by functional logic. Here is a diagram from Studio Gang showing the carve outs that result from the sun’s rays.

  

  The other thing I like about this project is that it is a clear proof of something that I’m going to call the “building height fallacy.” There can be a tendency to overfocus on building height, which I have argued against before on this blog. 

  In this case, a shorter and squatter building without these solar carve outs, would have actually been worse for the High Line and the surrounding environment in terms of access to light and air.

  The building is responding to site-specific criteria – which is what great architecture should do.

  2018.08.13

• Building on stilts

  

  Last week Bjarke Ingels Group and UIA Management announced a 125,000 square meter mixed-use complex in Allapattah, Miami called the Miami Produce Center. 

  The proposed project includes office, residential, and hotel uses on stilts over three existing warehouse buildings. The existing buildings will be transformed into restaurants, shops, cafes, and a school. And supposedly, at least according to the renderings, the parking garage will be designed so that it can be transformed into a club at a night. This is Miami after all.

  Here are a few diagrams from BIG showing the build up:

  

  Perhaps best known for its warehouses and Dominican population, investors have been speculating for years that Allapattah would eventually become the next Wynwood. Here’s some evidence that it already has the requisite bars and artsy things.

  Does this project signify a tipping point for the area? Feels like it. But those of you who know Miami better than I do would be in a better position to comment.

  Images via Dezeen

  2018.08.12