Robarts Library

Robarts Library at the University of Toronto is adding staircases where they didn't previously exist and getting rid of its windswept 2nd floor plazas and turning them into glassed study spaces. These improvements were part of the original design of the library but were cut out due to budget constraints. The new staircase will add a new access point on Hoskin, which will improve flow to the library. The added study spaces are much needed for the large school body.

New staircase on Hoskin:

New glass with previously existing staircase on St. George Street side (additional stairs will be added here, seen in the open space on the right side of the picture):

Glass close-up:

Downtown Living

Some interesting recent articles on downtown living:

Larger Units for a Richard Meier Condo by Fred A. Bernstein (NY Times)

"EIGHTEEN units have disappeared from On Prospect Park, the condominium building in Brooklyn designed by Richard Meier. The developer, SDS Procida, has been reworking the building’s interiors, originally expected to contain 114 units, to include more family-sized apartments. Now there are 96 units.

...Market research “showed strong demand for family-sized units” — which led to the consolidation of apartments."

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Rethinking downtown housing by Darren Currin (The Journal Record, Oklahoma City)

"During the discussion, Craig Tucker, senior vice president of Price Edwards & Company, shared an intriguing opinion that developers and city leaders may want to rethink the way they are approaching downtown housing and consider building more affordable options first before building an excess of upscale housing options.

By having more affordable properties that attract young professionals, they may ultimately adopt a fully urban lifestyle and live in the downtown area for most of their adult lives. It would become a natural progression for downtown residents as they move from affordable to upscale housing as their careers prosper financially."

Minneapolis Part 1: New Buildings

I recently went back to Minneapolis where I am from and took lots of photos. It was interesting to see how these buildings seemed to all be built with care and interest. For a medium-sized US city, it's important that each building stand out its own way. The IDS Center still looks fantastic, 35 years old.

Overall, the architecture was great. The planning still has some work to do. Despite its status as a very livable city, its citizens almost entirely depend on the car. The downtown population is growing, but there is still no grocery store to be found. There is a two-story Target, for what it's worth.

One of the more disappointing things I saw was the single lane-ing of Lyndale Avenue. While it is turning to a nice boulevard, this would have been the perfect opportunity to add a streetcar line from downtown leading through into the residential neighbourhoods of south Minneapolis. The city has the perfect bones for a streetcar network - this was the predominant mode of transportation and how the city developed in the early 20th century. Here was a chance to bring back a bit of history and good public transit, but instead traffic calming won out. The same calming effect could have happened with laying some tracks down the middle two lanes of the street. Perhaps the city will go back to the future on another route, such as Nicollet or Lake Street.

Downtown is almost all one way streets. However, many streets are in the process of being converted to two ways. I recent poll showed about 4-5% of residents commute by bike (2nd highest in US next to Portland). There are bike lanes on major roads going through downtown.

I decided to split the pictures up into new buildings and old buildings. Minneapolis has lots of old great art deco type buildings, but also some good looking glass ones, and a few other oddities thrown in. Part 2 will feature the old ones.

Here are the "new" buildings. (All photos by me)

The skyline from a number of angles:








Nicollet Mall (Pedestrian, buses & taxis) with virtually no pedestrians on a Monday morning around 9:30 am. The existence of the skyway system puts a lot of people on the second floors of buildings downtown. This would be excellent for a place such as Hong Kong, but the dual pedestrian grid system just made the downtown feel a bit lonely.




Bus shelter with heating elements




This building always reminded me of broccoli:






How to build an interesting glass box (cut up the top):




225 South 6th St Building (I love the half halo on top):










IDS Tower:




with Target Building in the foreground:




The new downtown central library by Cesar Pelli. It's hard to tell from the photos, but the whitish glass is actually etchings of birch trees on the glass. This felt like a great public space. It is not often that new buildings give me the feeling of entering a place of great importance. This one did. Across the street there was a large parking lot that could turn into a tall residential tower with a much needed grocery store on the main floor.










The new Walker Art Center by Herzog & de Meuron. I think it looks like a Barracuda.


It's too bad that it's located right on the highway (it goes underground briefly at this huge intersection where Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues connect):




This modern beauty looks good at night:




Plaza in downtown across the street from City Hall:




I believe this used to be a government building:




McNamara Alumni Center on U of MN campus (Antoine Predock, architect):




Gehry's Weisman Art Museum on U of MN Campus:




Jean Nouvel's stunning and sharp Guthrie Theater building:












The new park next door, which was fantastic. Minneapolis sure has the magic touch when it comes to creating nice parks.

CityPlace

(picture taken by me, from Porter Airplane)

This photograph is the only view of CityPlace in Toronto that I have found attractive. Located on former railway lands at the base of Spadina Avenue, this new neighbourhood will house thousands of Torontonians.

Each building itself is decent, but clustered together I'm concerned that Toronto simply has is the skyscraper version of ugly, boring sprawl houses. You know, the executive mansion ones with cathedral ceilings in the family room, excessively sized kitchens and master bedrooms and about 6 bathrooms for three people. 

Vertical sprawl, welcome to Toronto.

At least there will be a large park, designed by Doug Coupland. But couldn't Concord Adex give us a little architectural variety and some decent streetwall and public space? Time will tell if this turns out to be a future slum. 

Jarvis Street Transformation.

Jarvis Street Transformation

This has been in the works for quite a while now, but the city is almost to the point where it will be removing the 5th traffic lane on Jarvis from Bloor to create bike lanes and additional sidewalk space. This is exactly the kind of project that needs to happen in the downtown core.  This will create much needed bike lanes and should help calm Jarvis, as it currently functions as an inner-city highway. 

Kudos to Councillor Kyle Rae for keeping this going and seeing it through.

Adaptive reuse

What will save the suburbs?

This New York Times article brings up a good point that now that the housing market has met a meltdown, what will happen to those houses in suburbia? And those bog boxes that sit empty?

It occurred to me while reading this that a long term plan and way to urbanize these neighborhoods and prevent further exurbia expansion would be to change by-laws to heavily promote urbanizing neighborhoods by allowing 2-4 story buildings to abut the street, thereby turning the current home on the property into something akin to a carraige house. Of course, this would create a domino effect for needed additional infrastracture and also a disincentive for extending suburbia would have to be implemented as well.

The Case for a Spadina Subway

There was discussion in Toronto this spring about a downtown relief line and it generated a lot of ideas. For the record, I completely support this line and hope it is built sooner rather than later. 

Are there other subway possibilities in Toronto? What if a subway line was built along Spadina? A right-of-way streetcar line currently exists with two car lanes of traffic going both north and south and it could be built here.

I propose that a new subway line be built with stops beginning at Spadina and Bloor (the line would have exits that connect at Bloor with the current exit and then another exit towards Sussex) where it would connect with the Yonge-University-Spadina line Spadina Stop. The stops (heading south) would then be at College, Dundas, Queen, King, Front, and Bremner/Lakeshore. 

An additional extension could be made to run east with stops at Rees St (the Skydome/CN Tower stop), York St (Air Canada Centre), Yonge St, and then north where it could connect again with the Y-U-S line at King station.

On Spadina, the interior lanes that previously held the streetcars would then be permanently converted to bike lanes. 

Why should this go on Spadina when it is so close to the other subway lines? South of Bloor, Spadina is a very wide street and could support great density. Toronto needs to grow up, not out, and downtown already has the infrastructure to do so. Spadina is wide enough to accommodate additional density.  Of course, special attention to zoning would be required to ensure that the heritage Victorian homes east of Spadina be spared razing, as well as ensuring that Chinatown remains in this area. 

Having this subway line connect with the Y-U-S line would allow for additional commuter relief should either of the lines be stopped for an extended period of time. 

This line would connect the rest of Toronto to the waterfront where there are countless very tall buildings being built. The project at Spadina and Lakeshore (Cityplace) is going to house thousands of people and as people move into this newly created neighborhood, they will need to be served by frequent service. With all of the additional condos and office buildings in this area, a viable alternative to cars must be produced. This area will only grow more dense. 

The connection to the stadiums and the CN tower will be useful for tourism.

One area of difficulty with this project would be the engineering of the line once it reaches Lakeshore Boulevard. I do not know if the land here is stable enough to support the subway. In this area the subway could either use two of the current traffic lanes under the Gardiner expressway or move from underground to become elevated between the traffic of the Gardiner above and the traffic on Lakeshore Boulevard below.

From what I have learned in my short time in Ontario, any transit project requires extensive cooperation between Federal, Provincial, and Municipal governments. The city of Toronto currently is busy promoting its numerous LRT lines, which are important and must be pursued. Metrolinx is currently putting together several proposals for the future of transit in Toronto and southern Ontario. As far as I know, neither group is supporting a Spadina subway line as I am suggesting. 

Could this ever happen? Probably not, as the city is putting its money into developing other LRT lines and has many more priorities. However, there are not very many places where the city could build subways and later on in the 21st century, additional relief for traveling within downtown may be needed.