Monthly Archives: September 2012

Ryerson Image Centre opens tonight

Ryerson Image Centre

September 25 2012: The entrance to the new Ryerson Image Centre (RIC) at 33 Gould Street on the Ryerson University campus. The RIC opens to the public tonight.

 

Ryerson Image Centre night photo by Tom Arban

The RIC occupies the west side of the Ryerson University School of Image Arts building, the northwest corner of which is seen in this Tom Arban night photo provided courtesy of Diamond Schmitt Architects. Click on both photos to view larger-size images of each.

 

Open doors: Arts aficionados finally get to visit the newest destination on the city’s ever-expanding cultural landscape tonight when the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC) leaves its doors open all night long as part of the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche festival.

The RIC is situated in the School of Image Arts building, which recently won the 2012 AL Light & Architecture Design Award for Best Use of Colour. Originally a brewery with few exterior windows, the brick building was expanded and totally transformed into a showcase faculty and gallery facility designed by Toronto’s Diamond Schmitt Architects. In sharp contrast to the original structure, transparent glazing lets people see in and out  three sides of the redesigned building while an LED system concealed in the exterior double-glass cladding lights up the university campus at night with a regularly-changing array of colours. (See my September 10 2012 post for full details and photos of the building and its lighting system.)

 

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Through another lens: Looking north from FCP

This photo by Colin Gruchy captures the great view from an office on the 41st floor of First Canadian Place on September 20 2012. Click on the photo to view a larger-size image.

 

Great view: It’s a good thing I don’t work on a high floor in an office tower in the downtown core — I would probably spend practically all of my time looking at buildings and watching construction activity. Especially if I sat near a window with a north view like the one in the photo above that Colin Gruchy shot two days ago.

It’s a great vantage point for keeping track of at least four major construction projects currently underway in the downtown core: the Nathan Phillips Square revitalization at City Hall; the MaRS Centre Phase 2 tower at College Street and University Avenue (slightly visible to the upper left of City Hall’s west tower); the Motion on Bay Street apartment highrise directly behind City Hall’s east tower; and the Aura condo skyscraper to the northeast of that, at Yonge & Gerrard. And in just a couple of years’ time, construction of the 54-storey INDX condominium tower, which will be built on a site bounded by Richmond, Sheppard and Temperance Streets, will dominate the foreground of this particular view.

Got a good Toronto construction or building photo you’d like to share? Drop me a line at: [email protected]

 

Halfway there: Aura climbs to 39 storeys

Aura condos at College Park

September 19 2012: Looking up the north side of the Aura condo tower. Construction reached the milestone halfway mark this week when work commenced on the 39th floor of the 78-storey skyscraper. (Click on the photo to view a larger-size image.)

 

Aura condos at College Park

September 22 2012: My balcony view of the Aura condo tower this afternoon. Construction forms for supporting walls are in place on the north side of the 39th floor.

 

 Aura condos at College Park

September 22 2012: Cladding and window installation has started on the 30th floor

 

 Midpoint milestone: The Aura condo tower at College Park has reached the halfway point — 39 floors — where building activity including concrete floor pours and construction of supporting walls has been underway the past two days.

When it tops off at 78 storeys, Aura will become Canada’s tallest residential building.

I can’t help but watch Aura’s construction progress — the window next to my computer looks straight at it. Even though I’m more than five blocks away to the northeast, I can feel the strong presence of the big rectangular slab of concrete and glass looming over my left shoulder. I’m not impressed by the building’s appearance so far, but I am looking forward to the point at which Aura reaches the 59th floor and construction commences on 16 levels of “executive suites” and five floors of penthouse and sub-penthouse residences. The oval shape for that top section of the tower will give Aura a unique silhouette on the city skyline, and be considerably more interesting and appealing to look at.

 

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Regent Park’s Daniels Spectrum provides bright, inspiring space for creativity, culture & innovation

Regent Park Arts & Cultural Centre

The Daniels Spectrum at 585 Dundas Street East, seen last Friday …

 

Daniels Spectrum

… and again today, sporting its new signage. The Spectrum officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony this morning, and will be hosting a public open house on Saturday.

 

Daniels Spectrum photo provided courtesy Diamond Schmitt Architects

Another Dundas Street view of Daniels Spectrum, this time in a photo provided courtesy of Elizabeth Gyde/Diamond Schmitt Architects

 ~

 

Great space:  I’ve been absolutely amazed by the incredible neighbourhood transformation that has been taking place the past several years in Regent Park, where a 15-year revitalization project is gradually rebuilding the east downtown area’s 60-year-old social housing development into a completely new mixed-income and mixed-use community.

Though still in early stages of the multi-phase project, the makeover has already given the heart of Regent Park a remarkable look and feel with modern new townhouses, apartment buildings and condo highrises, attractive landscaped streets and public spaces, and bustling retail shops and services. But the official opening today of the impressive new Daniels Spectrum (formerly known as the Regent Park Arts & Cultural Centre, as it was called up until this morning’s ribbon-cutting ceremony) is about to add an entirely new dimension of energy and excitement to the neighbourhood.

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Pit stop: X2 Condos parking floors filling in

X2 Condos

September 9 2012: Another underground parking level takes shape at the X2 Condos construction site at the southwest corner of Jarvis & Charles Streets. Nearly three of the building’s six below-grade levels have been constructed so far.

 

X2 Condos

September 9 2012: A closer view of an underground floor taking form

 

X2 Condos

September 9 2012: Rebar is being put in place to prepare for a concrete pour

 

X2 Condos

September 9 201: Jarvis Street view of construction progress on the 49-storey tower.

 

X2 condos rendering

A project of Great Gulf and Lifetime Developments, X2 Condos was designed by Toronto’s Rudy Wallman Architects Ltd. The tower will have 470 suites.

 

X2 Condos tower rendering

This artistic rendering, which appears on the project website, depicts a view of the 49-storey tower from the northeast.

 

 X Condominium

X2 Condos will be a sister to the X Condominium tower on the north side of Charles Street (seen here in a view from the southeast on August 30 2011).  The 44-storey X Condos, which opened for occupancy two years ago, was designed by architectsAlliance.  Together, the developers say, X and X2 will stand as an eastern “gateway to Yorkville/Bloor.”

 

Condo tower building sites squeezing traffic on construction-weary Charles Street East

Construction hoarding outside 42 & 45 Charles Street East  Toronto

September 1 2012 : One-way Charles Street squeezes into a single narrow lane while hoarding and security fences cramp the already-narrow sidewalks along the facing condo construction sites for ChazYorkville, left, and Casa 2 right

 

45 Charles Street East Toronto

September 1 2012: Hoarding has surrounded the ChazYorkville site at 45 Charles East since last fall, when demolition started on a 45-year-old, 8-storey Modernist-style office building that formerly occupied the property  …

 

ChazYorkville condo tower excavation

… now the site of a large excavation that gets deeper each day

 

 42 Charles Street East Toronto

August 31 2012: Hoarding was installed on the north sidewalk, along the front of the office building at 42 Charles, in late August …

 

42 Charles Street East Toronto

… where the 9-storey brick building, once administrative offices for the YMCA, will be demolished to make room for the 56-storey Casa 2 Condominiums

 

Near 42 and 45 Charles Street East Toronto

August 31 2012: Cars try to squeeze past a dump truck waiting its turn to enter the ChazYorkville site and pick up a load of soil from the excavation

 

Charles Street East Toronto

August 31 2012: Motorists and pedestrians alike will face disruption and traffic congestion on this block of Charles Street for at least the next three to four years …

 

Charles Street postal station February 26 2012

… and possibly much longer, if Canada Post sells Postal Station F at 50 Charles East, right next door to the Casa 2 site, for residential highrise redevelopment

 

Tight squeeze: Residents on and near the block of Charles Street between Church & Yonge Streets have reluctantly resigned themselves to at least four more years of dirt, dust, noise and traffic congestion, courtesy of two condo tower construction sites practically within whispering distance of each other on opposite sides of the street.

Construction of the 47-storey ChazYorkville condo tower commenced last fall when demolition crews destroyed a Modernist-style office building that had occupied 45 Charles for more than four decades. Foundation shoring and drilling work started in the spring, and excavation activity has been underway since May. 

The same process is set to repeat itself directly across the street where hoarding was installed in late August along the public sidewalk in front of 42 Charles. Demolition of the 9-storey brick office building that presently stands on the site will start this fall, followed by shoring and excavation for the 56-floor Casa 2 Condominiums tower.

 

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

First SkyBridge taking shape at Pier 27 condos

Pier 27 condos

September 11 2012: Iron framework for the SkyBridge span has been installed atop the two condo highrises on the eastern half of the Residences of Pier 27 construction site

 

Pier 27 condos

This artistic rendering, which appears on a marketing billboard outside the Pier 27 condo construction site, shows how the SkyBridge will appear when complete

 

Pier 27 condos

September 11 201: SkyBridge construction viewed from the public sidewalk along Queen’s Quay Blvd. on the north side of the building site

 

Bridge building: Construction activity at The Residences of Pier 27 has become considerably more fascinating to passersby now that a signature SkyBridge span is fast taking form atop the B1 and B2 buildings on the east half of the condo site.

The first time I noticed that SkyBridge construction had commenced was when I passed the site on August 22, and saw several beams jutting into the air from the west wall of one of the buildings. I couldn’t get back down to the area to take another look until September 3, by which point it appeared that work on the frame was complete.

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Exterior lighting system at Ryerson Image Centre wins architecture design award for use of colour

Ryerson Image Centre photograph by Tom Arban

The LED system in the cladding of the new Ryerson Image Centre and School of Image Arts building on Gould Street glows red in this photograph by Tom Arban

 

Ryerson Image Centre multi-colour lighting photograph by Tom Arban

… and offers a bold multicoloured pattern as seen in this Tom Arban photo

 

Light fantastic: One of my favourite new downtown buildings — the Ryerson Image Centre and School of Image Arts on the Ryerson University campus — has won an architecture industry award for the colourful impact of an LED lighting system built into its exterior.

The faculty and gallery building, designed by the team of Donald Schmitt, Peggy Theodore, Steven Bondar, Liviu Budur, Zvonimir Cicvaric and Tara Plett at Toronto’s Diamond Schmitt Architects, recently received the 2012 AL Light & Architecture Design Award for Best Use of Colour. The annual award is sponsored by Architectural Lighting Magazine whose editor, Elizabeth Donoff, said of the new Ryerson facility: “The work shows moments of articulated restraint as well as moments of exuberant celebration.”

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Milan Condo construction climbs to 5th floor

The Milan Condominium

September 6 2012: Podium and tower construction progress at The Milan Condominium

 

Photo update: Construction of the podium for The Milan Condominium has climbed to five floors, giving an early indication of how drastically the 37-storey tower will dominate the Yonge-Church-Davenport intersection once it’s finished.

Below are several photos I snapped while walking past the construction site on Thursday. Pictures from earlier in the summer and spring can be viewed in my August 12 2012 post and my May 9 2012 report.

 

The Milan Condominium

September 6 2012: The Milan Condominium construction progress viewed from the southwest corner of Yonge Street and Davenport Road, looking east

 

The Milan Condominium

September 6 2012

 

The Milan Condominium

September 6 2012

 

The Milan Condominium

September 6 2012

 

The Milan Condominium

September 6 2012: Construction viewed from the southeast, along upper Church Street

 

The Milan Condominium

September 6 2012

 

 

Motion on Bay construction rises past 20 floors

Motion on Bay apartments

September 7 2012: A view of the Motion on Bay Street rental apartment highrise from atop the podium green roof at Toronto City Hall to the south

 

Motion on Bay apartment highrise

September 7 2012: A look  up the tower’s east side, from Bay Street…

 

Motion on Bay apartment highrise

… and a view of Motion from the northwest, along Dundas Street

 

Photo update: Construction of the Motion on Bay Street rental apartment highrise has passed 20 storeys, on its way to a final floor count of 29.

A project of Concert Properties, the 463-unit building is scheduled for completion next spring.

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

TIFF crowd gets first look at Living Shangri-La as new 5-star hotel/condo tower nears completion

Living Shangri-la Toronto & Fairmont Royal York Hotel Toronto

August 22 2012: The city’s newest 5-star hotel, the Shangri-La Hotel Toronto, looms  to the northwest of the Fairmont Royal York, the grande dame of Toronto luxury hotels

 

Star attraction: The cachet of red carpets and Hollywood celebrities is giving a big pre-opening advertising boost to the Shangri-La Hotel Toronto as the city’s newest 5-star hotel & condo tower nears the end of construction.

It’s not officially open to the travelling public yet, but the Shangri-La is buzzing with energy and excitement as construction crews hurry to put finishing touches on the 202-room hotel at the same time as hordes of movie industry VIPs schmooze and conduct business in the building during the Toronto International Film Festival, which opened Thursday.

When I walked past the hotel yesterday morning, construction crews were scurrying on three sides of the building, especially around the western entrance off Simcoe Street where there was an almost chaotic array of activity underway. Construction tradesworkers weren’t the only people rushing in and out of the hotel; Simcoe and nearby Nelson Street were clogged with traffic as delivery trucks rushed everything from skids of building supplies to carts full of fresh fruit and vegetables into the Shangri-La. Contractors, cleaners and photographers were also streaming in and out of the Soho House Toronto, the private club for creative professionals which will occupy the restored Bishop’s Block heritage building on the southwest corner of the Shangri-La property.

 

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

New fountains are making a splash at City Hall, but most of NPS remains closed for construction

Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall

September 7 2012: New water fountains adds some moisture and motion to the north half of  Nathan Phillips Square in front of City Hall’s clamshell towers …

 

Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall

… while the angular frame for the roof of the  square’s new theatre stage is catching visitors’ interest and attention, too

 

Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall

But extensive maintenance and upgrade construction work continues on the square’s popular reflecting pool/skating rink …

~

Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall

… as does construction on the section of the square between the stage and the new snack bar and skate rental building …

~

Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall

… while the entire west side of the square, where the new Peace Garden will be built, is yet another giant construction zone — much like the rest of downtown Toronto

~

Square gradually getting there: It’s been over a month since I last reported on construction progress for the Nathan Phillips Square revitalization project at City Hall, so I walked over there this morning to see what’s been happening.

As the photos in my July 28 2012 post showed, construction crews still had a long way to go to finish work on the square’s new theatre stage and Peace Garden, along with extensive maintenance and upgrades to the reflecting pool/skating rink.

There hasn’t been significant change over the past five weeks, but there have been noticeable signs of progress.

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Pit stop: The Yorkville Condominiums tower site

The Yorkville condo

August 30 2012:  North view across the excavation for The Yorkville Condominiums, a 31-storey tower being built at the NW corner of Davenport Road and McMurrich Street …

 

The Yorkville condo tower site

… seen here November 1 2010 when construction was just approaching the halfway mark on The Florian condo tower next door. This also was more than a year before low-rise buildings and trees were destroyed for pre-construction site preparation.

 

One up, one to go: Excavation work is in full swing for the second of two condo towers that will completely transform the look and feel of the curved north side of Davenport Road between Bay and McMurrich Streets in Yorkville.

As work on The Florian condos draws close to completion, crews are still digging out the adjacent site to the east where The Yorkville Condominiums, a 31-storey tower, will rise during the next two to three years. Several low-rise buildings once occupied the corner property, including the former offices of Moriyama and Teshima Architects.

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Pit stop: The One Bloor condo tower excavation

One Bloor condos

 September 1 2012: A new month starts with major excavation work remaining in the southwest third of the One Bloor condo tower construction site

 

Still digging: People frequently ask me if foundation building work has started yet on the 75-storey One Bloor condo tower. The short answer, “not yet,” clearly seems to surprise most, who typically ask in response: “What’s taking so long?” I suppose Torontonians are anxious to see a tower finally rise from the site since it has been exactly four years since the retail and restaurant buildings that formerly occupied the block were demolished. People don’t seem to like seeing a big empty space at one of the city’s prime downtown intersections.

The mixed-use condo and retail building is a project of Great Gulf Homes, and was designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects.

My most recent One Bloor construction update post was published on June 16 2012.

Below is a tower rendering that appears on the One Bloor project website, followed by several more pics I shot of the excavation during the Labour Day Weekend.

 

One Bloor condo tower website rendering

This illustration of the Hariri Pontarini-designed tower appears on the One Bloor website

 

1 Bloor

September 1 2012

 

1 Bloor

September 1 2012

 

1 Bloor September 1 2012

September 1 2012

 

1 Bloor

September 1 2012

 

1 Bloor

September 1 2012

 

1 Bloor

September 1 2012

 

 

Trump taking a long time to P above Toronto

Trump Tower Toronto

 The first two letters of the TRUMP logo were installed atop the north side of the 65-storey, 900-foot Trump International Hotel + Tower Toronto by the end of May …

 

Trump Toronto Tower

… but as of the 2012 Labour Day Weekend, the P still wasn’t in place because construction hasn’t yet finished on the tower’s distinctive “quarter onion” and spire

 

 Waiting for a big P: When I last posted photos of the Trump International Hotel + Tower Toronto on June 8 2012, I wrote that installation of the giant Trump logo near the top of the building’s north side “signals that completion of exterior construction isn’t far off.”

I was wrong.

Although the hotel has been open for business since early this year, work on the exterior upper reaches of the 900-foot, 65-storey tower still isn’t complete. In particular, the P hasn’t been added to the rest of the Trump logo because crews are still finishing work on the signature “quarter onion” and spire segments of the building that rise from the tower’s northwest corner.

Several times on August 31, I saw construction workers climbing to and from the “crow’s nest” on the spire, so I know the contractors are hurrying to complete the building.

But even though the full Trump logo isn’t yet making its mark on the city skyline, the tower’s illuminated spire is. For several weeks in June, downtown residents saw test-runs of the spire’s lighting system, which reminded many Torontonians of the lightsabers in the Star Wars movies. Although the June testing showed the system’s multicolour capabilities, the spire has emitted a only a pale pink glow above the Financial District since then.

Fingers crossed that the logo will be completely installed by Thanksgiving.