The Berkeley Playing Fields

I love it when architecture creates a strong reaction! I enjoyed your perspective on the protective aspect of this design. My own reaction was quite different. Like the OCAD building, I find the suspended overtop design a bit anxiety-producing. When I see the drawing my initial interpretation was one of consistent threat to the building below - though seeing the side drawing I can imagine coming closer to your view.

Thanks for sharing the project and the perspectives!

While i do believe that this city is indeed suffering from a lack of innovative and creative design, there was more in play in this case then what you have stated.

This project was rejected for many reasons, including the fact that the area is a protected heritage district of which this project takes no account of.

That being said, the design is not that innovative or creative to begin with. All it has going for it is that it wouldve been built over and around a heritage structure (thereby destroying any contextual value said structure would have). Otherwise it looks like every other green-glass and steel condo going up in this city.

This isn't great architecture, it's a stunt. That church looks like it's parked in a carport.

Whats the big deal here? Building projects get proposed and sent back to the drawing board constantly. Yes, even the sustainable ones. This proposal seems destined to have that fate, if nothing else but for it's height. Architecture, yo! It can be a bitch.

I find it disappointing that an exciting project - even if not the most amazing architectural design ever, but a conversation piece at any rate - could get this far and not seem to garner one iota of support from city planners. There's too much about the project that is consistent with Toronto's stated goals to just brush it aside.

absolutely effing ugly.... preservation is good but the condo here is a new form of brutalism: brutalism in glass and steel...yuck!

Glad it's gone

"Like the OCAD building, I find the suspended overtop design a bit anxiety-producing"

me too! i find i can't walk past ocad without reflexively hunching down away from it. this proposal looks like some sort of blight attacking and taking over.

I agree with this post. Some of these comments sound like they're from people who don't like actually living in a city.

The only difference between this condo project and all the others, from a visual standpoint, is that it has a whole church under it. It's a gimmick, not good architecture.

Jumbled stacks of sterile glass surfaces is not good design, it's directionless and trendy.

Like the new ROM I find building over or adding to old pre-existing buildings to be over the top! Overtaking older landmarks with modern design isn't cool...

Build new interesting, modern buildings! But leave the old grand daddy and stunning architecture of the past to shine as it was meant to even in a modern city!

Yes it is gimmicky and that didn't help its chances of being approved at City Hall but the deal killer for this project right off the bat was likely the height - over 20 storeys in an area where city officials want to keep things to around 5 or 6. c.f. East Side Lofts.

City Hall's fear of tall buildings on streets that aren't named Yonge or Bay continues...

While the concept of the building looks interesting - the city probably nixed it with good reason. If you take a look at the floor plans listed on their website they have giant areas dedicated to 'environmental concepts'. Now, any architect will tell you an environmentally friendly building isn't formed from a couple of rooms on the first floor - but a whole building strategy. Although, I doubt the developer had any intention on keeping those rooms as 'environmental concepts' - those giant open floor plans scream retail, and not much more. The rendering's make the building out to be fully glazed - which is also a giant no no when it comes to environmental sustainability.

The building looks like a stunt by the developer to get the most money out of their square footage, without much thought about context or architecture. Just because the rendering is flashy and colourful doesn't make it a good building - just look at the scale of the streetcar in comparison to the building - it's huge! There's nothing that comes close to that size on queen east.

@Citydweller re:
"I agree with this post. Some of these comments sound like they're from people who don't like actually living in a city."

WOW.

Let me see if I have this right, if people dont like the same building (see: ugly architecture) being built over and over again in a city they must not like living there?

I think that pretty much speaks for itself there...

Thats all I have to say about that

So, A|Layton, what's your notion of "innovative or creative"?

Many years ago, right at the corner of King and Simcoe, across from Roy Thompson Hall, stood a beautiful stone church. There was a plan to put up a gold-tinted condo that matched perfectly. As far as I recall, it was approved, but it's been so long since I was in downtown Toronto that I don't even know if it ever went up. (The plan was proposed around 1989.)

Now compare to the Berkeley Fields. I love the condo's unique design, and the church, but surely you don't think that overhang structure actually looks good?

@jonson - I like that this is an exciting and ambitious project. The design may be over the top, as is, but for me, there's far more good than bad, and with collaboration between developer and city planners, I think something stunning could be done. And I like that it inspires conversation. Even if most of the commenters here blast it.

You've been drinking the green kool-aid. The "sustainable" aspects of this were probably unfeasible and unlikely to have actually been built. The architecture, whatever its merits, was unrelated to the sustainability -- any condo can be green if the developer chooses, but it requires a commitment from the developer that the higher costs will bring a return, and the Toronto market is a little behind in this regard. (Condos in Toronto are smaller and more of a starter-home/empty nest price-sensitive product than in, say, New York) Hopefully that will change, but I see that change coming incrementally in more conventional projects rather than the Stinson-esque fanstasy shown here.

Actually, I take that back. I just looked at the project website and the "sustainable features" were utterly pedestrian and not noteworthy. So I'm not sure as to why the writers think this was such a green project. A LEED building would have ten times the "sustainable design" that this would have.

Is this design a joke?

I mean, after Spire, where the dev's "bought" the 20 floors above the Church across the street, but then moved them on top of their own 20 floors, this design literally proposes to use the space above the church??

What about light access to the church? I suppose stained glass windows are out of fashion now anyway.

So, would this change who the people in the church pray to?