GEO TOWER

GEO TOWER

The site for this conceptual project, a rental housing complex, is in Toronto’s core, at the northwest corner of Dundas Street West and McCaul Street, just north of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Being so close to the AGO – one of Canada’s most distinguished art galleries – our site immediately became tasked with many design challenges, all of which needed to respect and defer to this great Canadian cultural institution.

Urban Design
As this project’s site was long and narrow (north/south), we decided to modify its east side, to open it to the AGO, thus offering grander views of the institution from the corner of Dundas Street West and McCaul Street. As such, the project’s boxy flamed black granite base was given an angled cut, opening it to the AGO across the street and the sky. This simple architectural move resulted in the site’s corner feeling brighter and somehow lighter in this urban context.

Continuing with the idea of opening the site’s southwest corner, the east facade of the residential tower was also given an angled cut, but this time sloping in the opposite direction. As such, the tower, like the project’s base, defers to the AGO and acknowledges its significance. However, with the residential tower being much taller than the AGO, its architecture is now capable of relaying the gallery’s cultural distinction from a great distance, especially as one is looking west towards the site, along Dundas Street West.

Architecture
As the design for this residential project developed and its massing became more faceted stemming from our urban design responses, we suddenly made an abstract connection with the architectural language we were creating and that of the AGO’s. When looking closely at the gallery’s rolling exterior glass walls, especially those fronting onto Dundas Street West, it is not hard to imagine they might have been inspired by natural geological formations, like “The Wave”, the iconic undulating stone land mass found on the Arizona-Utah border. As an interesting parallel, these faceted forms can also be found in cut gemstones like diamonds.

Knowing this, we began to imagine our project as a geological form, as if made from solid rock. As we expanded on this idea, we decided the residential tower floor plates needed to push beyond the unit’s glass boundary, giving the tower a repeated horizontal architecture like the horizontal lines found in stratified rock.

To render these same horizontal floor plates with a more geological quality, we pigmented the concrete plates with an orange/cinnamon colour, connecting them directly to Toronto’s dominant red brick architecture.

Interior Architecture
To distinguish our interiors from the competition’s typically white interiors, we carried the orange/cinnamon concrete floor plates on the building’s exterior into the units and exposed them on the ceiling. As such, wherever concrete was present, it was given the same pigmented tone and presented as a finished material. With that decision in place, the units were provided with a very limited palette of materials: pigmented concrete (walls and ceilings), white gypsum board (walls) and black slate (floors). This consistent use of a singular material – pigmented concrete – parallels the consistent use of brick in converted lofts, common to Toronto.

As a result, the aesthetics of our proposed unit interiors are unique for a tall residential project, placing them somewhere between the everyday white interiors of most condominiums and the brick interiors of converted Toronto lofts.

LOCATION: Toronto, Ontario

ARCHITECT: LINEVISION Architects

DESIGN LEADERSHIP: Michael Poitras,
Principal-in-Charge of Design

CLIENT: Withheld

STATISTICS:

  • No. of storeys: 26 + rooftop terrace
  • Total floor area:
    141,457 ft2 (13,142 m2)

MATERIALS:

  • Flamed black granite (base)
  • Pigmented concrete (orange/cinnamon)
  • Black curtain wall windows & doors
  • Black louvered pre-finished metal
  • Silver pre-finished metal canopy (roof terrace canopy)
  • Glass guardrails
  • Grey Kelmar topping (balconies)
  • Grey composite wood decking (roof terrace)
  • Outdoor landscaping

GENERAL PROGRAM:

  • Residential:
    Total no. of units: 172 (mixture of 1,2 & 3-bedroom units)
    + 3 retail units at ground floor
  • Retail
  • Lobby
  • Amenity area
  • Loading dock: 1

COST: Withheld

COMPLETION: Project