Alex Bozikovic
@alexbozikovic
Architecture critic @theglobeandmail.com. Also author, @utoronto.ca Daniels Faculty instructor, husband, father of two city kids.
If you are irrationally afraid to use this park, as Mr. Goldstein seems to be, you can take your kids to one of the other small, idyllic parks nearby. They’re nice.
So: one violent incident, poor maintenance, young adults having fun, and some anti-Israel stickers. Plus one time, a heavily policed Maple MAGA protest that resulted in some shoving. If this is your idea of unacceptable disorder, then perhaps a city is not for you.
“It’s an important contributor to our economy. The Toronto economy needs it.” - Gherson, once again. Why? “It’s a huge connector… ease of access.” What exactly does that mean? What is the argument specifically? podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t...
Harley Finkelstein joining the chorus. A "serious city" doesn't have an airport within 2km of its CBD, adjacent to its most important park. No other airport in the world has a site like this. London City is not comparable.
Tobi Lutke, backing a scheme that makes zero sense, and being rude to those who successfully defended Toronto’s crucial asset
The provincial government didn’t explain or justify the thing because it can’t be justified. This expansion was driven by lobbying from JP Morgan and vibes. Doug Ford is not a YIMBY. He’s done nearly nothing on housing reform but has wasted huge sums on destructive crony capitalist nonsense.
Irritating to see the Toronto island airport battle framed as NIMBYism. This was a project with zero business case that would have destroyed economic value and soft power – and stopped homebuilding! It was a terrible project that deserved to die. When people say no, sometimes they are correct.
Biidaasige Park West, Toronto, opening day. MVVA and waterfront toronto win again.
Everything DSAI touches has a big atrium lined with honey-coloured wood and then endless glazing at the street. All that glassed-in lobby space will be a dead zone 80% of the time. DSAI clearly do not understand what makes a space like this work in an urban context.
This is… pretty much a normal Saturday in Montreal. Toronto is so starved for collective experience. So many people don’t understand that things other than football games can create it.
It’s going to be magnificent, but also it really does look like the world is ending
Touring the new section of Biidaasige Park (MVVA) on Toronto’s waterfront. Under apocalyptic skies.
Still, the conclusion is clear enough: building within existing cities, obviously makes more fiscal sense, but US public policy is slanted to do the opposite
The Bain Apartments were one of two (2) projects by the Toronto Housing Company before it collapsed. It is 260 apartments built on an empty site. To reproduce it you’d need to buy and demolish 80 houses at $2-million each. Vast sums (and impossible political hurdles) for 260 apartments.
It’s a bloated shed on a steep hill surrounded by traffic sewers and empty space. It has absolutely nothing in common, on any level, with the Montreal Grande Bibliotheque
“Best of all, the public was consulted in meaningful ways.” Consultation isA more important than the actual characteristics of the building
“Optimizing airport infrastructure” and “generating economic development and job creation.” These questions are clearly biased.
The government is stipulating that this airport expansion will provide “economic benefits for Canada,”’an assertion that is completely unproven and likely wrong
The Andrews Building at University of Toronto Scarborough, John Andrews, 1966. Absolutely astonishing. I had forgotten how great it is.
Mecanoo mass timber at @uoftpress.bsky.social Trinity College. It’s good.
The report itself does note the role of “social and purpose-built rental” - quite a conflation since 80% of rental in Toronto is market-rate.
So the AGO, the biggest art museum in Canada, is renovating its gift shop. For designers they’ve chosen a mediocre corporate firm, B&H. Design is culture. Hiring designers is patronage. For this you hire a) emerging local architects b) Yabu Pushelberg, or c) a global innovator. A huge failure.
Unfortunately, this report doesn’t mention the one response that has actually worked at scale in Canada: allowing more market housing to get built in affluent areas, so that wealthier people stop pushing others out. We need stronger tenant protections, but also M/T/V need much more housing.
The old centre was 568,000 ft.². The new one is 280,000 ft.² (The province is floating a misleading number of 400k but that reflects a math error, plus 120k is a parking garage.) The old building’s exhibition space was 134k. The new one has 120k. Not bigger. Smaller.