Start looking at your residential units and layouts immediately. The issue is critical now because you have bifurcated your floor plans due to the atrium (which is fine, but it means you have to start thinking about how the spaces work). Is there going to be a series of bridges between the components of the residential plates or is it going to be simply a thin corridor along the north end with the elevator? The light well could also serve as a device to encourage a common gathering space on the residential levels but unfortunately you have not made it clear. You seem to indicate such thinking in your massing diagram, but it's hard to negotiate that idea without plans. Your ground floor is odd in that the ONLY entrance to your building is off Gould. You have no entry potential off Yonge which is rather strange. You suffer from a situation where your ground floor is still developing and open ended such as the space in the middle of your DMZ, what actually goes on in the lobby, and most noticeably, the huge allocation of space to the cafe. Not only is this a problem because it is a cop out for space allocation, but worse still is that you have not articulated any relationship with the DMZ. It reads like mall where there is a central atrium with units (i.e. a restaurant and the DMZ) that are totally unrelated sharing that space. There is such discrete zone creation in the ground plan that it seems like you don't even know how spaces would work with each other (i.e. functional relationships). Why does your mailroom and admin (which I gather would be related to both the grad residence and the DMZ) be tucked in the back of the cafe zone? Also look to what utilitarian things such as the loading, mechanical, storage, and washroom requirements must be integrated as you really have not addressed that in your design. Formally I get worried about the massing of this design as it is a combination of the adjacent HMV rotunda (except on the North face) mixed with the brutalism found on the library building (except on the Yonge St. face). I look forward to you allaying these concerns in the redesign.
Start looking at your residential units and layouts immediately. The issue is critical now because you have bifurcated your floor plans due to the atrium (which is fine, but it means you have to start thinking about how the spaces work). Is there going to be a series of bridges between the components of the residential plates or is it going to be simply a thin corridor along the north end with the elevator?
ReplyDeleteThe light well could also serve as a device to encourage a common gathering space on the residential levels but unfortunately you have not made it clear. You seem to indicate such thinking in your massing diagram, but it's hard to negotiate that idea without plans.
Your ground floor is odd in that the ONLY entrance to your building is off Gould. You have no entry potential off Yonge which is rather strange. You suffer from a situation where your ground floor is still developing and open ended such as the space in the middle of your DMZ, what actually goes on in the lobby, and most noticeably, the huge allocation of space to the cafe. Not only is this a problem because it is a cop out for space allocation, but worse still is that you have not articulated any relationship with the DMZ. It reads like mall where there is a central atrium with units (i.e. a restaurant and the DMZ) that are totally unrelated sharing that space. There is such discrete zone creation in the ground plan that it seems like you don't even know how spaces would work with each other (i.e. functional relationships). Why does your mailroom and admin (which I gather would be related to both the grad residence and the DMZ) be tucked in the back of the cafe zone?
Also look to what utilitarian things such as the loading, mechanical, storage, and washroom requirements must be integrated as you really have not addressed that in your design.
Formally I get worried about the massing of this design as it is a combination of the adjacent HMV rotunda (except on the North face) mixed with the brutalism found on the library building (except on the Yonge St. face). I look forward to you allaying these concerns in the redesign.