As a series of interventions at a variety of scales, these projects carry an inherent attitude, a defined and somewhat articulate valuation of both the existing and historic richness of the neighbourhood, as well as the latent opportunities intrinsic to a range of scales here.
Design Guidelines
Urban Surgery: Yorkville 2.0
Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood has been the site of a number of Giannone Petricone’s projects ranging from the reimagination of the public spaces that define Cumberland Terrace, to surgical building interventions, and even to interior spaces of the 1960’s Manulife Centre. Yorkville 2.0 makes a case for ‘City is in the Details’ from “Base” to “Middle” to “Top.”
Urban Surgery: Yorkville 2.0 examines the urban implications of nudging the scale and density distribution with infill projects such as 80–82 Bloor, 771 Yonge Street, and 321 Davenport, as well as new textures at the pedestrian scale. When these tall projects hit the ground and expand to a redesigned Cumberland Terrace, what hangs in the balance is a less than systematic approach of fine to coarse grain interventions from street to sky.
771 Yonge: At its base, a 19th C. heritage structure creates an understood street scale. In the middle, ‘glass state’ balcony boxes as closed and open loggias. At the top, pin wheel rotation captures south and west axes between existing towers.
Cumberland Terrace: At its base, an outdoor public park and paved pedestrian laneways covered by a gauzy ceiling of light; while the square reinvigorates the surrounding Victorian remnants and draws them into focus. In the middle, various multi-story porticoes culminate into two towers that anchor each end of the block. At the top, future observation decks mingle with mechanical penthouses designed to be viewed from skyward neighbours.
Eataly & Over the Rainbow: At its base, sewn into the iconic, 1960’s Manulife Centre are linings of wood, terrazzo, forged metal, and felt.
80–82 Bloor: At the base, the podium is stitched and tailored to the existing street related fabric. In the middle, a textile that drapes, tucks, and pleats over an otherwise orthogonal volume. At the top, the “fringe” of the glass textile tapers to pronounce a strong unified identity on the city skyline.
Three Twenty One Davenport: At its base, controlled and ‘tucked’ against the residential neighbours, and voluptuous and ‘untucked’ at the curving main street. In the middle, new datum lines are defined by the architectural elements to set the scale for future infill of the midrise development along Davenport Road.
