Tag Archives: industrial structure
Industrial Carlaw evolving into residential neighbourhood
Christopher Hume
Carlaw Ave. is the new Spadina Ave. This old industrial street is fast becoming a mixed-use residential neighbourhood. The transformation, which would have been unthinkable even a decade ago, still isn’t complete but is well underway. So far, the change from warehouse to condo, industrial to residential, has been achieved without gentrification. Not that it would be easy to prettify this part of town. Ironically, it’s not the early 20th-century factories that keep things gritty, it’s the housing stock, which tends to be small and very modest.
But on an early weekday morning, Carlaw is busy and every bit a part of the city. Much of the retail and commercial activity now happens on the west side of the street north of Queen in cavernous structures that seem to occupy acres. The east side of Carlaw has become residential, with marvellous former industrial heaps, such as the Wrigley Building, now fully redone as condos.
Queen St. E., of course, is the new Queen West, teeming with life and vitality. The rough patches haven’t disappeared, but now they’re the exception rather than the rule.
Condo Critic – The Garment Factory Lofts, 233 Carlaw Avenue
This remake of an old sweatshop sets a standard for adaptive re-use projects. Starting with a mid-20th-century brown brick slab, this loft conversion development manages to integrate new and old seamlessly.
Best of all is the treatment of the original Garment Factory Carlaw facade: the windows on the upper three storeys have been turned into openings that look onto several rows of recessed balconies. In this way, the alterations highlight and play to the architectural strengths of the factory. It’s also a clever and effective way to transform an industrial structure into something more domestic.
Most such adaptations merely incorporate existing facades and leave things pretty much as they were. There’s nothing wrong with that, but The Garment Factory Lofts make it clear that more intervention doesn’t necessarily mean less heritage.
Indeed, in its new incarnation, this building offers a unique glimpse into the industrial aesthetic of a different time.
It reveals an unexpected beauty derived from simplicity and restraint. The ground-floor podium, clad in stone, presents a dignified face to the world but without overdoing things.
A glass ramp has been added to the front, which doesn’t overpower the building. The big changes are on top where several storeys have been piled on. Set back from the edge of the existing structure, this extra bulk looks natural and feels comfortable.
Standing eight storeys, the Garment Factory Lofts fit well on a street that remains surprisingly lowrise. The building directly south, for example, stands only two floors tall.
The metamorphosis of Carlaw remains a work in progress, but already enough has happened to know that this part of east Toronto has an interesting second life ahead.
GRADE: A
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
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Saving Toronto heritage ensures city’s future
Christopher Hume – Toronto Star
When a city has to decide what it wants — past or future — the answer is obvious: both.
For decades, it has been simpler just to tear down anything that stood in the way. Starting in the 1950s, modernism’s glory years, we demolished our history with gleeful abandon. Architectural heritage, no matter how significant, paled in comparison to the brilliance that lay ahead.
Things didn’t turn out quite as expected, and while the rush to the future slows, the value of the past becomes ever harder to ignore. And we’re not just talking about aesthetics, though God knows, the 19th century was eons ahead of the 21st in its understanding of urban architecture. It turns out that even the lowliest industrial structures — warehouses, factories, bakeries — are paragons of flexibility. Used and reused, they have enabled the revitalization of much of downtown Toronto, especially the Entertainment District.
Think of the area along Peter St. between Queen and Richmond Sts. Like much of the city’s lower west end, this is a neighbourhood that once was grimy and industrial. Nowadays, it is anything but; many of those magnificent brick buildings where workers once toiled are now remade as offices, lofts, shops, restaurants and bars — but much remains to be done to realize their full potential.
“These old structures are excellent,” says Toronto architect Dermot Sweeny, “but all the other systems are junk.” That includes air-conditioning, heating, wiring, the sort of internal infrastructure we generally take for granted. At the same time, the quality of 19th- and early 20th-century architecture and construction are superior in every other way to contemporary stuff.
Although there’s endless demand for corporate office space in the core, many businesses want something other than standard-issue highrise quarters. After all, not every outfit is a bank, a financial institution or an insurance company. Other more “creative” companies actually prefer the character of older spaces with their masonry walls, wooden beams, high ceilings and wide plank floors. These structures have the handmade look of an earlier era, something that stands in stark contrast to the out-of-the-catalogue design of more recently constructed buildings.
“The demand for this sort of office space is unlimited,” insists Michael Emory, president and CEO of Allied Properties, a Toronto-based real-estate firm that renovates and rents former industrial structures. “These old buildings present an extraordinarily compelling case for our clients.”
Emory’s current focus is a trio of early 20th-century heaps on the northwest corner of Richmond and Peter, one of which once served as a Weston bakery. Though the three buildings sit beside each another, there’s plenty of space around them, space that could be reorganized to add density to the area.
“Everything between the buildings sits empty,” says Sweeney, whose firm, Sweeny Sterling Finlayson & Co., includes Allied as a client. “The old factory district does not have the density to sustain a good mix of uses.”
His answer is to fill in these in-between spaces and put an addition on top of the largest of the structures — the bakery — thus preserving the original buildings intact and helping to create the kind of critical mass of jobs and people needed to keep the city healthy. Sweeny envisions an 11-storey vertical glass extension perched above the red-brick box at 134 Peter St. The addition reaches west of its host building to become the top of an atrium carved out of what’s now empty space.
“The new building starts 75 feet up in the air,” Sweeny explains, “well above the two existing buildings below. We’ve discovered that one of the issues is the need to make better use of these great old buildings and the land around them. In this project, there’s about half an acre of empty land currently used for parking. The question for us is how to charge residual space with new life. The void between buildings is often as important as buildings themselves.”
Sweeny refers to the “Two Kings,” an innovative program initiated by the old City of Toronto that eliminated traditional land-use rules at King and Parliament and King and Bathurst. Both locations experienced a boom that led to the renovation of up to four million square feet of old industrial space.
“The net result,” says Sweeny, “was affordable and interesting space for companies looking for an alternative to the standard office building — and at a reasonable cost. The strategy worked well; the buildings are full.”
He also points out that these interventions can be designed to maximize the green potential of the complex-to-be. That will mean energy reductions of 50 to 60%.
And as Emory notes, “I don’t think you can build new office space today without LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. You’d be a fool to try. It’s a new best practice you can’t ignore.”
Of course, this project will win points simply by incorporating existing structures; the energy embedded in these old buildings and others is enough to propel Toronto well into the future — and keep the city connected to its past. That’s the civic version of having your cake and eating it, too.
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
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Lofts at home on the factory floor
Loft makes a great live/work space
By Kathy Flaxman – Globe and Mail
Carlaw Avenue south of Dundas Street was a sleeves-rolled-up, working-class area for decades. In the 1950s, factories such as Colgate Palmolive and Wrigley spit out shampoo, toothpaste, spearmint gum and other products by the railcarload.
But with those factories closed, the area on the eastern edge of Riverdale is now a mixed bag of buildings. Graphic designers and architects nose up against car-repair bays. You’ll never find a Gap or Holt Renfrew there, of course, but there are places to buy custom lighting and a really good sandwich. And there also are authentic hard lofts in those old industrial structures.
That’s what lured professional photographer Chris McKie to an area he had once disliked – a bright, high-ceilinged loft conversion that could also be his studio.
Mr. McKie had driven through the Dundas and Carlaw intersection many times, always thinking to himself that he’d never want to live there. It possessed none of the serenity of his home in the Beaches, steps from Lake Ontario.
One corner of the intersection, occupied by a towing lot complete with sadly ticketed and somewhat derelict cars, could be described as “early wrecking yard.” A series of serviceable-looking former factories were similarly unprepossessing. “I was used to being able to step outside and enjoy the lake from my patio or front steps,” he says.
But, after months of looking across Toronto for an apartment/studio, Mr. McKie decided to take a look at a converted factory in the Carlaw and Dundas area. Driving through the area was one thing, checking out a loft was another.
When he first opened the door to the authentic loft in the former Wrigley factory, where he has rented for a year and a half, he was immediately captured.
He loved the space and the lighting, and yes, the view. He thought it was all stunning.
“I knew immediately I had found what I was looking for,” he recalls. “I’d seen a series of dark and depressing places; it’s appalling what some landlords expect people to endure. I was the first person to call about this place and the first to see it – I was half an hour early for my appointment. The door opened and that was it.”
Bright, almost blindingly so, Mr. McKie’s loft on the top floor of the five-storey building can be dazzling even on a cold and drizzly April afternoon. It’s partly the quality of the light that enchants him.
“Facing east, I get the morning sun – fully,” he points out. “In the evening, the view is illuminated by the setting sun. That apartment building over there is entirely lit up, naturally. It’s a breathtaking sight. In the middle of the day, the light is beautiful and clean – exactly the type of light that lends itself to the black and white portraits I like to do.”
The light, described so vividly and dramatically, pours in through a wall of windows – nine feet, top to bottom – along the entire east wall. Most of the loft is painted white, which adds to the impact, with one dramatic blue wall and a red one opposite. Ceilings are 13 feet high, and there are soaring mushroom-shaped pillars, the actual structural bones holding the building together.
“When this building was converted from the Wrigley factory over 10 years ago, people just took the space they fancied,” Mr. McKie explains. “Each floor is different. The halls and individual units fall in different places. And the lofts themselves vary a great deal, too. Mine is bare bones: 600 square feet plus sleeping area, with a painted concrete floor. But some [units] have granite and marble and stainless steel.
“About a third of the building is people who live here,” he adds, “another third… live and work here, with the final third… work [here] and live somewhere else.”
Mr. McKie falls in the live/work category. His photography paraphernalia provides visual interest to the overall decor. Suspended from the ceiling are a series of rolled backdrops: a white, two blues, one black and one brown. The silvered umbrella-shaped lights used for subtle photographic effects serve a dual purpose.
“Those are called soft boxes,” he explains. “They’re my house lights too, because they give a nice soft lighting. And at the same time, the way things are set up, everything is ready for shooting pictures, any time.”
The windows were not airtight when he moved in, so he carefully repaired them using papier-mache. On the ceiling, along with the tubing of the sprinkler system, is a wide ceiling fan. It’s all very functional, and remarkably easy to maintain, thanks to the movable industrial stairs that are used to ascend to the bedroom loft.
“I can move the stairs and clean my loft in minutes,” Mr. McKie says, adding that “the building management is very safety-conscious, and we have frequent fire drills.”
Adapting to the neighbourhood has apparently not been a challenge. The tree-top view from what Mr. McKie calls his aerie, has made any adjustment easier. There are shops at nearby Gerrard Square, but he prefers to head further south to Queen Street East, where newspapers, magazines and coffee are available alongside fresh vegetables and fruit. There also is a growing number of good restaurants, and when he wants his car repaired, he can simply walk home.
“When I was a photography student years ago,” Mr. McKie says, “I saw a wonderful loft where my professor lived. It was stunning, and I never thought I would have the opportunity to live in one myself. Now, I am a tenant, but I am thinking of buying this place, and perhaps trying to add a second bedroom area. I am delighted to live here, and wake up thrilled every day.”
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information
Incoming search terms
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