This, according to a NYC government website , equals 8,660 active shed permits covering 1,959,444 linear feet. And on average, these construction sheds are erected for 493 days. If you've been to New York recently, this will all sound right to you.
I thought I had read somewhere that this has to do with a property tax benefit. Something about if you keep your hoarding up after construction completion, you can avoid immediate reassessment.
But according to some sources, the proliferation of sheds is mostly driven by the city's Facade Inspection & Safety Program , which requires that all buildings taller than 6 floors have their facades closely inspected every 5 five years.
So presumably, keeping these up for an extended period of time is the less costly and less risky option.
You may not have ever used this exact term before, but I'm sure that most of you know what it is. On his blog over the weekend, Witold Rybczynski wrote about a new architectural term he just learned called: "multiple expression." What it refers to is the use of different architectural styles on a long facade in order for the building to appear as if it's multiple smaller ones.
And today, I would say that this is largely viewed as a positive thing. Typically it is done to "break up a massing" or create a "fine-grained retail experience." In fact, you'll find things like this in some design guidelines. Here's one from Toronto's mid-rise performance standards:
This doesn't explicitly stipulate that architects should use "multiple expressions", but it does suggest that long repetitive facades are suboptimal, and that they should be broken up. But Witold's view is the opposite. He argues that this "bespeaks a lack of confidence, a poverty of the imagination." And he gives the example of Park Crescent in London, designed by architect John Nash.
It's long (well over 60m) and it's repetitive:
Perhaps a good counter example to this would be Mirvish Village in Toronto, which was designed by Henriquez Partners and which has been largely celebrated as a way of creating the feeling of fine-grained urbanism in a larger master-planned development. Here it is on Google, still under construction:
So what is it that makes Mirvish Village a generally desirable outcome in today's planning environment, even though I suspect that most people would still appreciate what John Nash did on Park Crescent back in the early 1800s? Are we saying -- with our guidelines -- that we like Park Crescent, but that we shouldn't do that ever again today?
And to what extent do age and architectural style play into these opinions? Are long repetitive facades over 60m acceptable as long as the architectural style is "Regency" and the buildings aren't too tall? Is modernism the problem? Because here's another example from London: The Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate .
Built in the 1970s, it is a Brutalist housing estate with a largely repetitive design, and even a slight curve reminiscent of Park Crescent:
Does this have confidence and imagination? Witold would probably say no.
In the end, I guess the answer is that it all depends. Guidelines are just that -- guides. They are not set in stone rules that must never be broken under any circumstances. That would be to reduce architecture to a strict science, and there's clearly also an art component to building great cities.
"Multiple expression" is usually done to create the feeling of finer-grained urbanism. But sometimes -- if you're old and regal-looking enough -- the opposite can be okay too.
This past week we poured the first bit of concrete in the giant rat slab foundation (or mat foundation) that sits, or will sit, at the bottom of One Delisle . At its deepest point, below the building's core, it will be over 4m tall. Meaning, the area occupied by the gentlemen in the above photo will be fully covered in concrete when it's complete. Note the height of the rebar in the middle of the photo. This picture doesn't even do it justice, though. You need to be on site and down in the bottom of the hole to really feel it. There's a lot of bar, and it's going to be very deep.
In our case, this raft slab foundation will, as it sounds, serve as the building's foundation. This is what the tower will rest on. However, raft slabs can also serve the function of withstanding hydrostatic pressures from below (groundwater). That is the case with the raft slab foundation at Junction House given that we have a watertight "bathtub" design for the underground. However, that's not the case here at One Delisle, as the groundwater levels aren't as high and this will not be a "bathtubbed" underground. So the job of this giant slab is as a mat foundation.
Disclaimer: I am not a structural engineer or a hydrogeological engineer. What do I know?
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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
