The Thompson Hotel and Residences is a vibrant mixed-use development that anchors the intersection of Bathurst Street and Wellington Street West in Toronto’s King West Village. The program incorporates residential, hotel and hospitality components, including a 95-room boutique hotel with a rooftop bar and pool, conference facilities, and ground floor restaurants; and a 326-unit condominium with amenity space on the third floor and at grade. The parti expresses the project’s programmatic elements clearly and elegantly. Three bar buildings span the block from north to south, linked by a connecting volume that runs the length of the block along its northern edge. The western-most bar building, dramatically skinned in clear and translucent glass, houses the hotel and hospitality program and addresses Bathurst Street directly. The three residential buildings are oriented toward the quiet side streets to the north and south, and step down in height to meet the rooflines of the vestigial rowhouses and warehouse buildings on the surrounding sidestreets. The bays between the bar buildings have been fashioned into a pair of garden courts that establish a connection between the Thompson and Victoria Memorial Park, an intimate city park on the south side of Wellington Street.
Thompson Hotel | 550 Wellington
Comments
Balconies
Personally, I really dislike broken and partial balconies. It makes a building look nervous, and makes me think that the balcony was a must but the cost of complete balconies was felt to be too high. Look at the long facade of this building with all of the broken boxcar balconies. Not pretty. Looks like a 1960s public housing building
Partial balconies are a creative opportunity
But most 1960s residential buildings had unbroken balconies to the point that it got very boring. "Partial balconies" are a way of adding creative touches to a Modern building in their arrangement.
I like how the shifts in the
I like how the shifts in the building's function seem to be indicated by the types of glass used, with a subtle yet clear variation. The glass facing Bathurst is fantastic, looking almost as if it were to liquify with its smaller number of mullions. Unfortunately, the heritage facade has been sloppily integrated with the new building and seems trivial, which is not indicative of good preservation. The building responds to its surroundings through scale, and the amenities and bars are arranged smartly to take advantage of the views of the city and make the most of the beautiful urban setting. It even has an outdoor heated pool with a view of the city. It's a polished hotel/residential building.
a glass mess.
a glass mess..indistinguishable from the rest of the messy glass boxes which are quickly becoming Toronto's defining "new" architecture...
We need a "ho hum" button.
We need a "ho hum" button.
Bit of a mish-mash, no?
Kind of exemplifies the condo "lifestyle" hysteria Toronto has succumbed to.
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D -
hey we have this cool art deco building in the front let's just ignore those aesthetics completely and build a super boring glass box behind it