
Stacking boxes in downtown Toronto

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Sharing a downtown Toronto city block with the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Ontario College of Art and Design, 12 Degrees is a mid-rise urban infill project that employs a plan rotation strategy to produce a “stacked box” massing effect. The 90-unit, 11-story condo building fits tightly into a compact urban infill lot that measures just over 100 by 100 feet.
The tower’s base interfaces with the nearby Victorian homes characteristic of historic Grange Park—a residential neighborhood consisting of housing stock ranging from semi-detached townhouses to mansions constructed in the 1800s. Set at three stories tall to match neighboring historic masonry homes, the ledgerock-clad base of the tower features a repetitive set of two-story tall projecting bays clad in black zinc.
Beyond the base of the tower, the upper stories are composed of three sets of offset plans, including a rotated glass-clad mid-section. All of the upper floors are clad in a unitized dark gray aluminum window wall system with prefinished aluminum soffit panels. One of the benefits of the system, which can be installed in buildings up to 50 stories high, is that the glass panels can be installed from the interior. Outdoor terraces are located opportunistically in areas where a plan has shifted or rotated. These exterior spaces are contained by glass guardrails with a panelization that—from below—is camouflaged into the composition of the elevation.
- Facade Manufacturer Primeline Windows and Doors
- Architects CORE Architects
- Facade Installer Primeline Windows and Doors
- Facade Consultants SPL Consultants Limited
- Location Toronto, Ontario (Canada)
- Date of Completion 2016
- System reinforced concrete
- Products Unitized dark grey aluminum window wall prefinished aluminum soffit panels. ‘Manganese Ironspot’ Brick w/ black precast coping. ‘Wiarton Black’ Limestone, ‘Anthrazic’ zinc panels. ‘Ipe’ wood canopy, entry/TH doors, pool deck and trellis