Architecture

Slender skyscraper would be Canada's tallest

View 3 Images
Assuming it goes ahead, 1200 Bay Street will be 324 m (1,062 ft) tall and take up a site measuring just 890 sq m (2,919 ft)
Herzog & de Meuron
Assuming it goes ahead, 1200 Bay Street will be 324 m (1,062 ft) tall and take up a site measuring just 890 sq m (2,919 ft)
Herzog & de Meuron
1200 Bay Street's first 16 floors are envisioned as retail and office areas
Herzog & de Meuron
1200 Bay Street's exterior would feature wooden blinds to help control the amount of daylight that enters inside
Herzog & de Meuron
View gallery - 3 images

Herzog & de Meuron has designed a slender new skyscraper for Toronto, Canada, that would be the country's tallest if realized – coming in even taller than Foster + Partners' under-construction One. Named 1200 Bay Street, it would contain retail space, a restaurant, and luxury apartments.

1200 Bay Street was designed in collaboration with Quadrangle and Urban Strategies, and is being developed by Kroonenberg Groep and ProWinko. While we've no word on its exact width, its overall form is certainly slender. It would reach a height of 324 m (1,062 ft) on a site measuring just 890 sq m (2,919 ft). To put this into perspective, it would be the same height as Paris' Eiffel Tower, though the CN Tower would remain Canada’s tallest manmade structure at 553.3 m (1,815 ft).

The interior of 1200 Bay Street would consist of 87 floors. The first 16 floors are envisioned as retail and office areas, with an amenities level above. The floors above that would host a total of 332 residences, ranging from one bedroom apartments to multi-level penthouses. The uppermost three levels would include a large restaurant and sky lounge.

The building would feature operable windows to aid passive ventilation, while wooden shutters would be used to help control the heat and light inside.

1200 Bay Street's exterior would feature wooden blinds to help control the amount of daylight that enters inside
Herzog & de Meuron

"The proposal is a layered expression of the vertical structural elements, interior glazing (thermal envelope), exterior timber roller shades and an outer layer of transparent, open-jointed glass," explains Herzog & de Meuron. "The effect is a building which at times appears transparent and expressive – revealing the scale and activity within the building; and at other times, the reflective outer layer of glass gives the building an abstract quality, emphasizing its dramatic proportion."

We've no word yet as to when 1200 Bay Street is due to begin construction, nor that it's definitely been given the green light to go ahead.

Source: Herzog & de Meuron

View gallery - 3 images
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
5 comments
Pablo
Not going up in that... and what about 10 years in the lovely Toronto weather. Wooden shades on the outside? Looks like a cool design on paper, that should never get off the ground...
paul314
Roughly 2 standard city lots wide (from the render and the listed plot size) by more than 1000' tall. Yep, that's slender. I hope they've got some serious damping up at the top in addition to that fancy restaurant (which can't be all that large).

Wood might make sense, just because it's less likely to warp or buckle when the building bends. (Just the difference in thermal expansion between sunny and shaded sides will be something fierce.
Timmyd
While I love the idea, and understand the environmental aspects of wooden shutters, it truly seems like a maintenance nightmare to continue upkeep on a wooden structure on the exterior of a sky scraper. Seems that it would need a plethora of sealers and chemicals yearly to hold up over time.
sidmehta
Routine design. Was an opportunity to do something powerful and inspirational, to make something distinctive.
buzzclick
Wait a minute boys and girls, it isn't possible that the architects have designed the shutters for the exterior finish. Read the last paragraph. An inner glazing, the roller shutters, and an outer open-jointed glass. Do you think someone (a professional) would design exterior shutters for a building in Canada's climate? Now nothing is said if the exterior glass is UV filtering, nor is it mentioned if the wood used is cedar or some other kind of wood that ages well over time, because if it isn't it will start to look like crap in <10 years. This project brings to mind the slender tower recently built next to Central Park, NYC. After all, Toronto is the most wannabe "american" city in the country.