The front facade of Mondeo Spring is all balconies held up by a series of vertical shafts, reaching to the top of the structure. This cuts down on the bulk to some degree, says Christopher Hume.
Condo Critic: Future of Ellesmere could heal 'Scarberia's' wounds
November 07, 2009
Lined with endless strip malls and apartment buildings, it pretty well sums up where we went wrong with post-war suburban development.
Though it now boasts an impressive array of bus routes, Ellesmere is one of those little thoroughfares (an old concession road) that grew into a major artery. Roads such as this form the skeleton on which the suburbs are built. Because there's not much in the way of a street grid in these areas, everyone who travels near or far is forced onto this sort of highway.
The bungalows and lowrise residential slabs that were constructed by the hundreds out here are now giving way to more densely designed condo complexes spread out over large properties.
In the decades ahead, Ellesmere and the neighbourhoods through which it runs will be changed from top to bottom. The idea of land as an almost infinite resource no longer makes sense, even in Canada.
Taller buildings with retail at grade and residential above will eventually replace the strip malls that make Ellesmere a wasteland. By then there will also be bicycle lanes and light-rail transit. People won't call it Scarberia anymore.
Condo Critic
MONDEO SPRING, 8 MONDEO DRIVE: Sitting just off Ellesmere at Birchmount Rd., this enormous slab exerts its presence through sheer size.
It's not so much the height, which at 17 storeys qualifies as midrise, but the massive horizontal volume of the project. The front facade is all balconies held up by a series of vertical shafts that reach to the top of the structure. In this way, the architects have managed to cut down the bulk to some degree.
On the other hand, there's no mistaking that this is one huge development. It looks like a 21st-century version of those sprawling industrial campuses that appeared in the 1800s.
Perhaps the bigger-is-better approach makes sense in a context where large communities are being carved out of empty land.
One of the things we tend to overlook is that projects such as Mondeo Springs respond to one set of conditions even as they create another.
The suburban aspect of the situation is reflected in the massing of the building, which is a big, dense, boxlike and self-contained in its own compound within a parking lot. At the same time, the arrival of so many new residents to the area will lead to greater need for amenities, shops and transit.
This process – let's call it the maturing of suburbia – will occupy more effort and energy in the coming decades.
The final irony might be that the empty spaces that enslaved the suburbs will eventually save them. One generation's green space will become growth space for the next.
Grade: C
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