Bring back the beauty

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Designer calls for a return to beautifully designed spaces, places and buildings

If you’ve ever thought Toronto’s architecture lacks personality, you’re not alone.

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The overwhelming majority of high-rises across the metro region are, by and large, indistinguishable from each other, and as palpably cold as their glass exteriors in January.

And according to Gianpiero Pugliese, founding principal of Audax — an architecture, design and build firm whose stated mission is to enrich people’s lives by creating beautiful spaces — while other factors are also at play, the city of Toronto is adversely affected by inexpressive building designs coupled with tight living quarters.

“There’s a lot of lip service paid to building family-sized units, but then they build 900 sq. ft three-bedrooms condos,” Pugliese said. “There’s a reckoning happening right now because we have a saturation of the market with these micro units that are losing value because there’s no demand for them anymore.”

The solution is a return to “human architecture,” says Pugliese, featured speaker at the first session of the Corcoran Design Dialogue Series, held at Corcoran Horizon Realty’s Yorkville office last month.

Human architecture, he said, is predicated upon six axioms: symmetry, repetition, proportion, hierarchy, materiality, and the emotive.

“These axioms have been used throughout human history, throughout different cultures, but we haven’t been using them the way we should be. Human architecture attempts to bring that back and create more beautiful spaces, places and buildings,” he added.

Audax has successfully applied human architecture principles to 101 Spadina, Devron Developments’ condo project at the southeast corner of Adelaide and Spadina Ave., by harmonizing the building with its surrounding which includes a public park, heritage buildings and the garment district.

The 39-storey project will include 375 one-, two- and three-bedroom units ranging in size from 475 to 6,250 sq. ft.  Condos are priced from the high $700,000s and move-in is scheduled for 2028.

“The whole building is based on human architecture from the outside, so we’re using the six axioms — symmetry being a really important one,” Pugliese said. “It’s very well-articulated [through the] rhythm of the different openings, and the whole ground plane has a series of arches that look onto the park very invitingly.

“We’re building a public park there with this beautiful building as the backdrop. It’s going to be a great public space that will add a lot of beauty to the community.”