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Power Houses: Toronto Hydro’s Camouflaged Substations

Steve — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:00:41 +0000

Hiding in plain sight to provide energy and light! That’s not Toronto Hydro’s motto but it could be – for the better part of a century, the Canadian utility’s policy was to design hundreds of electrical substations so that they would “blend in” with their surrounding neighborhoods. Though many have been decommissioned, many more remain.

Edwardian Electrical Edifices

(image via: John FitzGerald)

Toronto Hydro was established in 1911, the year in which electrical power from the massive new generators at Niagara Falls first lit up Toronto’s downtown streets. It became quickly apparent that (a) a network of substations was required to complete the emerging power grid and (b) Toronto’s citizens were not amenable to having ugly conglomerations of metal, wire and ceramic resistors plunked smack dab in the middle of their neighborhoods.

(images via: BlogTO and John FitzGerald)

Toronto Hydro set up an in-house team of unnamed architects whose purpose was to “clothe” the substations in the fashionable brick, masonry and woodwork of the day. The earliest stations, of which Duncan Station at 29 Nelson Street is the oldest (1910) still standing, were generally larger than homes and aped the size, shape and style of Toronto’s fancier office buildings and industrial warehouses.

(images via: BruceK and JohnnyGEO)

As these structures weren’t actually homes and businesses, sharp-eyed passersby noted a few differences that immediately set the substations apart… like bronzed, weathervane-equipped exhaust vents on the roof of the 2357 Danforth station (circa-1926) and ubiquitous “Keep Out!” warning signs displayed on all of them.

Glengrove Substation: “The Castle”

(images via: PhotoSensitive and BlogTO)

Up until the advent of the Great Depression, most of Toronto Hydro’s substations tended towards the grandiose both in size and style. The Glengrove substation at 2833 Yonge Street (south of Lawrence) opened in 1930 and was the penultimate expression of this philosophy.

(image via: Toronto Star)

Known colloquially as “The Castle”, the ivy-covered sprawling stone complex would look right at home on an English baronial estate. Oak doors, leaded glass windows and rough-cut stone walls all contribute to a real atmosphere of grandeur made even more majestic when night falls and interior lighting switches on automatically.

Stealthy Salt Boxes

(images via: BlogTO and Alice in Search of a City)

Things changed before and after the Second World War when a more subdued design ethos took Toronto Hydro back to its original mission re the substations: blend them in and avoid obtrusiveness. The new “plain jane” look was driven by economic concerns pre-war; then post-war when Toronto’s emerging suburbs began sprouting smaller, simpler “Salt Box” homes designed for the requirements and incomes of returning soldiers. Plain maybe, but note the white picket fence at 640 Millwood in midtown Toronto.

(images via: Toronto Star and TheStar.com)

Ironically, some of these substations have outlived their original neighborhoods and today find themselves standing out like sore thumbs after the surrounding homes have been sold off and knocked down. The sad remnant above stood on the southeast corner of Pharmacy and St. Clair Avenues in east central Toronto for decades until it was finally demolished in late 2010.

(images via: BlogTO and Google Maps)

We can attribute some of the credit for Toronto Hydro’s suburban aesthetic to one Harold Bodwell, a utility employee charged with the task of designing substations for Toronto’s new neighborhoods. Bothwell not only specified the style of the neighborhood substations but also dictated the grounds be landscaped and regularly maintained.

Oil’s Well That Ends…

(image via: Jon Lasiuk)

Things don’t always go as smoothly as Toronto Hydro would like and when rare accidents like the transformer vault fire above occur, the substations’ covers are blown sky high. Watch a video of the “event” here.

(images via: Jon Lasiuk and CityNews Toronto)

“Transformers are actually filled with mineral oil, no longer PCB’s,” explained TFD Division Commander Andrew Kostiuk, “and if it gets hot enough to catch fire it’s quite a spectacular fire.” So much for being good neighbors.

Hiding On Plain Sites

(images via: BLDG Blog)

Toronto artist Robin Collyer was the first to document the phenomenon of Toronto’s urban and suburban camouflaged substations, photographing a number of them in the 1980s. Collyer’s use of soft focus and black & white film creates an aura of timeless mystery around these stealthy structures.

(images via: BlogTO and International Metropolis)

Nearly 300 of these substations were built on residential streets in central and suburban parts of the Greater Toronto Area over a period of nearly a century, and about 85% of them are still in use. Roughly 45 of the substations have been decommissioned for one reason or another and a few have taken on new lives as retail shops – one north Toronto substation is now used by a religious denomination for their meetings others (the example above hails from the city of Windsor) have become small quaint stores.

Modern Electrical Living

(images via: BLDG Blog and CCCA)

One might say Toronto Hydro’s neighborhood substations are a collective working museum of the past century’s architectural styles and trends. It’s a concept easier said than done: the camo cladding has always come second to the main mission of providing uninterrupted electrical service to Toronto’s varied neighborhoods – a very close second, by appearances.

(images via: BlogTO and International Metropolis)

Years and decades pass but Toronto Hydro’s substation designers move with the times, not against them. The past half-century has seen faux-Georgian mansions with gabled windows and triangular plinths above the “door”, 1950s & 1960s ranch style spreads (another example from Windsor shown above) with asymmetrical rooflines, post-and-beam construction and decorative brick screening, and finally post-modernist 1980s styling that eschews brick altogether in favor of organic concrete and glass block accents.

(images via: Toronto Star and Paul Henman)

Other Canadian and American cities (New York City comes to mind) have employed urban camouflage techniques to put neighborhoods over infrastructure but Toronto’s record in both quality, quantity and history is particularly outstanding. Though individually these urban & suburban electrical substations are easily missed, together they represent a surprisingly studied effort by a large, faceless corporation to take into account the sensibilities of their residential customers. Shocking, eh?

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City-Shaped Design: 13 Urban-Inspired Objects

Steph — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:00:02 +0000

Despite the crowded sidewalks, the cacophony of traffic and the sky-high cost of living, there’s no denying the romanticism and sheer energy of big cities like New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. And within those cities, even in the most run-down back alleys, there’s a certain gritty beauty. See the qualities and aesthetics that inspire fierce loyalty in urbanites brought to everyday objects in these 13 cool city-shaped and urban-inspired designs.

City Water: Bottles with Neighborhood Maps

(images via: samal design)

Product designer Dzmitry Samal came up with the concept for ‘City Water’, a water bottle printed with a map of the city from which the water was sourced. Considering that many bottled water companies aren’t exactly forthcoming about their sources – even using terminology that calls springs to mind, despite the fact that the water came from municipal sources – a bottle like this would provide a refreshing splash of honesty.

Urban Metrobowls: Street-Shaped Metal Serving Bowls

(images via: roije)

Organic yet structured, city grids can be quite visually interesting, so it’s nice to see them put proudly on display. Designer Frederik Joije creates free-form serving bowls shaped like the relatively rounded city of Amsterdam, and also the elongated fish-like Manhattan island.

Cut-Out Maps by Karen O’Leary

(images via: studio kmo)

Artist Karen O’Leary painstakingly cuts amazingly detailed maps of New York, Paris and London into delicate paper webs. O’Leary removes all land and water so that only the streets are left. “These maps reveal the density and delicacy of a modern city with a single element and infinite subtleties.”

Urban Drift Desk Organizer

(images via: mocoloco)

This desk organizer by Rob Southcott is shaped like a miniature skyline, an ideal addition to the desk of a proud urbanite. “This small anonymous city skyline is a useful space to store a variety of day to day objects. Placing items in amongst the cites skyscrapers helps you organize and store your belongings.”

Cats Attack! Scratching Post

(images via: think geek)

Any cat can become the star of your own little B-movie with the geektastic Cats Attack! scratching post, shaped like three urban towers in a cityscape. ThinkGeek even has quite an amazing little story to go with the product. “The year was 1954, and the top three concerns in the United States were as follows: Atom bombs destroying our cities, communists turning our citizenry into mindless zombies, and atomic zombie cats destroying our cities. Though you may not find records of it in the local newspapers (it was classified, hello?), cats were herded into great camps for study, just in case one or more of them mutated into horrifying beasts.”

“These cats, embittered by their experiences, never forgot the mistreatment they received. So now, they watch. Always vigilant. They wait for their opportunity to attack. They wait and train. They skulk and sneak, climb and leap, slash bite and scratch. Often, they practice their scratching with any available vertical surface – usually your furniture. This practice often destroys the things you love. Cats don’t care. It’s all part of their master plan.”

Power Strip with a Mini City

(images via: spoon-tamago)

This is one power strip that you’d want to display, not hide away. Topped with a miniature Japanese street, complete with a delicate little tree, the power strip was created for the 2010 graduate show at the Kyoto University of Art and Design.

Robber Baron Clock by Studio Job

(images via: moss gallery)

Referring to the bankers and industrialists who played big roles in the industrial revolution at the end of the 19th century, the ‘Robber Baron’ series by Studio Job includes this awesome clock, a model of a mansion ‘supported by gilded oil barrels’.

Historic City View Handkerchiefs by MUJI

(images via: muji.us)

Wear your love for the world’s greatest cities around your neck or in your pocket. Japan’s MUJI design offers handkerchiefs printed with historic maps of Tokyo, New York and Paris from the 19th century.

City-Shaped Ring Designs by Phillipe Tournaire

(images via: phillipe tournaire)

Wear your love for architecture on your finger with platinum or gold diamond rings shaped like buildings. Parisian jeweler Philippe Tournaire recreates structures from around the world including his home city, Moscow, New York and more, and has even made replicas of entire city blocks.

Metropolis: Household Objects Shaped Like Skyscrapers

(images via: design milk)

Design firm Lladro offers a series of functional objects including mirrors, boxes, vases and lamps all in the shape of buildings inspired by Moorish, Art Deco and other styles of architecture.

Children’s House-Shaped Blocks

(images via: gretel home)

These simple stacking blocks from Japan’s Landscape Products are so much cooler and more elegant than plastic building blocks, and they’ll tempt parents into playing, too.

City Landscape Pen Stands by Muji

(images via: muji.us)

This cute wooden cityscape functions as both eye-catching decor and a pen-and-stationery stand. MUJI offers the choice of three iconic cities: Tokyo, Paris and New York.

Miniature Cities Within Cities by EVOL

(images via: evoltaste)

Berlin-based street artist EVOL transforms electric boxes, planters and other mundane objects seen around cities worldwide into fascinating miniature metropolises of their own. Appearing in the most unexpected places, EVOL’s tiny buildings even have tiny little curtains in the windows, and in some cases, miniature graffiti on the walls.

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Mirror, Mirror: Playground Pavilion Gets Funhouse Treatment

Steph — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:00:37 +0000

Children in Copenhagen have a little extra whimsy and fun added to their playground experience with the Mirror House, a pavilion and learning space used by kindergarten glasses. The gabled ends and doors of the structure are covered in warped funhouse mirrors.

Designed by Danish architects MLRP, the building is otherwise a minimalist black volume of the sort not often seen in projects designed for children. The exterior is clad in charred timber, and the doors feature convex and concave mirrors.

The steel ends of the buildings not only reflect the trees and the sky, seeming to enlarge this open natural space in the middle of a large city, but the rippling makes them fun to look at. Hopefully, the kids won’t be too traumatized by birds that are unfortunate enough to fly into the mirrored surfaces.

The architects say, “At night the shutters are closed making the building anonymous. During the day the building opens up, attracting the children who enjoy seeing themselves transformed in all directions. With simple means it has succeeded to transform an existing, sad and anonymous building to a unique and respectful installation in the newly renovated park.”

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Steve — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:00:38 +0000

Rooftop excavators? On my multistory highrise building? It’s more likely than you think, especially in China where painting one’s self into a corner is no longer just for painters anymore. The difference here is, the corner in question could be several hundred feet above the ground.

Demolition, Man

(image via: ChinaSMACK)

Hydraulic excavators are often used in Chinese demolition projects to quickly bring down roofs. This can be somewhat problematic when the roof – and the building beneath it – just happens to be supporting the multi-ton excavator being used to do the demolition.

(images via: Ynet.com, Skyscraper City and QQ.com)

Consider also that high-rise roofs aren’t designed to support great concentrations of weight, and the roofs doing the supporting belong to buildings being knocked down because (generally) they’re having trouble staying up.

(images via: RobertG69 and Dog Brothers Forum)

The situation is even more problematic in China, where a combination of lax workplace safety laws and shoddy construction has given rise to a world where buildings are slapped together, sold, condemned and torn down – often within just a few short years. Sometimes the buildings don’t wait for the demolition men: what goes up too quickly, often comes down even quicker.

Don’t Claw Us, We’ll Claw You

(images via: ChinaSMACK)

Here’s a lone excavator hard at work on top of the 12-story Shanxi Science and Technology Hotel in the Chinese city of Taiyuan. The slender, triangular building has a very limited amount of roof space in which the excavator’s driver can manoeuvre, yet manoeuvre he must if the building is going to be eaten away down to ground level.

(images via: ChinaSMACK)

Click here to watch a short video from CNS News that shows the rooftop excavation project from various angles, including from the roof itself. It’s in Chinese but as they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words!

(images via: Sina Weibo and NetEase)

One assumes that the excavator claws a certain amount of material from one side of the roof, and then drives over to the reduced area and does the same to the place he just left, over and over again.

(images via: AcidCow)

Alternatively, a ground-based crane might just pick up the excavator and plop it down (not too hard!) on another portion of the roof. It’s not rocket science, though working atop an unsteady platform honeycombed with rooms and open areas may still end up with the worker flying through space.

Knocked Up, Sold Off, Knocked Down

(images via: Sweet Cherry Cake)

Readers surely must be asking, “why not just dynamite the building such that it collapses in on itself?” Ask any expert, controlled demolition is a precise and delicate operation which, if unsuccessful, cold result in extensive collateral damage to surrounding buildings and nearby construction workers – not to mention TONS of dust to sweep up. Believe it or not, in China at least, demolition via rooftop excavator is the safer, cleaner, and above all cheaper option.

(images via: Daily Mail UK and Sweet Cherry Cake)

The 18-story residential apartment building depicted here in mid-demolition a few weeks ago was built in the city of Taizhou, located in eastern China’s Zheijiang Province… in January of 2011! Yes indeed, the highrise didn’t even last one full year before the ground beneath it began settling unevenly, eventually causing the building (and several others nearby) to be deemed unsafe.

(images via: Sweet Cherry Cake)

Consider the plight of a Mr. Zhan, who bought a unit on the building’s 16th floor yet had to move out just 17 hours after moving in when a structural support pillar cracked. “I heard loud banging sounds like an explosion,” explained Zhan to reporters from China Daily, “it was really scary. I bought my unit because of the beautiful ocean view. It’s such a pity I can’t live in it.” Hope you’ve got Collapsing Building Insurance, Zhan.

Deconstruction Wizards of Oz

(images via: Riotact)

Rooftop excavation is not exclusive to China, it seems, as these images from several demolition projects in Australia indicate. The above scene from earlier this year showed demolition underway in central Canberra.

(images via: Riotact and Brisbane Times)

Unlike similar building demolitions in China, however, the Aussies use smaller excavators on lower buildings which are wrapped in protective covers to corral debris.

Rooftop Excavators, How Do They Work?

(images via: 2DayBlog and AcidCow)

You might be wondering how these huge hydraulic excavators get up to their precarious perches in the first place. Giant helicopters? The service elevator? Disassembled, brought to the roof and reassembled? Maybe each highrise was built with an excavator entombed on the roof in anticipation of its eventual demolition, or perhaps the excavators simply climb up the balconies, floor by floor.

(image via: ClubSNAP)

Actually, if the building isn’t too high the excavators can be lifted to the top by much larger, ground-based construction cranes as shown above. The ground-based cranes are designed to lift, not dig, so using them to reduce the heights of condemned buildings is not a viable option.

(images via: Crushing Machine and AcidCow)

Once in place up on the roof, it’s dig, dig and dig some more… which leads to the next question: where does all the excavated dirt and debris go, especially in a crowded urban environment like that of Datong City in China’s Shanxi province? Either it’s going down the central elevator shaft, or (more likely) dumped over the side.

(image via: AcidCow)

A word of advice: if you wake up one morning, look out your window and see an excavator of the roof of the neighboring building, be sure to wear your hard hat before walking out your front door. Better yet, call in sick and don’t go out at all lest a rooftop excavator turn you into an ex-person.

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The World is Watching: Urban Intervention Goes Ocular

Delana — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:00:47 +0000

How much more welcoming would a city environment seem if it were filled with friendly creatures? German artist Timm Schneider is filling Weisbaden with very strange beings that are not only unexpected, but also completely lovable.

(all images via: Timm Schneider)

Timm Schneider is a graphic designer who found that his job sometimes left him short on artistic fulfillment. To soothe his creative soul, he began creating street art. Graffiti was too limited for him, but he eventually stumbled onto the type of urban intervention that delighted him and his neighbors.

Schneider’s project is deceptively simple: he makes eyeballs out of styrofoam spheres and sticks them onto inanimate objects, making them look like creatures rather than things.

His art can be seen all throughout his city, adorning everything from public fixtures to products in shops to waste bins on the street. Once the little eyes are stuck onto something, that object is instantly transformed into something lovable and silly.

This type of urban intervention has helped to satisfy Schneider’s need for meaningful art, but it also helps viewers to shift their perceptions ever so slightly.

Instead of walking by an object and tuning it out like we do so often, Schneider’s interventions encourage people to slow down, take notice and see their surroundings in an entirely new light – even if it is only for a moment.

The newly-invented personalities taken on by these urban objects might cause a smile on the face of a city dweller, and for Schneider that is what matters. His interventions are all about pushing the world in the right direction…one pair of googly eyes at a time.