High Rising to the Winds

One Yonge Street is where the Toronto Star building is.  The SkyTower condo development is planned for the site, and will be the tallest condo building in Canada.  It will be 95 stories high - 307 metres.  The underground PATH will connect to it.  That's important as it is a very windy area at the foot of Yonge Street at Lake Ontario. I got to wondering about the winds there.  I had a dream that I was in the new One Yonge Street complex - and it was so windy we couldn't hear each other, and then the building started to sway, and finally  windows started to get blown out of the building. Are these scenarios possible?  Will the building move noticeably in the wind? The answer turns out to be Yes - buildings will sway.  The tallest apartment building in the US is in NYC.  It is 420 metres on prestigious Park Avenue and sways 4 to 5 feet.  The advice is that if you get seasick don't buy an apartment here (even if you have the $95 million that the apartments cost). I wonder how windy it will be around the towers.  To find out how windy it gets at 305 metres above ground, one retrieves the pilot's guide for aviation weather.  The issues at ground level are well-documented.  Buildings with square corners are culprits - there is an acceleration of wind with a downdraught effect around the side of the buildings with square corners.  And that's not accounting for the high winds off Lake Ontario at the foot of Yonge Street.   Then next issue I find out about the factor of cold  air microclimates. As the air at higher altitudes is colder, it can create chillier micro-climates when downdraught from skyscrapers reaches street level. This can be welcome during hot spells, but less so in winter. And, as buildings get higher, the speed of air hitting them rises, increasing ground winds below.  One tower in London England creates ground-level wind speeds up to 80 miles per hour and in 2011 lifted a truck off the ground and it came down and crushed a pedestrian. What else can happen?  Tall buildings can block radio signals.  The CN Tower is known for its great radio signals because it is so tall - 553.34 metres high. The actual microwave receivers are 305 metres from the ground.  (Did you know that the tower can sway 6 feet from the centre-line in strong winds?  Even the Sky Pod where tourists go can sway 3 feet). The scenario in my dream -  windows 'defenestrating' from buildings - can this be real? "In February 1988, Chicago's Sears Tower began shedding sheets of glass as wind speeds reached up to 70 miles per hour. For hours, some falling windows shattered other windows on their way down while others soared as far as a block away before crashing to the ground. This was not the first nor last time the building lost windows to wind." And here's a scenario I hadn't foreseen - the reflected and channeled sunlight scenario.  During construction of the Walkie-Talkie Tower in London, it raised temperatures on the streets below, melting plastic components of a parked vehicle, lit a rug on fire in a nearby structure. A reporter was able to fry an egg on the street.  That was during construction, so it has been solved with a non-reflective film.  Its new nickname is 'Fryscraper', and is considered a work of 'Arsontecture'. Our picture today comes from our visit to the National Art Gallery in the spring.

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On Grenadier Pond

Looking south at Grenadier Pond, High Park, Toronto, Ontario Canada, this high rise is quite an urban mountain.  This makes me think of the 'City in a Park' slogan on the city park signs.  Look down at the water and there are mallard ducks, swans and a migrating heron.  Look up at the sky and there are condo high rises.

Do you have a favourite view that fits Toronto's slogan 'City in a Park'?  Let me know about it.