[AlvinofDiaspar]

This is an agency that’s commissioned billions of dollars worth of extravagant architecture in the past decade. And they can’t get it right with the design of an elevator tower? After five years of work? It’s just embarrassing.

Not sure if this is done in house, by an engineering firm or what, but historically TTC has some truly atrocious add-on buiilds (recall that lump at the northeast corner of University and College). They can benefit from a DRP - for everything.

Also, embarrassment requires an understanding of one's errors - I am not sure if they collectively have that in this particular instance.

AoD

 

[Towered]

I thought it turned out poorly. It had none of the delicacy of the original portal - the rhythm of the mullion is all wrong (original - equal width of the panes at the base; equal arc for the end quarter spheres); no attempt at curvature (and where they faked it - at the roof - it is done with the wrong material and bending down to an abrupt edge, a la porta-potty). It takes more than painting something the same colour to make it meaningful. They might not be able to afford curved glass - but the response to that isn't faking it and getting neither here nor there - but to take the fundamental cues and reinterpret it.

View attachment 273253
(Wikipedia)

AoD

Kind of like how they tried to "match" the yellow tiles at Jane station...

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Kind of like how they tried to "match" the yellow tiles at Jane station...

There are so many examples of TTC design-fails, I don't even know where to begin necessarily.

AoD

 

[AlbertC]

The interior remains unfinished:

Oct 18, 2020

 

[Northern Light]

The interior remains unfinished:

Oct 18, 2020

View attachment 277808View attachment 277809

Hmmm, it feels..................what's the word I'm looking for???

Oh right; unfinished!

Ideally, we would get matching tile; I assume one would put up drywall first; failing that........could we get a matching coat of paint for now?

Just wondering.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

It's not unfinished! It's "deconstructivism"!!

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

It's not unfinished! It's "deconstructivism"!!

Normal situation!

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Hmmm, it feels..................what's the word I'm looking for???

Oh right; unfinished!

Ideally, we would get matching tile; I assume one would put up drywall first; failing that........could we get a matching coat of paint for now?

Just wondering.

From link:

Art is an important component of major station upgrades. As a part of this station upgrade work, TTC contacted the original artist, James Sutherland, who was first commissioned in 1977 to complete the glass mosaic tile mural entitled “Spadina Summer Under all Seasons". His original work is installed at Dupont Station’s subway platform level. In 2020, James Sutherland was invited back to create a new public art concept, “The Force that through the Green Fuse drives the Flower”. The new mural will be installed in 2021 on the station’s Concourse level (see image).

“In 1977, I won a competition with 7 other artists, to create public art in the newly constructed “Spadina Subway Line” now called “Yonge-University Line 1”. I was assigned to Dupont Station and designed the glass mosaic tile mural entitled, “Spadina Summer Under all Seasons" which was installed the following year. My concept was to include an organic bit of surreal magic as a foil to balance the high tech qualities of a modern subway.

In 2020, when TTC retrofitted the station with new elevators, I was invited back to create another public art installation for Dupont Station. This new mural, “The Force that through the Green Fuse drives the Flower” is meant to provide thematic context for the original mosaics and for our species in this Anthropocene era, through some of the many insights of botanical science which represent a more fundamental magic, that of the evolution of plants from the inception of photosynthesis in Precambrian oceans to that miracle’s on-going consequences as flowering plants, since 130 million years ago. Almost all life on our planet has ensued from this primary process of Nature: from the manufacture of nourishing plant sugars to the oxygenation of our atmosphere, from production of fertile soil and the fungal networks that connect plant life under the soil in a “wood wide web” of nutrient trade and communication. We are the product of this wondrous phenomenon and it is part of us. We are all, truly, in this together.”

– The artist, James Sutherland

``

 

[longfortheoldview]

The new street-level elevator is surrounded by fencing, and panels of the glass have been removed. Anyone know what's going on here?

 

[AlbertC]

It wouldn't be TTC infrastructure without constant back and forth repairs required...

 

[Northern Light]

The new street-level elevator is surrounded by fencing, and panels of the glass have been removed. Anyone know what's going on here?

The TTC has the issued narrowed down to 'construction activities'; and the in-service date might be October or To Be Determined:

 

[AlbertC]

Lingering construction work until TBD...yes, that's the Dupont station that we all know and love!

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

The TTC has the issued narrowed down to 'construction activities'; and the in-service date might be October or To Be Determined:

View attachment 414843

...folks with accessibility issues will have to get used to sliding down the banisters on their backsides or crawling back up the stairs coming up the other way again. /sigh

 

[Northern Light]

...folks with accessibility issues will have to get used to sliding down the banisters on their backsides or crawling back up the stairs coming up the other way again. /sigh

The failure to include some measure of redundancy, at the very least with major stations, is an unfortunate failing with the Easier Access project.

Of course, the various components should work better, and more often than they do; but it's a fact of life that all would require shutdowns for maintenance and refits at various times, which is why having a second elevator path from
platform to surface matters.

Equally, in many stations, there is still not a continuous up-escalator path, and in lots more no down-path, which poses the problem that more passengers require an elevator than the available capacity permits.

I don't expect they would have refit everything to perfection at this point, but I do wish as they did each station that they were a bit more robust in scope for just this reason.

All that said. Dupont has a been a miserable cluster.......of some sort or another..........

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

...I mean, I love the design of this station. Always had. Just it never factor in that not all folks have two working legs to walk with on among other impediments where that should of been standard, IMO.