Roadside Attraction-BMW Showroom

A new showroom for BMW turns the
heads of commuters along Toronto's
Don Valley Parkway.
nto, Toronto, O ntario
rangle Architects Limited
Roadside Attraction
by Ian Chodikoff
Immediately adjacent to the Don Valley Parkway, this new showroom becomes a billboard for new automobiles.
oronto's Don Valley Parkway (DVP) is part of a landscape that
represents the realities of a city concerned with work, function
and prestige. Roughly following the natural course of the Don
River, the DVP snakes its way south from the 401, the city's connection to the Trans-Canada Highway. Leading into the downtown core,
the DVP ensures that commuters are greeted with the sight of prestigious towers emerging from the financial district. Through all of this
imagery, it is very fitting to have a new addition to the DVP context:
an innovative luxury car dealership that can tempt the nearly 100,000
drivers a day with the latest in offerings from Bavarian Motor Works.
Since its opening last October, the design of the $20 million BMW
Toronto flagship retail showroom led by Project Architect Roland
Rom Colthoff, a partner at Quadrangle Architects, has become an
interesting counterpoint to the visual landscape along the DVP. And
while the whole project took about two and a half years to complete,
the facility became an instant success with the popular press.
Sitting on a 10-acre site, BMW Toronto comprises 40,000 ft2 of
showroom, office space and a lifestyle boutique stacked on six floors.
There is also another 60,000 ft2 devoted to servicing and detailing the
T
cars. An unprecedented configuration for an automotive showroom,
the six-storey facility was a former soap factory that was gutted and
retrofitted to remain strategically sited with maximum visibility adjacent to the DVP. The structure sits in a flood plain, and any new
building must abide by stringent setback rules established by the
Toronto and Regional Conservation Authority. Since new construction would mean setting the showroom farther back, thus diminishing
its visibility from the DVP, preserving the frame of the original building was critical so that the showroom could maintain its close proximity to the highway. The original building was demolished to a point
where only its structural frame of steel with pre-cast concrete slabs
remained. To be safely retrofitted, seismic upgrading had to be incorporated and a heavy steel moment frame system was chosen so that it
would be discreetly concealed without compromising the requisite
clean aesthetic for the display and sale of the vehicles. New mechanical equipment was added and significant portions of the existing floors
were removed to create expansive double-height spaces to enhance the
whole car-shopping experience.
The entrance at the ground floor is defined by a quasi-rotunda
September 2004 21
I. lounge
2. offices
3. staff lunchroom
4. staff lockers
5. staff wash rooms
6. storage
7. oil storage
Second floor/Mezzanine
I. lobby
2. customer viewing area
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
I0.
I I.
lifestyle boutique
showroom
sales offices
prep room
detailing and wash bay
parts
motorcycle bays
service department
service reception
12. service writers
Ground floor
22 canadian architect
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with a reception desk to greet customers and clients. A new lifestyle
boutique selling BMW hats, leather goods and child-size roadsters
build upon the BMW brand and are immediately visible. To the south
of the showroom facility, the service building is designed with large
windows opening onto a customer viewing area on the ground floor
and a lounge on the mezzanine. While their cars are being serviced,
customers can sip cappuccinos while using their laptops or BlackBerry
devices on the mezzanine level, where the sales offices are also located. The servicing area includes a 5-car drive-through service area, 24
service bays, 7 bays for washing and detailing, and 2 bays for the
motorcycles. Individually vibrated into the floor are thousands of German klinker tiles that enable the floor surface to remain clean and
impervious to oil stains and grease.
The third to fifth floors are ingeniously designed to provide the
highest impact for the customer, with a curated itinerary designed to
demonstrate all aspects of the BMW driving experience. Suitable for
those afflicted with mid-life crises, the third floor is where customized
high-performance M-series BMWs and motorcycles are displayed.
The fourth floor is where the pre-owned cars are carefully arrayed,
whereas new vehicles are delivered to the customer on the double-
Clockwise from bottom left: from the customer viewing area,
service bays can be seen though a large glazed opening; the
building in its raw state; looking south, the building becomes
notably sober during the day; a view of the Matchbox display
compartment, as seen from inside the showroom.
height fifth-floor showroom. To enhance the drama of taking possession of a new car at such heights, customers emerge from a glass passenger elevator. Inside a sober and quiet environment overlooking the
DVP and directly on axis with Canada's signature bank towers, customers are taken through a two-hour informational tutorial. With two
beautiful stainless steel oversized freight elevators priced at $250,000
apiece, cars are then shuttled down to a delivery bay on the ground
floor where they will be driven away.
Nevertheless, it is the exterior of the building that remains the ultimate branding machine. The building was glazed on three sides to
take full advantage of its exposure to the nearby highways, thereby
tempting the throngs of potential customers whizzing by. Blue-tinted
glazing comprises the majority of the curtain wall that slides beyond
the top floor, and serves to accentuate the appearance of a thin build-
East-W est Section t hrough Rotunda
September 2004 23
ing. On the north side of the fourth and fifth floors, stowable ramps
guide BMWs into six display windows that are framed in white on the
exterior, designed to evoke a Matchbox display case from many a
child's memory. These display windows use ultra-dear, lead-free glass
with a careful deployment of lights to minimize colour distortion and
to achieve maximum visibility of the car. Each of the six cars are carefully propped up to ensure that as little of the car is hidden from view
as motorists make their way south to the Richmond Street flyover,
Lakeshore Boulevard or the Gardiner Expressway. To further accentuate the power of the BMW image, a three-storey backlit vinyl billboard measuring 30 feet by 60 feet is integrated into the building, further enabling the building's north fa~ade to act as a billboard itself.
The building's impact is not as successful for those who are travelling
north on the DVP, but one can still glimpse the ample display of shiny
cars parked outside and along the site's edge.
Once the location of the Sunlight Soap Works, this brownfield site
required environmental remediation and new site strategies that were
devised in consultation with the MBTW Group. Six Linden trees
were preserved near the main entrance and along the DVP, and a large
swale was cut into the site to retain and purify storm water. Native
perennials were planted along this swale and nine circular concrete
pads were constructed to display a row of BMWs. A careful strategy
using computer-controlled lighting ensures limited glare to distract
drivers and minimizes the number of migratory birds flying into the
building-a considerable concern for many office buildings in the
downtown area.
Omniplan Automotive Retail Facility Planning worked with Quadrangle to devise the most efficient retailing facilities for the BMW
brand. To ensure standards in finishes for the BMW Toronto building,
specific elements such as flooring and lighting were chosen depending
on whether the cars are new, pre-owned or are of a high-performance
customized nature.
When looking at other BMW showrooms across Canada, this new
flagship facility incorporates many of the same design strategies to
provide a consistent image not much different from brands like Loblaws or the Gap. By taking advantage of an existing building's siring
and massing so close to the DVP, Quadrangle Architects was able to
develop a retail strategy that is provocative and appropriate for an
automobile facility that flies in the face of existing showroom design.
A typological study of new car showrooms over the past decade reveals
a desire to improve upon a much more professional client relationship
where imageabiHty, servicing and client loyalty is brought to a higher
level than what was previously acceptable in automotive dealership
design. The juxtaposition of an unabashedly extroverted building adjacent to a high-speed corridor collides the image of BMW as "an ultimate driving machine"™ into one that has become an ultimate branding machine. C:t
Top: a view of the building's northwest corner illustrates the
thinness of the showroom. Bottom: the staircase and glass elevator demanded some ingenuity to inconspicuously integrate
the sprinkler lines.
24 canadian architect
Client: BMW Canada
Architect Team: Roland Rom Colthoff, Brian Curtner, Aaron Budd, Laura Fyles, Jeff Hardy, Melanie Rank,
Joseph Salvagio, Ray Tsang
Automotive and retail planning: Omniplan Automotive Retail Facility Planning
Structural: Banerjee & Associates Ltd.
Mechanical: Keen Engineering Co. Ltd.
Electrical: Hammerschlag + Joffe Inc.
Landscape Architects: The MBTW Group
Site engineering: Marshall Macklin Monaghan
Area: I00,000 ft2 (40,000 ft2 showroom, 60,000 ft2
servicing)
Budget: $20 million
Completion: October 2003
I.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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existing renovated six storeys
new one storey
transformer vault and electrical room
car wash
bio-filtration swale
sn·o w storage
future parking
Site plan
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100'
September 2004 25