Glass box on stilts. Why bother with interesting details, textures, and contrast when you can simply reflect the sky and surrounding buildings. It's Toronto' version of covering a boring building in ivy. I know it's a courthouse but... yeesh, can we have some inspiration?
I think it was said that they where trying not to make it too distracting from City Hall for right or wrong.
 
Glass box on stilts. Why bother with interesting details, textures, and contrast when you can simply reflect the sky and surrounding buildings. It's Toronto' version of covering a boring building in ivy. I know it's a courthouse but... yeesh, can we have some inspiration?
IMO, I think that the final touch - cladding the underside of this - is what’s really going to elevate this building. It’ll feel like a beautiful sparkling ‘box’ displayed on a plinth.

📷: @Rascacielo

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UtakataNoAnnex said I think it was said that they where trying not to make it too distracting from City Hall for right or wrong.
I think they succeeded. I should mitigate my previous post though by mentioning the excellent job done on the surrounding sidewalks and plaza. Well done!
 
Why even retain an architect from abroad to get a building like this one? It's not like you're getting something markedly different from a building like the Bay Adelaide Centre by WZMH or KPMB from a design perspective. This sort of project hurts our local design industry.
 
Why even retain an architect from abroad to get a building like this one? It's not like you're getting something markedly different from a building like the Bay Adelaide Centre by WZMH or KPMB from a design perspective. This sort of project hurts our local design industry.

Our "local design industry" had plenty of chances with the IO courthouse portfolio - and was in the running for this project as well. The proposal spoke for itself.

AoD
 
Hiring international designers and not giving them a budget is a Toronto specialty - developers here don't care about the building, they just care about getting the brand name of the architect.
Also true unfortunately.

AoD
Toronto does get squeezed in a unique way. We pay top dollar in construction costs, but can't necessarily get excessive sales or rent figures that justify that spend. That said, we certainly still do starve projects of deserved funding though. Too many Toronto developers pride themselves in being cheap and have very little interest in doing anything beautiful.
 
I won't repeat myself (see recent Time & Wasted Space post), but a downtown ban on one particular, cheap developer... would solve 50% of the problem.

I won't repeat myself next time, promise.
 

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