It looks like the "large displaced masses" trend is finally taking over the "wavy balconies" trend in Toronto architecture.

It's not unlikely this was an Airbnb visitor, and so charges might be very hard to make.

The western half of building face is recessed currently, but the render shows it flush with the rest of the building. I presume the render is incorrect? Or are they actually going to move half of the building facade a foot south?

Thanks for the reference!

Right, but typically they only float a centimetre or two above the surface, so they will have to plow aside any drifts higher than that, and any ice buildup more than the levitation height will also prove very problematic. I presume there must be some way to clear the tracks, although I don't...

I too am curious about how this system will deal with snow on the tracks. I don't know what the actual thrust is of the system, but I can see the possibility that snow and/or ice would pile up too much for the vehicles to clear it off.

This development really should do wonders for the immediate area. I especially hope the strip to the east on Queen is revitalized by this.

Are those Silva Cells going in?

What's silly is that maglev is completely unnecessary overkill for this particular application. I suppose it's fine if the Zoo gets the system built for free, but it's a bit like if they made their zoo shuttle buses out of Lamborghinis.

I would have really hoped that MEC would have been a better corporate citizen.

It will look so much better without the fire escape marring its face.

Purpose-built planetariums seem like a relic of a different time, when we required specialized, expensive, one-off analog projectors to accurately portray the stars. Nowadays, with digital projectors, isn't a planetarium just a hemispheric movie screen?

Exactly -- this building doesn't reflect anything about an organization that has a rather strong brand and ethos.

I'm especially disappointed in MEC. For an organization so focussed on the outdoors, you'd have thought they'd try to make our urban environment better too.

How much of the wood will remain exposed?

The park area looks pretty small -- will that be its final extent?

So how does The Well compare on a footprint basis to other single buildings in the city? Will this be one of the largest building footprints that isn't a stadium or mall (...that doesn't have a significant residential/office component)?

So the whole project has a single foundation? Is it then essentially a single building?

The height of the fins blend the podium with the nearby brick buildings. A similar approach was used with the Globe and Mail building, where the rust-brown fins ran the height of the adjacent buildings, softening the otherwise glass exterior and blending the podium into the streetscape.

It's weird to describe an 85-storey building as "squat", but that's what this looks like to me.