Retail could be nice. It isn't absolutely necessary. Only thing that bothers me is the tower is off of centre.
 
mrxbombastic said:
While it's great Temperance gets a nice treatment, there is absolutely nothing at the tower base to animate the street or inspire people to linger. The park is great but why not use all that prime retail frontage and add in a coffee shop, patios, public seating, artwork -Something!

Nothing about this makes me want to stick around the area. The gardens are about the only thing interesting with this development and they were there before it!

Urban design failure imho
Click to expand...
These are the types of buildings that destroy American cities and create dead zones with almost no animation or street life. If you check out cities in the American south, they are almost all like this, terrible places to walk. I would hate to see more of that in Toronto! All office towers need to offer something engaging at street level.
 
That's exactly it! Having buildings like this interspersed is one thing. It helps to relieve all the commotion and action on the street. But creating a cluster of them creates spaces which are not inviting to be in or walk through and creates a rather exclusionary form of urban development. If you don't work in those towers, why would you ever go there? It's the opposite of the dynamism and exciting form of development we see taking place at places like the Well.

I think we all get it. It's going to be a neo-modern box because f*** something interesting and different. Ok fine but you need to give something back to the street. And not just some crappy reflective glazing and walkup steps. That's not good planning and Brookfield is losing out on potential retail tenancy revenues here.

If I was a shareholder I'd be furious on both accounts.
 
Ok in fairness I am a big fan of the ground level of the BA complex because it's so monumentally financial district. Brookfield just needs to curate some crazy sculpture to put in the courtyard.

I don't think animating that stretch was really possible. The wind tunnel and darkness is already unpleasant. I'm more miffed with the uninspired boxes above. One, fine. Two, ok.. three? That's enough! This isn't even good neo-modernism as the proportions are all off. It's basically the modern office tower equivalent of Disney's Main Street.
 
I agree somewhat on the architecture but, disagree that three different building designs would create a grander impression for this complex. The tower proportions aren't that bad either. BA2, in particular, is pretty good.
 
I agree that ba1 and ba2 complent eachother and work well together. I think ba3 as being across a street on and with no high rises directly north south east of west of it's footprint could be a sort of show case block with some pizzazz added with different expressions while still respects and fitting in with the ba complex motif. When eyes look to it it will be with some openess in the sky surrounding it.

I also don't want to read too much I to these renderings as heck, maybe something else is included that isn't shown in them. Or maybe these are dated already, but regardless...
 
I like the plaza - it's clean and uncluttered.
The retail is underground - like at TD Centre.

Agreed that there could be some variation in the tower.
Maybe a v-shaped recess centred on each facade?
That would be a focus across the courtyard and play off the recessed corners of tower 1.

Curved corners would make it look like part of Eaton Centre.

The thinking behind commonality of design / a unified cluster is the same reasoning behind Oxford's recladding at Richmond Adelaide Centre.
 
I disagree with most of the negativity here.
I like the financial district to look and feel heavy, timeless, and seamless.
This does the job, all the while helping the skyline transition into the BAC East and West.
It's also complementary to the other two and the trio elicits a "saturated" feeling.
Keep the cool, flashy buildings coming along Yonge, and to the entertainment district. They are not necessary here.
 
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dataBase file created, and linked at the top of the page.

I am not sure about 31 storeys or 120 metres (rounded to 394 feet), but 1) that's the number of floors I count in the hero rendering, and 2) that's the height the City wanted it capped at 11 years ago when the 3-building proposal was going through the ZBA process. Beyond that height the building will create more shadow on Nathan Phillips Square. If we hear different, the file will be updated of course.

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@DonValleyRainbow
 
This design represents the cheapest possible form of office construction. They can then offer the cheapest possible rents(? - not likely). It's sad but the developer can best fill his pockets by building these buildings as cheaply as possible - that's really ttheir prime motivation, if not their only motivation. Making the city livable is not their concern.
 
I really do hope that they put some additional money into a more interesting design- a box can be interesting as their Brookfield Place project in Calgary shows.
 
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