Just a thought, I'd love something like the One Bloor East balcony treatment here. I can't imagine that would break the bank.
 
Despite the design, I believe these will look good in the end, given that Harbour Plaza was also done by Menkes and they ended up using decent materials for those towers.

Materials will make or break these towers. It's a shame we couldn't have got the design for Harbour Plaza with these heights instead.
 
jje1000 said:
My gut feeling is that the towers are fleshed out to an extent, but that the final work might end up going to a 'more affordable' architecture firm who will do the detailing- like what happened at the West Block. Hence their underdetailing compared to the rest of the project and massing-like quality.

Expect lots of spandrel...

Personally, I'm more concerned about the south-facing podium- it over emphasizes the horizontal, lacks any sort of visual relief or breaks, is almost antiseptic, and is devoid of any warm colours. It's going to be very boring to look at, and even be around.
Click to expand...

You know we have a very recent example of this developer and this architect building two towers quite close to this location and they turned out nothing like West Block.
Why would expect to see that now??
 
ChesterCopperpot said:
You know we have a very recent example of this developer and this architect building two towers quite close to this location and they turned out nothing like West Block.
Why would expect to see that now??
Click to expand...

In my opinion it can go either way- you either end up with a Harbour Plaza or you end up with West Block. Lightbox is too distressingly nearby and still indicates that a developer can be willing to put up 50-ish floors of spandrel.
 
The design looks good. Just wondering is the quoted height of 299 metres to the roof or does it also include the box on top?
 
The base is horribly institutional. Based upon this building and phase 1 (and the surrounding developments), I fear this area will be a charmless sterile deadzone at ground level. A missed opportunity to create a decent walkable neighbourhood in which non-residents would want to visit.
 
Quality will be nice, it's the design that we have to worry about.
 
Waterfront DRP document is now online. There doesn't seem to be much new to my eye. The document seems to almost entirely deal with the podium, though it does have some interesting details about that. There's some new renderings of the podium on pages 59-64 of the PDF, including what looks like a large outdoor playground area on the podium (though I can't tell if it's for the condo tenants or for the school).

There's a new rendering of the towers on page 28 of the PDF, but it appears to just take the previous, seemingly (hopefully?) preliminary design of the towers and show them from a new angle. They still look like placeholders to me, though I could be wrong. Hopefully they're just placeholders and we get to see real, final architectural designs at the next phase (Phase 3) of the Waterfront DRP process.

A couple other interesting notes:
  1. All the renders that show Phase 1, it shows Phase 1 as having the new checkered-pattern on the balconies as opposed to the pattern that was shown on the promotional renderings for Phase 1. So seems likely to me that this new checkered-pattern is actually how Phase 1 will turn out.
  2. It says construction is contemplated to start Q1 2022 and take 5 years (i.e. finish 2027).
 
How is it that we have construction on phase 1 and we don't know what it's supposed to look like when it's done?
And how is phase 2 even MORE banal than phase 1?
If that is the finished balcony pattern of phase 1, then wow. UGLY. Go away AA. Go build buildings for other cities, we have enough of yours here.
 
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