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dt_toronto_geek said:
Can we get Robert Stern back to whip up a few tall building designs sans floor to ceiling glass?! Some would disagree but I still find One St. Thomas so damn refreshing.
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My sentiments exactly. The "slight variations on boxes with balconies" theme is tedious to the extreme. I'm really hoping this project does not go ahead in its current form. This location deserves better than this. aA are capable of so much more (see Ice), but this is a big let down.
 
Why wouldn't it go ahead in its current form? Sales have been very good.

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interchange42 said:
Why wouldn't it go ahead in its current form? Sales have been very good.

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Well .... you just mentioned why we are being bombarded with terrible Glass falling slabs with no architectual merits all over the city; "Sales have been very good"

Of course sales will be good, who wouldn't want to live at that location by the habourfront if they can afford?
I dare you to take a trip to a very small town east of Oshawa called "Corborg" and you will be surprised about their waterfront condo architecture...

Toronto is just pathetic when it comes to architecture ..... Until the city planners do something, this will never change because all these terrible designs are driven by investment-minded buyers who give a hoot about how Toronto looks compared to any other world class city.
 
Some of the architects are far more skilled than others, but by and large the entire area - from Bay to Bathurst, and especially Southcore - is suffering from an industrial-scale monotony of effect. The twinning of buildings, the lack of variation in building form, the same pallid glass colours and all-glass walls show forth a real imaginative deficit, IMO.
The area badly needs not just a new kind of tailoring of curtainwall or spandrel - it needs buildings that show imagination, innovation, individuality and a sense of place.
What Southcore is showing us now is this generation's version of vernacular architecture. That's all fine and good. But it doesn't quell the need for other basic and powerful qualities to be shown that would alleviate what has become so ordinary.
 
kweku said:
Well .... you just mentioned why we are being bombarded with terrible Glass falling slabs with no architectual merits all over the city; "Sales have been very good"

Of course sales will be good, who wouldn't want to live at that location by the habourfront if they can afford?
I dare you to take a trip to a very small town east of Oshawa called "Corborg" and you will be surprised about their waterfront condo architecture...

Toronto is just pathetic when it comes to architecture ..... Until the city planners do something, this will never change because all these terrible designs are driven by investment-minded buyers who give a hoot about how Toronto looks compared to any other world class city.
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1) They seem to have figured out the falling glass problem.

2) What do you mean by "no architectural merits"? To each their own. I think the balcony patterning looks pretty cool on these buildings, and I'm looking forward to them going up.

3) Cobourg is a very pretty town. If you're looking for that kind of thing, why not move there? This is not Cobourg, and what's appropriate there would not work in Toronto's core.

(Is this what you mean? It's called Harbour Walk, it's in Cobourg, and it wouldn't work at all in Downtown Toronto:
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)

4) "Toronto is just pathetic when it comes to architecture" is such an overgeneralized statement that it is essentially bereft of meaning. Planners have little to do with the architecture here, by the way, it's not really within their purview. We've dealt with that in many threads, and in many front page articles.

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Now that the spaces between the Gardiner and its ramps are finally being filled, it's time to creatively animate the areas underneath.
 
CanadianNational said:
Some of the architects are far more skilled than others, but by and large the entire area - from Bay to Bathurst, and especially Southcore - is suffering from an industrial-scale monotony of effect. The twinning of buildings, the lack of variation in building form, the same pallid glass colours and all-glass walls show forth a real imaginative deficit, IMO.
The area badly needs not just a new kind of tailoring of curtainwall or spandrel - it needs buildings that show imagination, innovation, individuality and a sense of place.
What Southcore is showing us now is this generation's version of vernacular architecture. That's all fine and good. But it doesn't quell the need for other basic and powerful qualities to be shown that would alleviate what has become so ordinary.
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Agreed: there's too much sameness in Southcore, especially in regards to the office buildings. I'm not against the twinning of buildings whatsoever however: the problem is with the design, not the instances of it. Two times bad (Infinity) is doubly bad, whereas two time good (Royal Bank Plaza) is great. My least like buildings down there are the PwC and Bremner Towers at Southcore Financial: those are Bruce Kuwabara's minimalist mantra taken to a soul-crushing extreme.

Kweku: there's some actual substance in CanadianNational's post. It's far easier to converse with/respond to clearly stated complaints.

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Some crane action:

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