At ground level on York Stree it's pure "AWESOME". I really love the venting at ground level, as well as the way the window sections are sectioned, and the glass canopy over the entrance a la Four Seasons Centre. :)
 
by me

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somebody should move that hideous gold Hyundai or whatever it is off the pavers! Is there any plans for trees along Bremner here or do they just figure plantings wouldnt stand a chance with all the rowdy sports fans? I do like the base of the Telus building but the vast empty space shown above is very sterile at this point.
 
Redroom Studios said:
somebody should move that hideous gold Hyundai or whatever it is off the pavers! Is there any plans for trees along Bremner here or do they just figure plantings wouldnt stand a chance with all the rowdy sports fans? I do like the base of the Telus building but the vast empty space shown above is very sterile at this point.
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There are actually eight 15' tall trees in the two planters along the north side of Bremner (4 per pit). Not sure what's planned for the south side.
 
The gold Hyundai isn't parked there, it's using the driveway to access the parking garage.

The way they handled the driveway is a little bit awkward. I understand that they were trying to maintain a consistent look throughout the plaza, but I don't think it would have been ruinous to put in a couple curbs and have an asphalt driveway leading to the garage entrance. They could've even maintained the use of pavers, but curbs would've been nice to separate the driveway from the plaza.
 
I didn't realize the hoarding was down along York in front of MLS. I'm interested to see what kind of streetscaping we get along York between the railway and the Gardiner, because it has the potential to become one of the more attractive N/S linkages to the waterfront
 
They have deep planters going in-- deep as the planters for the new Bloor Street-scape, but not quite as wide. So far the York Street streetscaping is already looking fairly attractive, if it turns out as I imagine it will.
 
This is by far the nicest glass skyscraper in the city. It's just in a crumby location and too short.
 
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/734253--telus-builds-a-tower-open-to-the-city

Telus builds a tower open to the city
By Christopher Hume

China may be the land of instant cities, but Canada is the land of Toronto, the city of instant neighbourhoods.

The most recent is nearing completion just west of the Air Canada Centre and north of the Gardiner Expressway. It's what you might call a "vertically integrated" community, all glass towers and canopies, plazas and podiums.

The main street is Bremner Blvd. It runs east from York St., turning right at the ACC. The south side is residential – condos and grocery stores – but the north is the site of Telus House. Though not quite finished, the 32-storey corporate headquarters has already established itself as a particularly elegant addition to the skyline.

Designed by Adamson Associates and Sweeny Sterling Finlayson of Toronto, the $250-million structure offers a refreshing take on corporation architecture. Not only will this be one of the greenest office buildings in the city (LEED Gold), it also makes a compelling contribution to the evolution of the tower.

Given our obsession with security, perhaps the most remarkable thing about the project is its accessibility. As architect Dermot Sweeny points out, the building is open to the street and connected to the underground PATH system, which leads to Union Station, the ACC and beyond.

"We wanted the most public building possible," Sweeny explains. "Telus said. `Let's engage the city.' They wanted something that's fully accessible, transparent and welcoming to the public."

The first step was to orient the building south to Bremner, not west to York, which doubles as an on- and off-ramp for the Gardiner. Bremner, on the other hand, is smaller, slower and safer. By setting the building well back from the street, there's enough room for a sidewalk so wide it feels more like a plaza. Considering that this is the kind of place where crowds will gather regularly, that makes sense. And even in between events, thousands will move through Union Square on their way to the station and the underground city.

Telus's ground floor is the public face of the company, and a place to sell consumer goods. A few storeys above, Telus's corporate offices are ensconced in a multi-floor section that can be read on the outside as a large rectangular element that runs through the building, east to west. It emerges on either end as a striking charcoal-coloured square.

Because the glass is unusually transparent – no tinting here, green or otherwise – the tower presents an exquisite crystalline image to the city. It has a sort of Platonic quality one might expect of an ideal structure. It could almost be a diagram for a tower, an idea, as a tower itself.

The manner in which the north and south facades extend above, below and beyond the actual walls makes them architectural features in their own right. At the top, where the two surfaces reach into the air like a pair of fins, the effect is hard to define, but harder to ignore. It gives the tower the look of a piece of equipment, a machine for working in, perhaps.

In many respects, it is a machine – one that recycles heat and rainwater, captures sunlight and incorporates high-efficiency lighting and green roofs. It's also hooked up to Enwave, Toronto's deep-lake- water cooling system. The result will be 30 to 50 per cent less energy use than a similar building.

"This is one of the first towers to really embrace green technology," Sweeney says. "It's a reminder that with success comes responsibility."

The very placement of the structure, on a subway line in the heart of downtown, gives it a green edge. Many will travel to Telus by subway for the sheer convenience. They will enter the building by way of its street-level connection to PATH, which will soon house the inevitable Starbucks, as well as a newsstand.

West of York, Bremner leads to that relic of an earlier age, the Rogers Centre. Already highrise condos have appeared, and another office tower is under construction on the northwest corner. A furniture store has opened nearby in an old roundhouse, further evidence that the return to the city continues apace.

Following this influx of residents, the financial types from King and Bay Sts. have jumped the railway tracks to colonize real estate long relegated to parking lots and expressways. The condo industry arrived decades ago; what differs here compared to, say, CityPlace, is the balance of domestic and corporate. CityPlace, which occupies the former railway lands west of Spadina Ave., south of Front St., is an enormous but overwhelmingly residential development.

In the long run, the Bremner model will almost certainly be the better of the two, if for no other reason than it offers more. Other than its architecture, the beauty of Telus House lies in its capacity to be part of something larger than itself, namely the city.
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I don't like his writing, but I do agree that it's wonderful how they've opened the tower up to the city. It sets a good template for south-of-the-tracks development and the creation of a very public, mixed-use neighbourhood.

So is the project officially called "Telus House"? If so, I like it... a nice classical name :)
 
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