IBI is for sure at the top end of the 'Four Horsefirms of the Archpocalypse'. They've really picked up their game in the last five years. Huge stumbles like Trinity's Bloor/ Dundas fiasco are thankfully now the anomaly, not the norm.
I have no idea about the inner workings of IBI but I suspect that like other firms, certain partners are better at the whole architecture thing than others.. There are some weak projects coming out of the firm still, some very weak ones, but also some excellent ones. YMMV.
 
Observation on the Landscape Plans:

- 4 Kentucky Coffee Trees on Yonge with reasonable soil volumes. (fine)

- But also calls for using the current streetscape design, not the one approved in the BIA Masterplan. BIA calls for stone sidewalks, plans here show concrete and brick paver edging.

1628191053036.png
 
Here’s a guess: this will eventually get approved at similar height and in a similar timeframe to the Slate/Studio Gang project. Despite being nowhere near as good.

Sadly, I think that is a probable outcome.
 
Here’s a guess: this will eventually get approved at similar height and in a similar timeframe to the Slate/Studio Gang project. Despite being nowhere near as good.
They have an agreement with the cemetery so the rear isn't an issue, but the ruthlessness of the front is going to be a problem for the City.

All that said, I think the broader thing is we have to be more and more comfortable with 40 storey buildings just being 'background'. It's something I've struggled with for years, but I'm coming more around to now. Not every building, regardless of its height, is going to be stellar, and TBH, that's not the worst thing.
 
Even those HIGH-REZ renders are missing all the Tombstones...?

Which to be honest, are at-least as tall as the Planter-Boxes they have rendered all along Yonge.

View attachment 351138

Apparently "I see dead people" is better marketing for films than real estate?
 
This is turning into a comedy thread! I like it! We haven't had one in awhile, nice way to distract from the 'design' of the proposal!
 
Guaranteed protected western views at least!

PS, not that I disagree with this, as a matter of fact...........

But I'd like to make a curious observation..........in 19th and early 20thC Toronto.........cemeteries were routinely moved to make way for development.

A potters field at Yonge and Bloor was moved to Mt Pleasant Cemetery.......or were they............


From the article above:

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I do find it fascinating, that at a time when land in Ontario and Canada must surely have seemed unlimited.........

Still, the best real estate could not be reserved to the dead.

****

Note, I am not advocating development of this or any other cemetery.

I'm just intrigued by the difference in social attitudes over time.
 

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