There's room for both F+P (for whatever that means at this point in this firm's history) and aA in the city -- there are certainly enough projects to go around, and I'd love for both F+P and aA to get more work in the city.

The fact that we're not getting our own 30 St. Mary Axe here (for those who even wanted that sort of thing) doesn't necessarily mean the project isn't interesting.

I like that the design is unique for contemporary tower design in Toronto (and especially for Yorkville), and I especially like that the most interesting thing about watching this thing rise won't be how the window wall interacts with the curtain wall or how the seems in the brick precast look, etc. To me, it's different without being kitschy, and that's worth something right now.


30 St Mary Axe is a different era for Foster & Partners. The senior partner that designed it and most of the other world reknown towers is long gone . F+P is a massive design factory now with dozens upon dozens of projects in various stages at any time. There are a couple dozen senior partners with a hundred partners and hundreds more in associates. They are not all exceptional designers that put anything locally done to shame. They are pretty much indistinguishable from SOM or KPF.

Throw a couple dozen Foster towers in Toronto and almost everybody here would be complaining how similar they look. Quality be damned. It's all about being different.
 
It sort of reminds me of Torre Cepsa, Madrid (another Fosters project). Same kind of segmented concept and same idea for the crown as well, just with 4 smaller 'frames' instead of the single large one on Cepsa.

kWZaLue.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_Cepsa
 

There are two more renders visible on the display to the right of the model that haven't been posted yet, a skyline night view and an updated street level rendering. Particularity when the second image is released, it'll provide a clearer view of the changes at street level.
 
Yeah, sorry about that, I forgot to hit "publish" on the database file update yesterday. Now it's updated, and there are a bunch more images there for you to see, and the older images are now captioned as such.

42
 
Woah there. One is not like the other. I'll take aA over F+P's worst. The One is not even that great. I think aA could have pulled off a better, cohesive design given the same budget and freedoms. Different, foreign grass is not always greener.

lmao
 
I'm happy they have cut down the podium height - I always found the full 8 floors rather overwhelming. 6 floors creates a much more reasonable scale.
 
I like large lobbies and open interiors so lowering that is not a plus for me, although perhaps it won't make a huge difference. Visually I think it would have made more sense for the lobby ceiling to be in line with the roof of the adjoining heritage building. Overall for me the removal of the diamond texture on the podium is the most unfortunate loss- it's looking pretty conventional at street level now.
 
Think it's all but confirmed that will be an Apple Store. Has the lighting and table layout of new stores. Tall ceilings will allow for the trees they've been putting in flagships as well.
 

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