That interior render from the HaririP proposal has me hankering to get more comprehensive looks at all three proposals. Bring them on!

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As a huge fan of S&P (anyone here invested in spooztoolz?) I'm wondering if they would have been the best architects for the ROM? Yes!

UTLaw is very conservative; they'll go with that dull glass box. Besides, a Quebecois firm touching an old Upper Canada institution? Heck no. Which is why I'd vote for S+P;) (why no developer has hired a quebec firm to design a toronto condo puzzles me--look@nomade and s+p as being the boutique brethern to clewe's corporate modernism.)

But frankly UT should say no to all these proposals and start over. All of these proposals will look dated/need facelifts within 20 years.
 
urbandreamer said:
But frankly UT should say no to all these proposals and start over. All of these proposals will look dated/need facelifts within 20 years.
Click to expand...

Anything, absolutely anything built today will look dated in 20 years. City Hall looks dated but that in no way means it looks unattractive. I'm missing your point entirely. Please explain.
 
AoD, you links/posts are amazing. Thanks.

I still like the S+P proposal but the KPMB is something I would be happy with. Both are dynamic while being still being decent architecture.

There is a lot of meat in these proposals and I look forward going over them in greater detail.
 
S+P is certainly the best in my opinion. Their attention to detail with regards to the site and its context: Queen's Park, Philosophers Walk and also the inclusion of the ROM is very well thought out. I think the idea of creating a phased development to allow for a certain cohesiveness is also quite brilliant.

KPMB, while a designing a decent building, has done little except place two elongated boxes on the site and called their work done- they have also tried to harken back to the days of yore, when Philosophers Walk was even greener than it is now. Just not a real effort on their part.

Anyone else notice the spiral staircase's now donning the latest renderings- did Gehry have anything to do with this?

p5
 
S+P is the only good one. the other two are very unthoughtful imo.

i feel a bit nimbyish with this expansion... philosopher's walk is one of my favorite places in the city and i love it dearly as a former trinity college student/resident. it's so nice there, i wish the law school wouldn't engage it too much and keep the walk quiet. but given they HAVE to expand, i think they can and should only choose S+P
 
The Hariri Pontarini proposal is the only one that works for me on a functional level wrt circulation patterns. Also, hopefully the shorter block (and even the office block) would be engineered to take an extra storey for future expansion.

Each of the S&P and the KPMB proposals revert back to the pre-1990 configuration where access to the library from Flavelle House was through what amounts to a side passage. If these proposals assume that student circulation would occur outside, they are mistaken - it's Toronto in the winter! Students will take the shortest route from the sidewalk into Flavelle House through the portico and ignore the windswept exterior courtyard - then there'll be a traffic jam in the hallways of Flavelle House - it looks poorly planned.

Also just realized that Falconer Hall is given up to the Music Faculty in each of the proposals.
 
The three projects, at least at this stage, don't have the same scope. The S&P proposal really only addresses the Faculty of Law, while KPMB fully works out what to do with the Faculty of Music too, and throws in a Biggish Dig solution to the vehicular and parking problem in the whole precinct.

I suspect that Music, stuck for decades behind Falconer and the planetarium, and with ROM's driveway for a sidewalk, is going to like what is sees, which is an atrium, a real front door, and finally some presence, and will start lobbying in that direction.

What I suspect (maybe incorrectly) not many at either faculty will like is Saucier & Perrotte. It's bold and interesting architecture, but I'm not sure I'd wish it into existence to loom over Philosopher's Walk, and I'm fairly sure it would be a tough sell.

KPMB is conservative. What they do they typically do very well, but it's not to view their treatment of the curving flank along Queen's Park with disappointment. Maybe the Law mavens could throw down the gauntlent and demand they draw something that isn't a right angle.
 
I too like the S+P proposal the best. I really hope they go with it. H+P is next on the list and KPMB, well, I hope it's not even in the running.
 
I'm H+P first, followed closely by S+P. I'd be happy with either. KPMB's proposal is too simple, conservative and derivative.
 
Maybe KPMB's proposal got short-listed purely for the fact that it's so different from the imaginative proposals, just to set it apart.

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