Oh that looks excellent -- what a pleasant surprise. More good Henriquez in TO. And another internal courtyard in the WDL. Lots to like (though not sure sure about the balcony treatments).

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I actually love the folded canopies. It provides some shade and privacy from the neighbouring balconies, and creates an interesting animated design element which most condo buildings lack here. Henriquez designed a building in Vancouver that has this feature on the entire two sides of the building which looks incredible:
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It’s a real shame that this building design has been whittled down to the typical drab Toronto palate of blacks and greys. It’s on such a prominent corner site overlooking the park and DVP, it would have been such a welcome addition to this neighbourhood.
We have The Waterfront DRP to blame for them wimping out on the design, and DREAM for value engineering this to death from what was such a warm, dynamic and promising building. This now looks like a boring Wallman/KPMB rehash which we seen too much of across the city. A compromise on the colour would be more acceptable — warmer tones of beige and browns, or even dark reds, but this such a 180 from the original design.
 
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Waterfront Toronto DRP recording is up. Interesting comment around 3:08:00 from Henriquez re: the loss of colour.....


OOF, some Panel members did not sound happy.

To summarize the comments on colour, the architect said they had been discouraged from using colour by the City and community, who said all the buildings should "look the same". I'd like to know who in the community allegedly said that, as I'm not aware of any input on this project.

The Panel voted not to support the project 6-5.
 
OOF, some Panel members did not sound happy.

To summarize the comments on colour, the architect said they had been discouraged from using colour by the City and community, who said all the buildings should "look the same". I'd like to know who in the community allegedly said that, as I'm not aware of any input on this project.

The Panel voted not to support the project 6-5.

I wonder who are the fools at the the city...the ones who couldn't even get themselves to paint the St. Lawrence Market North vent red as originally proposed?

AoD
 
City employees are risk-averse - their jobs is to make decisions that will piss as few people off as possible. Unfortunately, making everything grey and uniform is the least risky choice.
 
Either the architect was BS'ing or the someone was BS'ing to the architect here...as I am pretty sure, particularly with the community part, that this was an assertion made without evidence.
 
To be fair, we’re all kinda terrible whiners (people in general, not specific to these forums), and there’s no pleasing anyone these days. Even the folks taking bold strokes get so much heat.

To some degree, I imagine it’s a bit of a mistake to have so many public consults on stuff. When any six random, uneducated (in planning & development) neighbours can potentially scuttle a project.

For this, it has to be value engineering. I don’t recall anyone having a meltdown when they proposed the beige tile work on Canary House, or a protest march over Underpass Park.
 
I wonder who are the fools at the the city...the ones who couldn't even get themselves to paint the St. Lawrence Market North vent red as originally proposed?

AoD

I don't know the entirety of whose spoken to this project, but I have a few of the names, and am debating the virtue of expressing myself in writing in another medium; though what I write here is read by many of the people in question.

****

For now, partially because I don't have the full list of names, and partially because I don't know exactly what comments are attributed to whom, I will not publish contact info.

But I will share that two of the names that matter are public, and people can and should politely inquire.

One is at WT, one is in City Planning, you needn't dig hard.
 
Either the architect was BS'ing or the someone was BS'ing to the architect here...as I am pretty sure, particularly with the community part, that this was an assertion made without evidence.

I don't believe Gregory would BS and if you listen to what he said on the linked video and the tone in which he said it, I think he you can hear sincere frustration and disappointment.
 
Seems safe to say that the city's planner on the file is one person who has the power to shape this project:
Planner: Katherine Bailey
Telephone: 416-397-1761
Email: Katherine.Bailey@toronto.ca

I have no evidence that this person specifically is responsible for the greyification, so please don't send hate mail (but I'm sure they would appreciate some polite public feedback).
 
I enjoyed listening to the last 10 minutes (a compelling radio drama):

"Support?"
"Non-Support?"
"Conditional Support?"
"Non-Support for Conditional Support?"
"Anybody... anything? Who wants lunch?"

Our city is in good hands.
 
I don't believe Gregory would BS and if you listen to what he said on the linked video and the tone in which he said it, I think he you can hear sincere frustration and disappointment.
Fair enough! I'll take the latter explanation then...
 

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