Toronto Corus Quay | ?m | 8s | Waterfront Toronto | Diamond Schmitt

Common, Corus's budget is nearly $200M and all they can come up with is another community centre? (cough, cough) It's just another example of Diamond's conservative architecture.
 
Mongo said:
^ Yes they would be ... but what is the budget for these buildings, compared to what is available here?
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i think the last 2 would a bit more expensive because of the complexity, but the first one seems very reasonable in my view.
 
Smucky's got some fine renderings there of waterfront type buildings. Where are they from? Do any of them actually exist in real life, or more of the same old fantasy we have been conditioned to "expect" from many years of false promises on Toronto's waterfront.
 
as unimaginative said, the first one is from valencia designed by David Chipperfield.

the 2nd one is a proposed design for an auditorium in Padova, Italy by UNStudio Architects.


the 3rd one is Qingping Highway Management Centre in Shenzhen, China by Atkins.
 
Acc to Nat'l Post government officials are negotiating with a mystery College/University to be located on a prime piece of land on the Waterfront near Redpath. We may get 2 nice buildings near the Waterfront!!! hey??

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=188299

Secret talks for prime lot
Waterfront; Unidentified university the mystery buyer
Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Friday, December 21, 2007

Government officials are negotiating another secret deal for public land on the Toronto waterfront, this time for a college or university to take a prime spot near the Redpath sugar refinery.

Renee Daoust, a Montreal architect, confirmed yesterday that she has produced drawings for a building that an institution plans to erect on the south side of Queens Quay, between Jarvis and Sherbourne streets. She declined to name her client.

"It's a bit premature, because they are in a negotiation process," she said from her firm, Daoust Lestage, in Mont-real. "People are not talking right now."

Ms. Daoust is also a member of Waterfront Toronto's Design Review Panel, a group of architects with the power to approve or reject the designs for projects on the waterfront. She said she will not sit judgment over her own project. "You have to excuse yourself," she said.

Waterfront Toronto, jointly owned by the federal, provincial and city governments to manage the redevelopment of the port lands, confirmed that it is talking to a school about locating on the site.

"We are in discussions with an academic institution, which will end in a good deal for all," said Marisa Piattelli, a spokeswoman for Waterfront Toronto. Asked why the land was not put out to tender, she said "academic institutions don't want to compete against one another."

She said other lots are available at the site, where yesterday crews were driving piles into what was Marine Terminal 28 at the water's edge. Any deal must be approved by Toronto City council, she said.

Ryerson University had been in discussion with Waterfront Toronto for the site. But yesterday Dr. Sheldon Levy, the president of Ryerson, said his institution is not going to the port lands.

"It's not us," he said. "It's easier to grow and consolidate around the university itself."

Ms. Piattelli said she has also had discussions with George Brown College, which has a campus a few blocks away, at King and Sherbourne, and the Ontario College of Art and Design, which recently underwent a major expansion at its McCaul Street campus. Neither school was immediately available for comment.

The new project will be built on land east of the Jarvis Street slip, where ships dock to unload raw sugar for the Redpath refinery. The land belongs to Toronto Economic Development Corp., a city agency. TEDCO came under fire this year after it made a secret deal, which it code- named "Project Symphony," with a mystery tenant.

After the National Post revealed the name of the tenant, TEDCO confirmed it is Corus Entertainment Inc.

However, the Design Review Panel this month rejected the Corus building design, and said it will withhold $9-million of its $12.5-million contribution to the project, unless the architects change details
 
HiRiser said:
However, the Design Review Panel this month rejected the Corus building design, and said it will withhold $9-million of its $12.5-million contribution to the project, unless the architects change details
Click to expand...

Reasons for the rejection in this article from the January 2008 issue of The Bulletin:

Bait and switch?

Key waterfront building design is cheapened

By Duncan McAllister

Discord over the final designs of the former "Project Symphony" has its developers and backers about to face the music. The design review panel overseeing the project has objected to changes in design and to the use of cheaper materials than promised. And the project is under construction. But $9 million in financing is being withheld for the controversial building - renamed First Waterfront Place - pending the completion of the design review. As the first development of the East Bayfront precinct, the new home for 1,100 employees of Corus Entertainment at the foot of Jarvis St. lacks significant architectural features that were presented in July. It creates no new jobs, which is the reason the city desires commercial development: “Employment lands.â€

The city, the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. (TWRC) and the Toronto Economic Development Corp. (TEDCO) have been working through a common process todevelop the project.

According to Marisa Piatteli of Waterfront Toronto, “TEDCO received conditional approval based on designs before the panel and recommendations with other elements to be included, back in July. The latest designs did not reflect the design that was conditionally approved.â€

Located on the 10 hectares of infill at the south side of Queen’s Quay east of Jarvis slip, formally known as the Queen Elizabeth Docks, the land is owned by TEDCO, a controversial “arms-length†city agency that is frequently criticized and is able to develop city-owned lands that it controls. The planned 8-storey building, a combination of office and retail space, would be approximately 500,000 square feet with an atrium, public space, walkways and underground parking. A public consultation meeting was hosted by Councilor Pam McConnell on March 19 with 143 people attending.

Corus, controlled by the Shaw family of Calgary, was considered to be an ideal tenant for the location to consolidate their 11 Toronto locations under one roof. Corus owns production and animation facilities in Liberty Village and radio stations across Canada. TEDCO Pres. Jeff Steiner, in an April 2007 report to council said, “While 75% of the projected East Bayfront development will be residential, the most difficult development to attract is the 25% employment target, especially knowledge-based, high-quality office and creative workers.†But they’re moving from other parts of Toronto to the water-front.

In a special TWRC board meeting Dec. 7, Mayor David Miller moved that TEDCO prepare a revised submission to the design review panel. They accepted the design panel’s recommendation to withhold approval of the TEDCO plan.

In December the board decided to withhold the lion’s share of the $12.5 million commitment from Waterfront Toronto until TEDCO and their architects, Diamond and Schmitt, can resolve several architectural variances identified by the design panel.

“Our board of directors was very firm on the fact that the $9 million [holdback] was based on design excellence in keeping with and implementing the recommendations flowing from the design review panel,†says Piattelli.

Bruce Kuwabara, architect and head of the design review panel, criticized the loss of the central feature: “The ‘egg-like’ conference room which appeared to float in the centre of the atrium has been replaced with a conventional room, eliminating the only distinctive architectural form visible on the south façade from the water’s edge.â€

In addition, Kuwabara outlines several other major design issues in a Nov. 30 memo published on the Waterfront Toronto website that includes a loss of urban profile, predominance of service entries and a compromised atrium. Building materials have been substituted, he reports—the original plans called for black granite columns, now replaced with pre-cast concrete. The document shows before and after renderings which make clear where corners have been cut.

“The good news is TEDCO has been asked to resubmit the design [in] keeping with the understanding of what the recommendations of the panel were,†says Piattelli. “We’re very hopeful that they will present something which goes back to what the design review panel saw—in fact had been very excited about.â€

According to Eva Varangu of TEDCO, “This is an exciting opportunity to revitalize the waterfront with Corus Entertainment. TEDCO is working closely with the city, Waterfront Toronto and the Waterfront Design Review Panel to resolve concerns about the design, while working within our tenant’s requirements. We have already held further meetings and will continue to work together to make this first building on the East Bayfront the best we can.â€

Not everyone is as excited about the development. Some residents and business owners were hoping for public spaces rather than a commercial building, although the site is actually zoned for mixed-use.

“For seven years we went to public meetings for the East Bayfront, and the resounding call from both business owners and residents in the area was for public space,“ says JimMirkopoulos, of Cinespace film studios.

As the previous land users of that site, Cinespace leased a building from TEDCO. For 12 years, 175 Queens Quay was the home of a thriving 150,000-square-foot film production facility called Marine Terminal Studios.

A year ago they were given just two months’ notice to vacate the property to make way for the Bayshore project. Mirkopoulos appealed to the mayor—with 30 letters from film producers and over 6,000 signatures—to delay the eviction as they had productions underway. The mayor did not respond. As a result, Cinespace vacated Marine Terminal 28 in February to make way for the new development. In a letter to the editor to The Toronto Star, Mirkopoulos wrote that “TEDCO’s ‘Project Symphony’ reverses seven years of waterfront consultations by placing a commercial building at the site contravenes the mandated architectural competitive process to achieve design excellence and only transplants existing jobs from Liberty Village instead of attracting new ones, as originally advertised.â€

January 2008 The Bulletin www.TheBulletin.ca


http://www.thetorontobulletin.com/Archives/jan08.pdf

Central Atrium June 13, 2007 plan
Central Atrium Nov. 14, 2007 plan
The difference five months can make is displayed here in this comparison prepared by Waterfront Toronto. It shows how the TEDCO-Corus building first attracted praise from architects for its beauty and novelty. It won quick approval, especially for the ‘egg’ feature in the June design. City funding has been withheld because TEDCO and Corus revamped the praiseworthy aspects for a perhaps lower-quality, less publicly functional building.


Ground-floor plan changes dramatically from the approved architectural concept at top. June 13, 2007Nov. 14, 2007
 
That sounds encouraging. This city needs more oversight for design features, quality of materials and attention to detail.
 
The article says it's under construction. I was under the impression it had all been halted. Even when Diamond added the egg shaped element to the design, I still wasn't very fond of it.

Why does this have to be so difficult? If they aren't smart enough to be able to find an up and coming architect who could do something interesting, just hire one of the big names and let them do their thing.

It should've been clear Diamond isn't the right architect for this project.
 
Whats really terribly is that he got Architect of the Year or whatever its called in Toronto Life a couple of issues ago. Really steamed my beans that did!
 
Aside from the merits (however understood or misunderstood) of Corus + 4SC, how is Diamond "underwhelming"? Stuff like the Central YMCA definitely marks him as one of the more important Toronto architects of his time. I can't picture many expert professionals knocking him a significant beyond-quibbling stage below Zeidler, Moriyama, Parkin, et al. Besides, what's apparently most "underwhelming" about Diamond merely reflects a natural contextualist sensibility that, perhaps, is less fashionable now than in the 70s and 80s--but when push comes to shove, to knock something like, say, Innis College as 30-year-old barren banality is as amateurishly idiotic as knocking some 50s International Style opus like Union Carbide on such grounds a generation ago.

Don't trump up Jack Diamond's overall architectural failures simply in light of Corus. Believe me, he *is* a figure of merit...
 
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