Complexes

[buildup]

There's a new type of development in Toronto bigger than a typical 1-2 tower project and smaller than a community like Cityplace or Regent Park. They are very exciting, examples being The Well, Artist Alley, Mirvish Village, and possibly this HP proposal at Dufferin and Bloor. A series of jewels scattered about the city. It would be interesting to inventory and define them.
I'd suggest they should cover at least one end of a city block, have at least 4 structures, residential, retail, possibly commercial or community..

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

Perhaps not quite what you're looking for, but I would suggest an older precursor in North York: The Four Winds Drive complex. I grew up there in the late seventies and early eighties, and it was (as I haven't been back there in some time) a remarkable example of a self-contained community: Five apartment blocks (four connected by an extensive network of underground garages), scores of townhomes, a self-contained mall, recreation centre, and linked via paths, gardens and hidden trails, essentially a city within a city. Largely intact from what I understand, now to be served at its easternmost end by Finch West Station on the Spadina subway extension. Essentially, that complex, the Fountainhead complex across the street, the original York University campus, and several townhouse complexes along Sentinel Road constituted a futuristic, Logan's Run-esque colony of brutalist futurism right smack at the north end of the city. A bit down on its luck these days, but from what I can see on Google Maps still essentially the same as it was nearly 40 years ago.

 

[ShonTron]

Manulife Centre, The Crossways, and Greenwin Square are similar, older examples of the same basic idea too.

 

[someMidTowner]

Manulife Centre, The Crossways, and Greenwin Square are similar, older examples of the same basic idea too.

Yonge-Eglinton Centre should definitely make the list

 

[ShonTron]

Yonge-Eglinton Centre should definitely make the list

And post-Eaton's College Park/Maclean Hunter Tower. Two residential buildings, and an office tower attached to a former department store that houses shops, courthouses, and Carlu.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

Yonge-Sheppard Centre as well.