One of the Pemberton Group's communities that has pretty much escaped UrbanToronto's attention is Papillon Place along the south side of Eglinton west of Erin Mills Parkway in Mississauga. Three buildings now stand - towers 1 and 2, a third called Nouvelle - and the fourth and final phase has recently broken ground. Its name is Miracle in Mississauga. (Pemberton is building a similarly named Miracle on Yonge in Richmond Hill). 

Groundbreaking ceremony for Miracle in Mississauga

Finding the name of the architect for 'Miracle Miss' has been a bit of a chore, and while we're listing it as Burka Architects in the thread title despite a dearth of direct evidence for that, we're still 99% sure we are right. If we have misidentified the architect, we will change the name in the title when we are corrected. While Pemberton is not publicizing the architect's name, and Burka's website does not claim credit for the complex, we did find a single internet reference on www.skyscraperpage.com to Burka Varacalli (Varacalli has since split from Burka for Bazis) as the Papillon Place architect. The design has changed little over the four towers, and as Burka has designed Pemberton's similar Port Royal Place towers in Etobicoke as well as several other Pemberton projects, it's not too big a stretch to credit them here. One more business day and we'll be able to confirm all this with a phone call of course, but sometimes deadlines are deadlines, and we are putting a home page story out now.

So, why all the fuss about Miracle Miss's architect here? Well, it's just not UrbanToronto without a credit for a project's design, and it has never before been this difficult to determine who to give it to. It all begs the question as to why that has been the case. An easy answer? Maybe Pemberton knows that the kind of people who care much about current architecture would not likely be interested in this project. Certainly many early Pemberton high-rises have not been the type of building that gets much notice here. More recently designed Pemberton projects are getting more notice at UT however. While Uptown near Bloor and Yonge has its detractors and its supporters, everyone can agree that Pemberton decided it was time to up their architectural game with it. Like Papillon Place, Uptown's architect is Burka, and with it Burka was allowed to stretch their wings more widely than they did with their earlier designs for Pemberton. (Burka's work for other developers, like London on the Esplanade for Cityzen, was already showing more sophisticated work than what Pemberton had been demanding of Burka.)

Even newer than Uptown, Pemberton's U Condos takes the next step in architectural sophistication with two soaring glass towers featuring strong criss-crossing diagonal elements that are expressed in the cladding and in the balcony design. U Condo's design is by architectsAlliance, and its recent groundbreaking has many at UT anticipating a very exciting addition to Toronto's uptown core. In the meantime, this article returns to Eglinton and Glen Erin in western Mississauga, where, aesthetic criticism aside, the less architecturally adventurous Miracle in Mississauga's 18 storeys will sell just fine. The three existing towers at the site, and a myriad of similar structures across the GTA prove that. Here is what is going up:

Project rendering, courtesy of Pemberton Group

Closest to the viewer in the rendering above is the existing Nouvelle at Papillon Place, to the left is Miracle. Below is a rendering of the complex's lobby. We believe the interior designer is Flora Di Menna.

Lobby rendering, courtesy of Pemberton Group

Below is the site plan, showing the location of Miracle in Mississauga on the Papillon Place grounds.

Project site plan, courtesy of Pemberton Group

Meanwhile, look for UrbanToronto's coverage of another new Pemberton condominium, Bluwater, designed by Rafael + Bigauskas Architects, and located on the shore of Lake Ontario in Oakville elsewhere in Projects and Construction.

author:interchange42

posted:2010-11-19 00:50:29