Here's a little behind-the-scenes for you today as a way of introduction to this article. You may have noticed that yesterday we picked The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, the redevelopment of the current Four Seasons Hotel after it decamps down the block to Bay Street in 2012, as our dataBase project of the day. It's still the project of the day now in fact, until our next one is revealed later this afternoon. Today though, we find we need to be playing up the project again, as developer Camrost-Felcorp just got in touch with us to tell us 'we've got a new plan for the retail at the base of the building, here's a new rendering to update you'. The new plan, we have to say, is a huge improvement on the original, and it turns what was an awkward, tacked-on updating of a 1971 brutalist local landmark… into a bold and energized - yet respectful - reimagining of the building's existing expression. We are getting something good here!

New retail podium plan for The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, by WZMH Architects for Camrost-Felcorp

WZMH Architects has taken the vertical concrete ribs which run up between the bay window rises of the building and made them a feature of the base, allowing the building to appear to sprout from the ground. The new embellished ribs celebrate the building's verticality while allowing wide bands of horizontal street-embracing windows to open the base of the building up to the surroundings. It's not just a better rendering above than the one below: it's a better building. This is architecture in the service of public engagement, and in service of history. This plan does not try to hide a tower designed in a style which so many are so slow to embrace: it celebrates it and integrates it into a contemporary and more vibrant Toronto.

Original retail podium plan for The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, by WZMH Architects for Camrost-Felcorp

The original plan, above, updated just the building's podium by covering the building's original bones behind new fields of reflective glass: the new plan makes the tower integral to the update by highlighting its old bones and playing them up even more while intermingling a transparent skin. As plastic surgery goes, this is good stuff! Notice as well that the cladding treatment of the new corner units replacing the balconies up the tower is much more sympathetic now too.

So let's look a little closer at the details, contrasting the new plan with the old. First, how the building will meet Yorkville Avenue:

New retail podium plan, north end, for The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, by WZMH Architects for Camrost-Felcorp

Original retail podium plan, north end, for The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, by WZMH Architects for Camrost-Felcorp

The base of the tower along Avenue Road:

New retail podium plan, centre, for The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, by WZMH Architects for Camrost-Felcorp

Original retail podium plan, centre, for The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, by WZMH Architects for Camrost-Felcorp

And the south portion along Avenue Road, where the podium is:

New retail podium plan, south end, for The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, by WZMH Architects for Camrost-Felcorp

Original retail podium plan, south end, for The New Residences of Yorkville Plaza, by WZMH Architects for Camrost-Felcorp

You will notice in the above rendering of the new plan that the podium ends rather abruptly up top. That is because Camrost-Felcorp and WZMH Architects have another surprise for the future still: it is here where the second phase of the project will be. The size of the second tower and podium are still to be worked out through the City's planning process, but it is above here where it they will rise. Here's looking forward to more on this suddenly much more exciting project.

Many more renderings can be found in UrbanToronto's dataBase page for this project, linked below. You may also join in the discussion of this project through the associated Projects & Construction or Real Estate Forum links below as well.