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UrbanToronto was recently invited to tour Market Wharf, the 34-storey condominium project by Context Development now just shy of topping-off at Jarvis and the Esplanade. Designed by architectsAlliance, the project is made up of two conjoined phases. The first phase has been occupied for about a year now, and it consists of a 5-storey brick-clad podium of suites surrounding a hidden parking garage, surmounted by two storeys of glass, steel and spandrel townhomes. Retail features at ground level, along with vehicular and pedestrian access.
The podium has been an overwhelming favourite of UrbanToronto members during its construction and since. Its brick cladding makes it a sensitive neighbour to the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, while its randomized windwow pattern inserts a quirky modern vibe into the local mix.
Phase two is a thirty-four storey tower rising out of a southern continuation of the podium, and if anything it is even more popular with members. It is marked by the undulating wave pattern of its balconies, something we are dying to see completed with the railings and glazing. Only a small number of test panels have been applied so far – but our patience should be awarded soon though, and the full effect of the undulating balconies will be on display for all to see.
Another element of the building's design that is becoming more prominent as is it completed are two peanut shaped volumes, one an east-west oriented double height section atop the podium at the south end of the building which will house amenities, and the other, another two-floor section oriented north-south atop the tower, which contains the penthouses. The shot above features the lower peanut's overhang, while down below, we're now up the tower and checking out the penthouse floors' outline.
It's about time I mentioned that all of the 30 photos in this article are courtesy of rdaner, an UrbanToronto member who has been quite generous with his posting of fine photos in the Forum. We wanted to say thank you, so we brought him along for the tour. We'll run most of the rest of article with little commentary, and just give you a chance to enjoy the photographs.
UrbanToronto plans to say 'thank-you' by inviting more contributing photographers along for future building tours. We also want to say thank-you to Context Development and our host Peter Venetas for shepherding us through the construction project. If you want to see more, rdaner has more photos from this tour and he'll be posting some of them shortly in the Market Wharf thread in our Projects and Construction Forum. That thread, where you can join in on the conversation about this project, is linked below along with the UrbanToronto dataBase page for Market Wharf. It's got a number of renderings of how everything should look once complete, and lots more information should you be interested in a suite in the building.
| Related Companies: | architects—Alliance, Baker Real Estate Incorporated, Bluescape Construction Management, L.A. Inc. |
