Toronto KING Toronto | 57.6m | 16s | Westbank | Bjarke Ingels Group

It will be a significant landmark on the city. People just underestimate it because it’s not tall.
If it is executed properly it will also be a pretty substantial tourist attraction; I don't know of any project continent-wide that is similar... I loved the 70's sci-fi flick Logan's Run, BTW; this project kinda has the same vibe...
 
Westbank and Bjarke Ingels group installed this spinning chandelier under the bridge in Vancouver as part of Vancouver house.

They're famous for these luxury, cutting edge architecture projects. No doubt they will be an attraction to King West


https://globalnews.ca/news/6225835/spinning-chandelier-granville-bridge-art/

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Projects outside Canada:
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It's not the Well but i get the feeling this will be one of the most exciting developments to go up.in the city for the next couple years
It will be a significant landmark on the city. People just underestimate it because it’s not tall.
If it is executed properly it will also be a pretty substantial tourist attraction; I don't know of any project continent-wide that is similar... I loved the 70's sci-fi flick Logan's Run, BTW; this project kinda has the same vibe...

Habitat 67 is the natural comparison, although it is a very different development and I sense that King Toronto will be far more impressive unless they totally drop the ball.

This will likely be a top-5 most photographed Toronto landmark upon completion. Its location on King will have the Instagram influencer types naturally congregating there. The completion of M+G and the King Street redesign in 2024 will make this area a huge tourist draw.

The next few years in Toronto are going to be the most architecturally transformative since... perhaps ever. We’re blessed to be able to witness it
 
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Habitat 67 is the natural comparison, although it is a very different development and I sense that King Toronto will be far more impressive unless they totally drop the ball.
Christ almighty, nope. Not even close.
This will likely be a top-5 most photographed Toronto landmark upon completion. It’s location on King will have the Instagram influencer types naturally congregating there. The completion of M+G and the King Street redesign in 2024 will make this area a huge tourist draw.

The next few years in Toronto are going to be the most architecturally transformative since... perhaps ever. We’re blessed to be able to witness it
Shoot me in the head.
 
lol I know right? The renderings are incredible but I just can't see it actually turning out like that. I really hope I'm being pessimistic and will be proven wrong.

There’s an extremely detailed PDF outlining everything about this project, from what the surface texture of the glass bricks will be to every species of vegetation throughout the building, how they’ll be exposed to sunlight and how they’ll be maintained.

Having seen what BIG has accomplished in their buildings, I have every bit of confidence that they’ll build it as seen in the renderings. It’s one of those projects that might in fact outdo the renderings because a lot of what this building is about is the feeling of the human scale spaces in and around the structure. That is hard or impossible to capture in a drawing.
 
The KING Toronto brochure is a massive 300+ page coffee table book (also available in PDF format as MetroMan was describing) which shows an incredible amount of detail on the building. The building has been designed and details worked out before sales even started, showing a great level of commitment and resolution, something you rarely see in other condos or developers — bait & switch/material changes from the marketing renderings and vague non-committal generic specs are so commonplace these days.

On another note, the first phase of Heatherwick Studio’s 1000 Trees project in Shanghai is almost complete. The design reminds me of KING Toronto, though the trees and plants are in elevated pots atop of massive columns rather than covering the building, but still very impressive:
 
There’s an extremely detailed PDF outlining everything about this project, from what the surface texture of the glass bricks will be to every species of vegetation throughout the building, how they’ll be exposed to sunlight and how they’ll be maintained.

Having seen what BIG has accomplished in their buildings, I have every bit of confidence that they’ll build it as seen in the renderings. It’s one of those projects that might in fact outdo the renderings because a lot of what this building is about is the feeling of the human scale spaces in and around the structure. That is hard or impossible to capture in a drawing.

can you share the PDF?
 
Took a few tours of the posted material- extraordinary stuff indeed. I want this to succeed but my mother is gardener and I couldn't find the planting strategy for this mega-green idea in our climate.

Some hardy ivys will help but this over-the-top green vision could just end up as bald habitat-lite if not infused with some of the green promise. The green is the cladding that makes it special.

Design: brilliant

Result: if you make it grow, we'll celebrate.
 
It's January. I'm staring outside my window at buildings on King St with climbing plants that in the winter lose their leaves but maintain the character of buildings with plants. Trees in parks don't disappear in the winter, neither will the trees on KING's terraces. We have seasons in Toronto. Plants change throughout the year.

Catastrophizing about Westbank/BIG not including the plants on a building that is entirely built around the concept of terraces with plants, and despite ample information out there detailing the lengths to which they're going to implementing it, is really starting to get tiring.

They've gone so far as to choose plant species and design a cabling system to support vine growth. Terraces all have soil basins and irrigation built in. The entire mass of the structure is specifically designed to consider solar exposure on all the plants. So they're building all this infrastructure as an integral part of the building then they're just going to say, "nah never mind about the plants"?

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Thx for the informed corrective MetroMan. Appreciated. But don't mess with my Catastrophizing... this is an important UT precursor/buffer for those happy results in T.O. ;-)

P.S. hope the condo corp builds a strong reserve fund.
 

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