The St. Lawrence focus area (which this building misses by a few blocks) has requirements for using brick at ground level, which has done a good job keeping the street wall consistent...
This has been the running critique of Gehry for decades. I'm not sure if the Simpsons clip has been shared in the 414 pages of this thread before, but in case anyone hasn't seen it:
The podium is a bit of a bunker. I guess that's not unusual for a community centre. The off-axis tower is a nice touch, especially in the south core where basically every other building aligns with the street grid.
There's one at Nathan Phillips Square too, but there really isn't another location in the city that can match the Christmasy vibe of the Distillery's cobblestones.
I'm loving how the bridge blocks the ugly railway overpass. Really makes the streetscape nicer, and that's before the building's retail comes into play.
Is the plan here for one of those fancy robot-loaded parking systems, or just a normal underground garage? The layout of the site looks like it would be tough for ramps.
I find the strong edges between segments in the precast brick panels jarring. It makes the building feel like it has poorly disguised brick wallpaper. Anyone have a feel for hard/expensive it would it be to make the panels interlocking, or to finish off the edges and joints with some real...
At least as currently implemented, spotlights almost always feel more elegant and subdued than led strip, probably because there's more of a historical reference frame.
The other issue with LED lighting on buildings is that whoever ends up with the controls usually seems unable to resist the...
I was pulling from this Star article:
https://www.thestar.com/business/2013/01/29/enwave_looks_to_expand_deep_lake_water_cooling.html
" Enwave is unusual in that it uses drinking water as the coolant. Other systems dump heated water back into the lake from which it’s drawn — leading to concerns...
It's a giant heat exchange system, to expand Enwave's cold-water cooling system. The current system cools buildings by warming the city's tap water. That option is basically exhausted (we don't want the tap water to get any warmer in the summer), so to cool more buildings this cistern will be...
This would be such a great thing for this bit of the strip. Not a huge change, but would fill that bin in nicely.
It is a residential to commercial conversion, though, which I know can be a challenge to get through the city.