Toronto Aura at College Park | 271.87m | 78s | Canderel | Graziani + Corazza

I love the slight offset from Yonge Street. Now why couldn't Shrangri-La have been done in the same manner to match the angle change in University? It's not complicated. Sometimes the most obvious things get overlooked in big projects.
 
But it wasn't overlooked at Shangri-La. The architects didn't want to angle the tower. Almost all of University Avenue's buildings are parallel to the avenue, so they kept their tower the same and built a podium that lines up with the angle.

Just because you wanted the tower to be angled to University does not mean that the architects overlooked the idea. I think that's an unfair assumption to make when projects have all sorts of considerations far more complicated than what laypeople want to see.

(This wasn't supposed to sound pretentious-- I'm just trying to give an architect's perspective. Nor am I saying that it's wrong to want the Shangri-La tower to be angled parallel to the change in University-- I'm just saying that it certainly wasn't simply overlooked.)
 
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^Well, whatever the reasons, it was a missed opportunity. Staying flush with the street angle would have also made the shifting planes on the east facade visible looking down University. Don't get me wrong, SL is a beautiful building, one of the best new towers in the city. But I feel it could've made a much bigger impact on its surroundings had it better utilized the intrinsic opportunities of its site.
 
caltrane74 said:
38 more floors until the curtianwall and curved tower levels..
Click to expand...

Actually, I think an admittedly-small amount of curtainwall could be due up sooner, at least going by my reading of the rendering. The overall building consists of a curtainwall-clad central part that runs to the architectural top, and then windowwall slabs on either side that run up as far as setbacks. While the slabs wrap around the central part for most of the lower 40ish floors, if you look closely, the south end of the central part does seem to run, unblocked by the windowwall slabs, continuously down all the way to the jutting south terrace that's now been fully-formed. Although most of the lower floors on that south-facing facade have inset balconies, they're theoretically seamless with the wall above them, and there's definitely an exposed stripe of unbroken wall just around the SE corner from them. I think that could mean we'll see a preview of what the top third will be clad with sooner rather than later. (Pause for stale joke along the lines of "yeah, but this is G+C we're dealing with, who's to say it will match...")

As an aside, we haven't seen any kind of a north elevation anywhere, have we? Curious how the equivalent interaction between the central core and the side slabs plays out on that side.
 
The angle change of University with shangri-la was followed somewhat with half the east facing side following that slant, it tapers,

i personally don't mid it, but ya, now that it is mentioned, a bit more angle on the east side and extending it further north on the site would've have a larger impact and better for the street..

kinda like Trump Chicago makes a huge impact from many streets/the river due to it's angled site/design
 
Beautiful shot from the Aura webcam


zWeuK.jpg
 
I agree. The Sony Centre from Berlin would be an awesome concept for College Park. It has potential to be a great public space and destination.
 
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