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

vegeta:
well i can't really follow all the minutiae and beard pulling that goes on in the "aA VS. schlock" debate. its way too inside baseball for me, and i'm completely agnostic on that firm. i like a lot of what they do but i also wish Toronto had a hundred buildings that looked like 1 St. Thomas, only bigger.
anyway, if G+C have produced vaguely ok buildings that ape what a lot of people like about aA, than i am sorry they didn't choose to design one for the corner of Yonge and Gerrard. and i really hate silly and meaningless polls. Aura is 7.6X more popular than Shangri-La? 4.74X more popular than Four Seasons? really? based on what? please.
 
People that actually cared enough to vote in a poll? Those that despised it were not barred from voicing their opinion on this project, and you are proof of that. My reasoning for this project being a crowd favorite here is the anticipated overall impact of the project

 
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caltrane74 said:
People that actually cared enough to vote in a poll? Those that despised it were not barred from voicing their opinion on this project, and you are proof of that. My reasoning for this project being a crowd favorite here is the anticipated overall impact of the project
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if you want to believe that Aura is 7.6X more popular than Shangri-la on this forum than by all means go right ahead. i would point out that one is finished, and one exists mainly in the minds of its fervent devotees. seems a bit apples to orangutans to me but whatever.
 
Shangrila and Four Seasons are amazing projects. You will get no arguement from me there. However Shangrila and Four Seasons do nothing for the street. They are actually turning their backs to the street. They want nothing to do with the riff-raff like you and me. (Same for Trump I guess) Anyways Aura has its face to Yonge Street, to welcome you big broad escalators to scoop you inside and bring all the action inside outside with voluminous windows and massive roof top patios. It will bring life to the street.

If you care about city life and buzz, Aura is tops!
 
caltrane74 said:
Shangrila and Four Seasons are amazing projects. You will get no arguement from me there. However Shangrila and Four Seasons do nothing for the street. They are actually turning their backs to the street. They want nothing to do with the riff-raff like you and me. (Same for Trump I guess) Anyways Aura has its face to Yonge Street, to welcome you big broad escalators to scoop you inside and bring all the action inside outside with voluminous windows and massive roof top patios. It will bring life to the street.

If you care about city life and buzz, Aura is tops!
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The shopping mall will bring life to the street ... the way the Eaton Centre has?

Anyways, I don't see why they couldn't have the benefits of retail that people are claiming, and still have a coherent and elegant design for the exterior of the building.
 
k10ery said:
The shopping mall will bring life to the street ... the way the Eaton Centre has?

Anyways, I don't see why they couldn't have the benefits of retail that people are claiming, and still have a coherent and elegant design for the exterior of the building.
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Eaton Centre's retail is enclosed behind walls that can't be seen. Except for a few locations, like H&M. Therefore providing no animation to the outside. Aura is different in that it's mostly glass. However, both bring "life" to the street, by the large amount of people around the buildings.
 
k10ery said:
The shopping mall will bring life to the street ... the way the Eaton Centre has?

Anyways, I don't see why they couldn't have the benefits of retail that people are claiming, and still have a coherent and elegant design for the exterior of the building.
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I was just making a comparison to the projects thedeepend quoted. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that University and Adelaide willl be relatively the same even after the Shangrila opens. There will not be a stampede of foot traffic around Shangrila when it opens for obvious reasons. Just imagine if Aura and Shangrila switched places? Would Shangrila or Four Seasons be such great projects then? (Same for Trump, I guess)

As for the Eaton Centre, it had in the past turned its back to Yonge Street, but thr recent renovations with the open restaraunts and shops right on Yonge has done alot for bringing activity to the street. The next renovation brought retail right out to the corner, including the accompaning signage and the glassy and wide open patios - the Joey bar comes to mind. And don't forget the Eaton Centre is one of the main draws on Yonge Street probably responsible for bringing a good share of the foot traffic and activity to the core.

I'm not a deep urbanplanning thinker like many are or claim to be on this site. But seeing the obvious is pretty easy for me.
 
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I think fouronesix made a very articulate case as to why Aura is "wanting" from an architectural perspective. While the argument that the project livens the street (not that the stretch is particularly underused in any case) is valid, I can say the same about what, Metropolis/10 Dundas East as well. So why aren't we singing praises of that one as the best thing since sliced bread? Why shouldn't anyone expect a good, if not superlative project when they are building that tall?

Using a movie analogy - this is the hundred million blockbuster that turned out to be a dud. Not a "disaster" like Gigli but maybe more like Waterworld? Big, expensive, shallow and unsatisfying at so many different levels.

AoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
I can say the same about what, Metropolis/10 Dundas East as well. So why aren't we singing praises of that one as the best thing since sliced bread?
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Because it was a given that whatever was built at 10 Dundas East would be a large retail shopping centre. We got the very minimum of what was expected there. Aura, on the other hand, is predominately a condo and the fact that it's bringing so much retail to the area is an incidental bonus. It's also bringing popular brand name retail to an area that is otherwise pretty sketchy when it comes to shopping options.
 
Ramako:

No offense, but from my read of this thread - the excitement and praises from day one has little to do with the retail component and all to do with height. Besides, the retail component is pretty much expected from the get go. The comparator is a very good demonstration of how the best of intentions and in fact excitement over a project can be thwarted by poor detailing and execution.

AoD
 
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The fact that it's bringing lots of retail to the area is indeed an aside from architecture/height debate. Nevertheless I think it's a legitimate reason, in and of itself, to be excited by this project, at least from my perspective.
 
Ramako:

That's why I find some of those who are arguing for the project a bit disingenuous - almost no one on here is questioning the program of the building or that having a structure this tall for this site is a bad idea at this point in time. The debate is over the design and execution. To confound the two doesn't serve the debate well.

AoD
 
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