Toronto 191 Bay | 301.74m | 64s | QuadReal | Hariri Pontarini

This is much better and more in keeping with the original I.M. PEI structures that currently occupy the site. The original was out of whack and ugly, but not intentionally ugly. HPA obviously looked at the context and decided to make an appropriate change. Furthermore, this has nothing to do with value engineering, instead it appears more refined. I agree that we could have expected *something different than a box, but HPA is not the office to do that...London has some odd-looking towers that are great, but I would never expect too many (read none) receptive clients for such buildings here. As posted earlier, I too sense Renzo being channeled here..
 
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.dwg said:
  1. So they only kept one part of the facade of one of the stone-clad buildings? They opted for a facadectomy but couldn't even do it along the entire frontage?
  2. Great. More glass along a building elevation when we need exactly more of what stands there currently - masonry with punched windows. Stone. Texture.
  3. My frustration is quickly overcome with ambivalence. The balance of the plaza's notable pinwheel geometry by way of its elegant liner buildings is being completely dismantled. Given that fact, it doesn't matter what the design of the tower is - the block itself, this entire piece of the urban fabric is irreparably damaged. The tower could look incredible or it could look terrible and it doesn't matter because the spaces between the buildings - and the way the buildings play off each other - is destroyed.
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Wonder if they could have retained the midrise along Wellington, demolish the higher one entirely and build the tower atop that site and the opening - keeping the pinwheel open as a glassed in entrance/lobby with the tower above. They will have to go with a different structural arrangement though...

AoD.
 
Is this another architect firm disguised as Hariri-Pontarini ? Because this does not look like something that they would create. I've seen better work from them. P.S what's with the balcony attitude !
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Wonder if they could have retained the midrise along Wellington, demolish the higher one entirely and build the tower atop that site and the opening - keeping the pinwheel open as a glassed in entrance/lobby with the tower above.
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I imagine the efficiencies simply "don't work". This site is doomed because as long as it is developed - which it will be - in such a way that it achieves the amount of profit deemed necessary, it will be a large enough floorplate that the spatial quality of the public space and its pinwheel arrangement will be overwhelmed and subsumed.

I still can't see why that ridiculous glass pavilion is considered a better alternative than keeping as much of the stone-faced midrise block as possible. It has a restraint and simplicity that seems impossible to replicate in the city today.
 
bilked said:
Assuming we are adding 1M+ sq ft of space to this site, shouldnt one of the main goals of the exercise be to tread lightly (in form/spirit) on the existing collection that makes up one of Toronto’s architectural landmarks?
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I'm all for simple and elegant designs (though I do think the tallest tower in the financial core calls for some kind of signature gesture, subtle as it may be). I love CCW, and Paino's New York Times building (which some are comparing this to) is one of my absolute favorites, but if anything this design comes off as overly busy and lacking coherence to me. Maybe it's just the rendering but my eyes read balconies (I know they're not really), a couple columns of spandrel glass (I know it's not really), and a randomly slanted/asymmetric roof that comes off as an afterthought to add visual interest. It literally looks like a cheap, generic condo building you'd find anywhere else in the city but the financial core.
 
My problem is that a design that was mildly interesting has been redone with something that claims to pay homage to the I.M. Pei building, but lacks any of that building's elegance or refinement.
 
Always found version 1.0 to be awkward, like a corpulent man stuffed into a shiny suit two sizes too small. So yeah - I like this version much more. Although that spire does zilch for me personally. I'd rather see the building itself go higher, but I'm aware of the shadowing issues... I'd prefer a flat top over a needle-like protrusion, but whatever.... bring it on, please.
 
interchange42 said:
Beautiful? What are you guys smoking?


Looks the pile-on-the-gimmicks crowd is feeling stung. I'm in the if-there's-going-to-be-a-gimmick-make-it-just-one-gimmick-and-do-it-with-some-taste crowd. The previous version simply looked undisciplined, bloated, and screaming for attention that it didn't deserve. If it had actually looked good, I might be down too, but AFAIC we have dodged a bullet.

For those who only see CCW as plain and drab, and only see I.M.Pei as an architect from 50 years ago and nothing more, then you don't display any understanding of detail or proportion or any appreciation of history. Look up I.M. Pei just for starters. The rest will take a lot longer.

42
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The new version looks like a condo tower that would fit in at City Place, stop reaching.
 
I have to agree Im not a fan of this re-design. It looks like a big condo building. I'm sure the actual materials used would be way nicer so Im reserving judgement until we see some high def renders. Im sure it will change again though. Filling up a 1.8 million square foot tower takes lots of time. So Im not going to be super dramatic and complain. I do think they can do better though!
 
On first sight I lean to the “like” side of the debate but I would have to think about the redesign a bit more before commenting further. Two comments about the renders themselves, however.

On the first render of the tower as a whole, the corner features on the top half of the building, roughly above the sky lobby, do indeed look like balconies. By contrast, those same features on the lower half of the building clearly do not. I presume this is because of the more oblique angle of view to the top of the structure from the render artist’s apparent viewpoint. My question, probably unanswerable at this point, is whether this a problem of the render itself or the future reality of the building.

The second comment is that I love the render from beside the carved head on the observation deck on CCN. Wonderful work! My favourite render in many years. By the way, the corner features don’t look at all like balconies from that angle.

While in compliment mode, I appreciate the “man in the two sizes too small suit” metaphor for the previous design. Well said!
 
I'm noticing three clear camps emerging:
  1. The "this is a real improvement" crowd
  2. The "better than the last one but still hurts the careful planning of the existing CC complex" crowd
  3. The "why can't we be Dubai?" crowd
 
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