Toronto Concord Sky | 299m | 85s | Concord Adex | Kohn Pedersen Fox

kotsy said:
This will be a fantastic addition to Yonge and Toronto. Hopefully it doesn't change much before approval. Only downside is losing Big Slice :( I'm sure they'll move to another location in the area, though
The specs say they are 11 stories apart for height but it sure doesn't look like that.
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The rendering in general looks off. Shouldn't the buildings look much taller in relation to the podium and Student Learning Centre?
 
The sky bridge makes a mess out of an otherwise promising project. Why hang what looks like an old fashioned clunky railway tressle on such smooth (if not particularly exciting) contemporary tower design. The "bridge" needs to be reworked to fit that smoothness (possibly to reflect the base exterior or the building caps), or to achieve some kind of shaped unity with the rest of the structure. Get out your French curves, people. Otherwise it will be "the horror of Yonge Street." In contrast see Teeple's upside down 'U' building proposed for downtown (forget the street).
 
elad said:
The sky bridge makes a mess out of an otherwise promising project. Why hang what looks like an old fashioned clunky railway tressle on such smooth (if not particularly exciting) contemporary tower design. The "bridge" needs to be reworked to fit that smoothness (possibly to reflect the base exterior or the building caps), or to achieve some kind of shaped unity with the rest of the structure. Get out your French curves, people. Otherwise it will be "the horror of Yonge Street." In contrast see Teeple's upside down 'U' building proposed for downtown (forget the street).
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I agree that right now, the design isn't the most visually appealing to the eye and many of the design elements appear 'all over the place'. I also don't think it looks great next to Aura; even if they are two different projects. I don't mind the bulky podium though, as I feel it is stepped far back enough from the street and contrasts with the heritage facades, in such a way that it will blend in to the streetscape established by the Student Centre. However, I do expect plenty of revisions before we see the final form, which, hopefully presents a much improved final product. Whether or not the skybridge stays, I don't really care, so long as we get a solid final product.
 
French curves? Much improved final product? I'm not sure a single change is necessary to the exterior expression to create a superb final product. This is edgy architecture, where the adjacent elements are purposefully juxtaposed to create a little visual tension, some "movement", and some wonder. This is audacious design constrained by a real-world budget (no Zaha Hadid, no Santiago Calatrava budget-killing extravagances): this is something wild that a private Toronto developer will be able to afford at Toronto price-points. To my eyes, the chunky engineering-exposed skybridge doesn't make a mess out of this design; for me it's the masterstroke.

…but I do get that this is a matter of taste and that this is not what everyone is looking for.

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I like the industrial look of the sky bridge it's a good juxtoposition to the very modern clean towers. Without the bridge it's not that different from other things. Sure the height would still be nice there. But the bridge just makes it so much more interesting and iconic
 
Reminds me a lot of Herzog & de Meuron. They love to juxtapose different styles into one. The bridge, yes, clashes however I think it works for the design. It's different, I'm all for it.
 
It has taken some time to digest, but this design is sloooooowly coming around to me. It feels like a turning point, or pivot in Toronto design. The podium, each tower, and the sky bridge are all separate, but equal designs in their own right slammed together as a whole.

In some ways, perhaps the aA designed condo on Colborne started this. The ground level and podium of one design, the midrise portion of another design, and then the tower rising above. We tend to get just one podium design and one (or two) tower design together.

This is just an extension of another "favourite" Toronto style: the new tower growing out of a refurbished heritage building (of which this design also accomplishes).

Does this work though? Or is it just a dog's breakfast of architecture?
 
This is a an exciting design and a perfect example of a real mix of styles that could have turned into a mess....yet it works near perfectly. My only fear is that this first kick at the can will become value engineered and watered down. I have my fingers crossed that it will not, but I am not optimistic.
 
interchange42 said:
French curves? Much improved final product? I'm not sure a single change is necessary to the exterior expression to create a superb final product. This is edgy architecture, where the adjacent elements are purposefully juxtaposed to create a little visual tension, some "movement", and some wonder. This is audacious design constrained by a real-world budget (no Zaha Hadid, no Santiago Calatrava budget-killing extravagances): this is something wild that a private Toronto developer will be able to afford at Toronto price-points. To my eyes, the chunky engineering-exposed skybridge doesn't make a mess out of this design; for me it's the masterstroke.
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Very well put. It's nice to see a developer thinking outside the "box". I think its impossible to please this crowd sometimes. Why not celebrate some of the newer more daring attempts at expressing new forms instead of shooting it down, literally on the drawing board?

(the towers look a bit like two people embracing - perhaps a trend where buildings emulate people or situations - the Mirvish towers look almost like a family.)
 
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"We actually want to keep some of the vibrancy, some of the grittiness".

I don't agree with this. Bad buildings and retail hardly equal vibrancy, and I don't think Yonge St, THE street in Toronto, needs to be gritty. In an ideal world, it should be magnificent. We have plenty of grittiness all over the city. Queen West for example is all about grittiness. Spadina/Kensington market too. Yonge St shouldn't be gritty. It should be classy and beautiful.
 
ksun said:
"We actually want to keep some of the vibrancy, some of the grittiness".

I don't agree with this. Bad buildings and retail hardly equal vibrancy, and I don't think Yonge St, THE street in Toronto, needs to be gritty. In an ideal world, it should be magnificent. We have plenty of grittiness all over the city. Queen West for example is all about grittiness. Spadina/Kensington market too. Yonge St shouldn't be gritty. It should be classy and beautiful.
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According to you sure. I don't necessarily fetishize grit but there's nothing wrong with it either. Besides, what defines "classy" and "beautiful" anyway?

I think, in a roundabout way, a good point made on SSP about Yonge as looking similar to a small-town Ontario street is valid and something to keep in mind. Yonge won't become a grand street imo. It just isn't built that way. And I certainly don't want to see Yonge turned into a modern architectural grand street. Glass walls, suburbanized retail and gentrified blandness is not something we should aspire to. The Yonge Love idea (cringey name though) is a great way to keep both aspects and keep Yonge uniquely Yonge Street.
 
ksun said:
"We actually want to keep some of the vibrancy, some of the grittiness".

I don't agree with this. Bad buildings and retail hardly equal vibrancy, and I don't think Yonge St, THE street in Toronto, needs to be gritty. In an ideal world, it should be magnificent. We have plenty of grittiness all over the city. Queen West for example is all about grittiness. Spadina/Kensington market too. Yonge St shouldn't be gritty. It should be classy and beautiful.
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The concern is that our downtown streets start to look like sterile corporate shopping malls. There is nothing vibrant about this either, 'classy' and 'beautiful' often being code words for gentrified and generic. So why travel to Yonge Street when it will only have the same chain stores, banks and restaurants and atmosphere that you can find anywhere else? Preserving some of the grit is an admirable urban objective, saving some of that great urban patina that makes a city feel established and comfortably worn in.
 
Also I wouldn't call Kensington Market (or Queen West) "gritty". It isn't corporate bland sterile, but it isn't gritty. I haven't seen a lot of sex shops in or around Kensington market, but maybe I am not looking in the right places?
 
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