First, full-disclosure, I'm on one of the design teams so I'm not going to pretend to be objective. I was at the public meeting, and Allen and Phillips spoke very eloquently about creating a healing landscape that promoted health and mental well-being. It's a laudable goal for sure, I'd want more trees and greenery too. And the office tower, though by far the tallest due to its small floor plate, has an interesting massing shaped by sun angles and strong sustainable principles in the "breathing room" atria and in zoning the facade for different purposes depending on the exposure (views, solar thermal, photovoltaics). Much better than the same curtain wall on all sides. But I feel the design doesn't address two major requirements of the competition brief: to provide a civic space for events and to animate the streets. The wedge-shaped building on Dundas West at the south side of the site is a library that may be built in a future phase, leaving in between it and the main building a linear space that's more of a pedestrian mall like Sparks Street in Ottawa than a gathering place. It also doesn't lead anywhere: under the current master plan it ends at a mid-block service road as seen in the model. The proposal does call for changes to the master plan to place a park to the east, as seen in the renderings, but even then the park is just a large open field. If you're prioritizing pedestrian connectivity, it'd be good to lay out some paths through the park to show where people can walk. And the pedestrian realm that comes with the site - the street edges along Bloor West, Kipling, and Dundas West, are not developed at all. It's hard to tell what it's like to approach the building, whether you can see inside, where you leave your bike, even where are the main entrances. One of my profs back in the day had a favourite line for crits: "Where's the front door?"
