Toronto Maple Leaf Square | 185.92m | 54s | Lanterra | KPMB

Nice streetwall forming. There is urban potential here.

I agree. Depending on what Ice and 18 York provide, this street wall has the potential to completely transform the southern CBD. The urban potential can be measured by successfully connecting the harbour front with the core and creating a corridor integrates the old and the new. I suppose the key will be retail, pedestrian activity and the city's treatment of crosswalks, light fixtures and street furniture.

This 'neighbourhood' benefits more than any other by its proximity to so many destination-points (Union, harbour front, convention centre, CN tower, ACC, Rogers Centre, etc). I'm excited to see how this former brownfield wasteland looks when it is a vibrant and diverse mixed-use corridor.
 
I am also questioning why the podium is not a 9 or 10 floor ring all the way around, and is instead a U shape. Won't it be fairly noisy, being exposed to the Gardiner traffic on the east side? Had the podium been a full ring, the atrium or well (enclosed or exposed, depending on what level a glass roof were located) could have been an oasis of quiet in the middle of the city.

Having been inside the courtyard, it's actually remarkably quiet there. If you were just dropped in the middle of it you'd have no clue how much action is going on all around you. And some thought definitely went into the whole tranquility aspect of it, because my understanding is that the courtyard is destined for spa uses associated with the hotel.
 
You rarely hear the traffic on the Gardiner when you're beside the Air Canada Centre. You may hear traffic on Lakeshore but the Gardiner is relatively quiet. However, it seems that many if not all of you have missed the point and fact that MLSE intends to broadcast it's games right in front of the new expansion when it is completed. I guess it would function sort of like a tail gate party for its fans.
 
We missed that fact? We weren't discussing that facet of the expansion at the moment.

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New rendering? From PCL:

0900350_2_300.jpg
 
Seems to compliment the ACC a bit better in that rendering. But is that a massive, blank, concrete wall I see on the southern part of the podium?
 
steelwork for the bridge between ACC and MLSquare has been installed..pic by Jasonzed at SSC...

mississauga418.jpg
 
Seems to compliment the ACC a bit better in that rendering. But is that a massive, blank, concrete wall I see on the southern part of the podium?
Quoting myself here but I'm wrong about the concrete. As the photos on the previous page show, it's a glass wall.
 
In real life they aren't close to finishing the place yet. What's your rush to declare a design failure?

Anyway, there is a difference between clashing and being distinct from. They obviously want the viewer to be able to read which part of the building constitutes the hotel, and which part the offices.

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