Toronto One Front | 170.86m | 49s | Larco | a—A

I would have preferred a new addition built flush over top of the existing building, using the whole roofline and sprouting 30-40 stories, clad in some lovely colored glass hue. the net effect would be still be impressively massive and you could throw a lot of residential units in such a building

I want to like this, I really do, but I keep seeing those two angular towers as weeds poking rudely above an otherwise lovely lawn. It just feels horribly inappropriate and awkward. No amount of attention to detail, like brilliant cladding and precise fit and finish, is going to keep this from looking like an epic misfire. The existing building is definitely imposing and the street experience desperately needs some TLC, I'll give you that. But these towers? Ugh.
 
This entire addition of density here depends upon the kinked tower, and it's going to look amazing if they get the materials right, with high quality mullion-free glass, and gleaming fins between them. The fully upright tower wouldn't be remarkable on its own, but as an ensemble with its slightly wonky counterpart, we'll have a bit of yin and yang in the pair, a balance of the ideal and the real.

Stripping a lot of the detail from the exteriors of both towers (other than the stressed verticals) means that without horizontal lines counting off the floors, passersby will have a harder time attaching a particular scale to the towers, which will help separate them from their entirely other base. It's the same architectural solution as IM Pei's juxtaposition of the glass pyramid at the classically detailed Louvre; do something utterly different, something cleanly geometric, more shape than building, in contrast.

There's the old "contrasting but complementary" saw, but I wouldn't invoke that in this case as I don't believe the new towers are meant to be complementary, other than to each other and to the surrounding skyline. They are not meant to be complementary to the Dominion Public Building base; contrast is the mission there, so as not to detract from the Dominion Public. Go for something complementary, and you start to dilute the original.

With some restoration, with some opening up to the sidewalk, with far more active spaces behind the stone walls than we have now, this project aims to make the Dominion Public Building far more connected to the sidewalk and the street and city life. Maybe that could be done with another reuse that didn't require the towers, but with the federal government having gone after the best offer they could get for the site, a business case has to be satisfied here. Ignoring that is dreaming... and the reality is something that could have gone many ways, from architects that did not understand the need to contrast here, from those who didn't understand the need to be subtractive in detail to allow a restored base to sing… so I'm pretty excited about what we're getting, which is couple of really cool towers, which a—A are good at, while we don't have to put up with a featureless a—A base, often the pedestrian realm scourge of the graceful skyline addition above. Thumbs up.

42
 
Since this is getting bumped...

...I'm okay with the floor plate shapes and vertical lines...but that kink bothers me though. It feels like I need go and straighten it up somehow.
 
I’m with 42 on this. If executed right it will maintain the excellent quality of the heritage structure while also doing something that will catch the eye and match the surroundings.

The kink really is what makes this project though. Subtract that and this is nothing imo.
 
Building residential beside Union Station is short sighted. Wait 20 years and this site will be the most desirable spot for an upscale office tower with fantastic public transit accessibility.
 
DSC said:
If only it WERE a cherry!
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That would at least be whimsical!

DominionPublicBuilding1.jpg


I don't much like the kink either. Fun is not A-a's forte. It looks gimmicky, without a purpose or enjoyment.
One interesting thing about the proposal is the diagonal space between the floorplates of the two towers, making 'em triangles, imitative of Royal Bank Plaza. But again, it's neither particularly innovative or tethered to any particular logic.

An addition here, IMO, should be low rise on the whole roof on the structure, carefully tailored and set back to leave the front distinguished. You could get pretty much the same square footage out of much less height. The current proposal treats the building as a merely a stepping stone, shadowed under the weight of the proposed towers. Facadectomies are a plague in Toronto, and although this proposal retains more than just a front, it still has the same brusque disregard for the dignity of the original as so many of those compromised treatments do.

The towers are fairly elegant on their own. If they were going up anywhere else, I'd be glad. But I don't think this is the spot for them.
 
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C-mac said:
I really hope this doesn't get built. This building shouldn't be allowed to be touched.
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100% agree. I think the downtown core is already overbuilt and we need to spread condo development to other parts of the city.
Besides, I don't see how the developer can get their ROI with the current high cost of capital and competition with other new condos south of QEW
and existing hotels ?!
 
bmw007 said:
100% agree. I think the downtown core is already overbuilt and we need to spread condo development to other parts of the city.
Besides, I don't see how the developer can get their ROI with the current high cost of capital and competition with other new condos south of QEW
and existing hotels ?!
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Though we may agree about this development, the demand for hotel space here is almost back to pre-covid levels and condos seem to keep selling so it will not be stopped by the developer not thinking he will make $$.
 
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