Toronto River City Condos Phases 1 & 2 | ?m | 16s | Urban Capital | ZAS Architects

hawc said:
So is this big black building community housing?
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You have clearly not been paying attention. The "big black building" is River City 1, the partly completed building is River City 2 and the next building will be River City 3, it is further south and nothing has happened yet (though the area did have excavators on it last week. The TCHC building is further west on King Street (on west side of Lower River).
 
The undersides of those balconies look terrible. I wouldn't want to have to look up to that everyday. Some look very badly stained or just plain dirty.
 
The underside of the balconies are horrendous. If you want to see how this should have looked like then check out Waterscapes at Humber Bay Shores. That's a classy black exterior and awesome balconies. But are we surprised? River City has failed to live up to its hype time and time again. You need to check out the lobbies too for the cheapening here. Very sad and beyond depressing.
 
NBGtect said:
The underside of the balconies are horrendous. If you want to see how this should have looked like then check out Waterscapes at Humber Bay Shores. That's a classy black exterior and awesome balconies. But are we surprised? River City has failed to live up to its hype time and time again. You need to check out the lobbies too for the cheapening here. Very sad and beyond depressing.
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The lobbies are disappointing. Actually, the only thing I like is the exterior. I like modern, but inside just seems cheap. Luckily a condo board can improve on that.
 
NBGtect said:
River City has failed to live up to its hype time and time again.
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Besides the balconies, how has it failed to live up to the hype exactly? It looks really good to me, and if you go just a few pages back in this thread, every comment was a compliment.

Can someone clarify what that bridge is for? It can't imagine there would be a need for 4 floors to be connected like that, so I'm guessing there are units there?
 
Miscreant, I think aggressive is the right word here. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. For this building with its clean decisive, chiseled angles, and organized but slightly off-kilter balcony protrusions, the unpainted balcony undersides are an architectural taunt. Everything else looks polished, except this. The architecture dares you to comment on it; I think it wants to make you feel a little uncomfortable, a little like it is unfinished. But of course, it intends to be unfinished.

This building, hell, the whole three phases, feels like the teenage, motorcycle-riding heartthrob of this building boom cycle (One Bloor being the cool, older sibling). The architecture is unlike anything else in the city. It feels so confident and assured of itself that I find it's hard to argue with the architect's vision.
 
I think you are really reading into this. The reality is that it's just cheap looking. The only thing we liked here was the exterior, and even that could have been vastly improved with black clad or painted balconies.

Since we feel we got shafted here, that would have been a nice touch.

My fear is that when comments are posted here extolling the virtues of something that is clearly unfinished and cheap looking, that the developer will cut even more corners for Phase 3, in the name of "architecture for adults". And RC3 is selling for obsurdly high prices.

And yes, our condo board could improve the lobbies with some nice art and furniture that isn't used for shopping malls, but the developer should have made them decent in the first place. That was their job and they failed miserably.

P.s. The bridge is used to get to the parking garages since there is no underground parking. Our neighbours with parking hate, hate, hate the super long walk to get to their car.,we just walk or take transit; but we can see how it's a huge design flaw.
 
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Our neighbours with parking hate, hate, hate the super long walk to get to their car.,we just walk or take transit; but we can see how it's a huge design flaw.
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It's not a design flaw. It's a design in response to the site. They couldn't put underground parking because the building is on the flood protection landform.
 
The development is one block at its longest frontage. Any complaints about distance to parking are hard to justify for anyone with full mobility.
 
NBGtect said:
The bridge is used to get to the parking garages since there is no underground parking. Our neighbours with parking hate, hate, hate the super long walk to get to their car.,we just walk or take transit; but we can see how it's a huge design flaw.
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If this walk to parking was a surprise to your neighbours they clearly did not think carefully about their purchase or look critically at how this would affect them.
 
Agreed... personally I'm ok with the unpainted balcony undersides. The contrast on Phase 1 is very strong and adds to the overall attitude these buildings sport. And I like the way in which the balconies spring from the flanks of the tower... it looks very sleek. Normally I'm not terribly keen on most balcony treatments but somehow this one feels right.
 
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