Toronto Spire Condos | 144.77m | 45s | Context Development | a—A

I don't know what's happening to the top of Spire but I like it. I thought it was going to be a simple, square, glass box but the top seems to be getting interesting. It's looking nothing like the rendering. It might add a little interest to a boxy skyline.
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I wonder if the construction on top of Spire is a custom design penthouse? Maybe someone bought the top floors and requested some extra outdoor space, hence the set back terrace effect.
 
Um, are we sure that it's not going to be flat-topped after all, as per the renderings - only, the flat-topped bit is only half-built?
 
Wow. Talk about idle speculation. Guys, isn't it most likely that the other half of the half-top is going to be occupied by a boiler, an air conditioning unit, or something along those lines? Then, the whole top would be encased in cladding... Just sayin'.
 
my guess is that they're leaving that space open for the HVAC units, then they'll build a steel frame on the other side to close in the box.
 
Covered part of hoarding along the north building came down today. Hopefully the rest will come down soon.
 
Spire (UT)

Ed, is this the section along Lombard?
I thought projects generally kept the hoarding up until the very end of the construction. Is it common for hoarding to come down when it's still an active site?
 
They've been doing a lot of digging along Lombard in the last few weeks. Maybe they needed to take the hoarding down to access the pipes or the wires or whatever?

Regardless, the grey brick and the fritted glass on the ground level of the podium part look really good.
 
I haven't seen the brick yet, but I agree the glass looks really nice... a nice shade of grey.
They still are suggesting via their marketing that the first residents will be moving in by late 2006. I am on one of the lower floors and am scheduled to move in early 2007.
 
It looks mighty fine from across the valley. The bold vertical slashes of colour zip up the outside of the building nicely - purely decorative elements that don't seem to contradict Spire's defining minimalism.

Someone on the forum recently suggested that it is time to "move on" from this "look". But I don't think of our Toronto Modernist Restoration architecture as applied styling - like a fashion for Gothic, or Tudor, or French Chateau - that we can set aside because it has fallen out of fashion. I think of it more as a continuation of the post-WW2 contemporary form of expression that still defines us, despite PoMo interruptions.
 
I don't think it's a matter of "moving on" from this look; more a matter of recognizing and appreciating that, ideal as it is, it's not the only look out there--and that's quite all right.

Yes, I, too, much prefer Spire to, say, RoCP. But there's something subversively disarming about well-placed pluralism. It's probably more a "moving on" from overidealizing the city to simply looking at and appreciating the warts-and-all city...
 
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