Toronto Time and Space Condos | 101.8m | 29s | Pemberton | Wallman Architects

As a resident of 222 The Esplanade who was looking forward to seeing this redeveloped, I am dismayed at this render. Princess Street will go from a reasonably pleasant treed street with a nice community garden to a narrow dark canyon. I feel very sorry for the residents of the street-level townhome units in the co-op along Princess, or anyone with an west-facing unit in either the co-op or 222 who will lose their entire downtown view. That will hurt values in my building, no question, though thankfully my personal unit does not face that way.

This plot is too big for such a monolithic design. I was expecting something more akin to Vu with a variety of styles, heights, and some setbacks from the street, not this gigantic towering behemoth that will loom over everything on all four sides.

My sentiment here is one of wasted opportunity. I have been a bit annoyed by the fervent opposition to the two towers going in where the Greyhound Depot was, but now I'm hoping those same people will turn their attention to this plan and try to get something more appropriate proposed here.
 
though I have no problem with the height, I strongly dislike the fact that it is a single super block, and the fact that it has a "base" of 17 floors. most of the "towers" in this neighbourhood are 17 floors! maybe a base of 5 floors, and 2 towers of 30 floors, with an obvious design difference between them?
 
I'm all for development, but not in the style of the Soviet Union. This is way too overpowering for this location. I'm sure the plans will change.
 
Travis said:
The absurd podium reminds me of the Kowloon Walled City, with the jam packed density massing, mash of buildings appearance, and laneway between the buildings. Overall, this awful project needs a lot of work to make it acceptable.
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Good description! The development sign is very telling: 1,663 units in a building that's just 34 storeys tall and one city block. To all those journalists who thought that City Place would be the next St. Jamestown, this building probably will be!
 
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13 storeys isn't a podium. It is a "tall building" in its own right. 100% not appropriate for this location (or most of the city).
 
There's universal criticism of massive broad proposals that occupy entire blocks. But they are quite rare actually and when I see them I find them interesting because everything is a tower these days. Place Bonaventure, some of the block long apartments on 34th street in NY, the Sears warehouse, and others. These are distinct from slabs.
I find some of them to be interesting.
 
I'm pretty sure this is Hariri Pontarini - it resembles their studies for Baif up in Richmond Hill. Though it definitely needs some tweaking to the east and west, I think the varied facades to the north and south are an interesting way to break up an otherwise block-long wall (also, if each articulation has its own retail unit, the structure will add six new shops to a pretty desolate stretch). Remember too that Cityzen / aA's 2x24s Greyhound proposal (154 Front E) will occupy the north-west corner of the same intersection while Diamond + Schmitt's Sun complex proposal (333 King E) will do the same to the north-east. In the context of what will be there in the (near?) future, it's not as out of scale as some are making it seem.
 
I love how this looks. It reminds me of Manhattan, the beautiful density of full blocks of buildings built right up against each other, coming right up to the sidewalk with no wasted space for unused lawns or whatever. I'm so sick of skinny glass towers rising from stumpy podiums to try to "fit in" the area. I don't care that it doesn't match its context; not all contexts are worth preserving. Some contexts need to be remade and improved, and Toronto could really use an uber-dense development like this, if only to set a precedent, to show that density shouldn't be so feared. I never found the countless parts of Manhattan that are like this AT ALL oppressive when I visited there; in fact, they were the most exciting and inspiring places to be. Why can't we build this way in Toronto? Do people who hate this hate the densest blocks of Manhattan, too? I would find that odd. I see such super density as a beautiful smorgasbord of humanity, not oppressive.
 
This definitely looks like a Hariri Pontarini design to me. (The model, as well as its design features.)

Although it's oppressively huge, I DO have to point out that I love the varied facades of the podium. We need more of this in this city to create visual interest.
 
arvelomcquaig, you raise some good points..."fitting in" may in fact be overrated....after all, if fitting in was all that mattered, we never would have gotten a TD Centre, would we? I'm kind of intrigued by this proposal as well...
 
arvelomcquaig said:
I love how this looks. It reminds me of Manhattan, the beautiful density of full blocks of buildings built right up against each other, coming right up to the sidewalk with no wasted space for unused lawns or whatever. I'm so sick of skinny glass towers rising from stumpy podiums to try to "fit in" the area. I don't care that it doesn't match its context; not all contexts are worth preserving. Some contexts need to be remade and improved, and Toronto could really use an uber-dense development like this, if only to set a precedent, to show that density shouldn't be so feared. I never found the countless parts of Manhattan that are like this AT ALL oppressive when I visited there; in fact, they were the most exciting and inspiring places to be. Why can't we build this way in Toronto? Do people who hate this hate the densest blocks of Manhattan, too? I would find that odd. I see such super density as a beautiful smorgasbord of humanity, not oppressive.
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To further that, I'm not sure if Travis was using KWC as 'bad' precedent but many urban theorists are now of the opinion that it was one of the strongest and most organic (not to mention densest) collections of buildings the world has ever known. It wasn't without its own problems but to write it off as 'awful' smacks of a pretty elementary reading of the complex and layered urbanity it embodied. It's also not alone in the lessons it and other such Hong Kong super blocks can teach us Torontonians - namely that with an equally dense collection of at and above-grade retail units and a good sized cantilever over the sidewalk, you can put almost anything overhead.
 
London Terrace Gardens was my favourite building I saw in New York for this very reason: It occupied an entire block, looking like an entire city unto itself, creating the most dramatic street wall and canyon I've ever seen. I think it has a great presence and is not at all oppressive, despite its thickness. To me, it makes the street feel intimate and people-friendly, as though the area is unequivocally built for people to inhabit, like the furthest thing from a suburban wasteland imaginable.
 
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