Toronto Union Centre | 298m | 54s | Westbank | Bjarke Ingels Group

What is it with this city's hatred for supertalls. We'd end up with about 2x as many supertalls with approximately a total of 20m of building height increase across the whole city. That's insane
 
Last edited:
I'm concerned that this design has undergone some blandification. June 2020 plans on the left, most recent plans on the right:
View attachment 351016View attachment 351017

The vertical lines are gone. Now it's a generic glassy box with a stepped crown?
oof. I hope not. Those vertical lines certainly couldn't have been that expensive, given the overall cost of the project. Hopefully it's just an omission in order to lock in the zoning envelope in the settlement, and they re-appear in SPA docs.
 
oof. I hope not. Those vertical lines certainly couldn't have been that expensive, given the overall cost of the project. Hopefully it's just an omission in order to lock in the zoning envelope in the settlement, and they re-appear in SPA docs.
Unfortunately, it looks like they have indeed removed it from looking at the floorplans.
Here is the floorplan for the first batch of office floors from the original design. Boxed in blue are the little divets that create the vertical lines look in the exterior of the building. FYI, I haven't boxed all the divets! Got lazy halfway through, but you get the idea! 🤣
1632499719959.png


Now the exact same first office levels in the new design. Notice the divets in the floorplans are now missing between the elevator clusters.
1632499949640.png

Not saying they might not bring it back in the next version of the design. My $0.02 is that they dropped it when their vertical lines changed from 4 to 6 to accommodate the different clusters of elevators in the new design (6 in the old design per group of floors down to 4 in the new design)
 
Happy to hear about the proposed height increase. Always thought this proposal needed some more height and oomph in the skyline.
 
What is it with this cities hatred for supertalls. We'd end up with about 2x as many supertalls with approximately a total of 20m of building height increase across the whole city. That's insane
They're secretly going to give it to them in the end. This is the city's way of keeping the buildings at bay in my opinion. Besides it's fine at this level being close to the CN Tower.
 
Exciting, but folks should note: this is in Allied's 10 year bucket. Nothing happening here for awhile.
I'd no idea it was that far out. The Globe and Mail article last year (early this year?) implied that it was ready to go within the year or so.

A lot can happen, so...maybe this building lives in the "fantasy thread" space for now.
 
Amazing how every iteration of this proposal keeps getting taller and taller!

March 2014: 240m
March 2019: 266m
July 2020: 274m
July 2021: 286m
September 2021: 298m

By the time it actually gets built, maybe it will be 350m. 😆
Call me crazy, but I don't even mind the building quality slightly reduced for a little more height.
 
I don't see the point in going through the effort and spending that much money to work with BIG only to have them design a stepped glass box. You could have told me the current designs were by WZMH or NORR and I'd have believed you.
So many proposals in this city gradually get withered down until their so far removed from what they originally were.
 

Back
Top