Toronto Waterfront Innovation Centre | 53.03m | 11s | Waterfront Toronto | Sweeny &Co

interchange42 said:
The panel has voiced considerable concern over this design, with many of them questioning its resemblance to Ryerson's Student Learning Centre, its porosity at ground level, its dearth of apparent architectural innovation for a building called "Innovation Centre", and on and on. Details of the concerns will eventually emerge with the minutes in a few weeks.

The vote is for non-support.

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re: Minutes - don't necessarily count on them being released in a few weeks, at least online - there are times when nothing is posted for months at a time.

AoD
 
salsa said:
For some reason the Toronto waterfront is a magnet for second-rate architecture, when it should have been the exact opposite. This has been going on for decades, and now we have a watered down "innovation centre" to look forward too which I'm sure will fit in beautifully with the ultra boring Chorus Quay and George Brown buildings.
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Instead of using the waterfront to showcase some architecture we can be proud of, the waterfront has been littered with uninspired buildings.
 
@Adjei, @salsa - you both saw that this received a vote of non-support, right?

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interchange42 said:
The panel has voiced considerable concern over this design, with many of them questioning its resemblance to Ryerson's Student Learning Centre.
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And that's bad because...? Look at all the cookie-cutter glass condos sprouting up all over the city. They all look the same and no one takes issue with that. But try to propose a unique design that happens to look similar to the Ryerson SLC (a building that was very well received), and that gets used against you.


@Adjei, @salsa - you both saw that this received a vote of non-support, right?
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Doesn't matter, it's being value engineered. So at some point a less unpalatable design will get approved, but just like with the watered-down St Lawrence Market building, it won't be as interesting as the original proposal. At least that's the impression I'm getting from your recap of the panelists.
 
1) Panel members don't want this building to be confused for the Ryerson building. They want a unique expression here, and they are certainly not looking for "the same" anything. So yes, in this case, proposing a design that looks like another prominent recent building in Toronto is not working for the proponents.

2) It does matter. Menkes will still be concerned with the final cost naturally, but they've gotta go back to the drawing board now. If another design comes in that the panel doesn't like, it won't go anywhere. AFAIK, the WT DRP has more power than the City's DRP because WT has a tighter relationship with the proponents and have to be satisfied too.

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I wonder how many of the local architects in the WT DRP should avoid sitting in on this one, considering their involvement with this particular competition (we know DSAI was).

AoD
 
It's not just a matter of it "looking like the Ryerson SLC". It's not just a concern about the finished product or how the building looks so much as what the resemblance says about the process behind the design. Is it just a bunch of ideas shoe-horned into a preconceived design expression (that apparently uses the SLC as a precedent) or is it a well-developed design that is appropriate for the program and site and was designed according to these needs?

I question the design process behind this project just by looking at how unfocused it is. It has a lot of things going on and none of them seem to mesh or communicate effectively with one another.
 
That sentiment would not have been out-of-place at the review this morning.

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modernizt said:
It's not just a matter of it "looking like the Ryerson SLC". It's not just a concern about the finished product or how the building looks so much as what the resemblance says about the process behind the design. Is it just a bunch of ideas shoe-horned into a preconceived design expression (that apparently uses the SLC as a precedent) or is it a well-developed design that is appropriate for the program and site and was designed according to these needs?

I question the design process behind this project just by looking at how unfocused it is. It has a lot of things going on and none of them seem to mesh or communicate effectively with one another.
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Dead on.
 
" The panel member expressed that the idea of the theatrical stair was too much, but also not enough at the same time. "
that's the quote of the day
 
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Yeah, not a particularly well summarized comment. He was trying to express that the stair was an overdone part of an overall underwhelming whole.

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I don't see the big deal with similar architectural expression to the Ryerson Building. Maybe that is the expression that represents our contemporary architectural fad? In the end the city will be a big jumble anyway as styles change. Do you really need to command and control variation in architectural expressions within one time period?
 
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