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

vatche said:
A whole block....not one tree. Nothing green. Greenery beatifies the. City.
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There are two issues: On QQE there is no point planting trees YET as it is going to be rebuilt. Patience! On Richardson there IS a problem. apparently there's a gas main below the west sidewalk that made planting impossible. Question: Why was it put there (or not moved) during construction. Trees are, apparently planned for east sidewalk (though I will not be surprised if they find something there too!)
 
DSC said:
On Richardson there IS a problem. apparently there's a gas main below the west sidewalk that made planting impossible.
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Have they discovered planters?

Even if you can't get full-sized trees going, it would be nice to line the street with some sort of shrubbery, a local species that would aid in the diversity of flora on our waterfront.
 
Irishmonk said:
Toronto will always find new ways to disappoint onlookers. It's hard to think of another city of similar size, wealth and global relevance that has the same utter indifference to the appearance of its built form.
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idk but Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle put up a lot of tacky looking buildings. New York City is great and all but take a drive across the tunnel into New Jersey and there are terrible looking mullion infested buildings everywhere.
 
Irishmonk said:
Toronto will always find new ways to disappoint onlookers. It's hard to think of another city of similar size, wealth and global relevance that has the same utter indifference to the appearance of its built form.
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Of course we could do better but a visit to virtually any other City will show that we are not alone in having thoughtless and money-grubbing developers and poor planning policies.
 
goodcitywhenfinished said:
idk but Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle put up a lot of tacky looking buildings. New York City is great and all but take a drive across the tunnel into New Jersey and there are terrible looking mullion infested buildings everywhere.
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Most of what I know about New Jersey is from The Sopranos, so I'll defer to you on that point. But some of the GTA's best residential architecture is in Mississauga. Their powers that be seem to have more local pride then do the soulless bean counters scuttling about in downtown Toronto.
 
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was the plan to de-animate the street as a way to keep Sugar Beach less crowded? I have to say that I'm a bit shocked at how close it is to the sidewalk and how little it has to offer passerby. I feel like for such a bland wall of glass, a set back with... anything near the sidewalk would have been good. Bit better on the south side of things I suppose
 
New York was built at the beginning of the last century. Masonry beats spandrel glass. This also gives New York a long history of city building by comparison and, IMHO, a much better perspective. Height is far down the list. Density and step backs are strictly capped. The byproduct of strict density caps is what it does to heritage. There's a market for unused density as transfer are common to build tall. Here, every lowrise older building is topped up as density limits are so loose through planning on a case by case basis that there is no market for transferring densities and keeping lowrises intact.

This building is only a letdown as long ago the master plan pinned this location for an architectural statement. It's clearly not. It's still a quality building that blends into the urban fabric. Can't say that about the perimeter block master plans in the 905.I don't find Mississauga architectural designs or quality better just because they have more structural expression than the benchmark "box" set by aA in Toronto. Absolute World is an exception. The rest are engineered knockoffs lacking any artistic values. Architecture is subjective though.
 
jsmith77 said:
was the plan to de-animate the street as a way to keep Sugar Beach less crowded? I have to say that I'm a bit shocked at how close it is to the sidewalk and how little it has to offer passerby. I feel like for such a bland wall of glass, a set back with... anything near the sidewalk would have been good. Bit better on the south side of things I suppose
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None of the new buildings along QQE are being built with much streetscaping because it will all be redone when the streetcar is put in. Landscaping, sidewalks and planting will all come as part of that project. Consider what you see here as temporary.
 
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