Toronto Valhalla Village | 123m | 38s | KingSett | BDPQ + Zeidler

This week’s progress update, taken again from the bus this morning:

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Sept 28
Lot more up on my site
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Very administration building look and feel. I wonder if this would even reach phase 2 considering Valhalla Town Square next door still has just the one tower built out of 3.
 
Wow. This is truly the most perfunctory Toronto crap you could possibly imagine. "Depressing" isn't even the start of it.
I am actually angry for the future residents of this place that need to avert their eyes as to not feel like they are returning home to a prison each day.
 
I like it. BDPQ was clearly working with an extremely limited budget here and I think they have delivered about as much as you could hope for in an affordable rental building on the side of the 427. This was never going to be nor was it trying to be some starchitect design - the goal was to deliver affordable housing at a reasonable cost in an architectural form which is reasonably attractive.
 
innsertnamehere said:
I like it. BDPQ was clearly working with an extremely limited budget here and I think they have delivered about as much as you could hope for in an affordable rental building on the side of the 427. This was never going to be nor was it trying to be some starchitect design - the goal was to deliver affordable housing at a reasonable cost in an architectural form which is reasonably attractive.
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I am familiar with the challenges of creating a good architecture on challenging budgets, such is the challenge in the Toronto developer market generally. But this thing is devoid of any architectural details whatsoever. Arguably the place where budget matters the most to the public - the public realm / interface of the lower floors - is what is really atrocious here. Dark tinted windows punched into dark brick with no articulation and no detailing. That said, the white panels / light colours selected for the window wall cladding will not age well either.
 
A few September 28th photos in this post:
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Tim MacDonald (@realtimmacdonald.bsky.social)

#ValhallaVillage Phase 1 has topped out at 300 The East Mall, #Toronto. #construction #civilengineering #housing #condos #Dronephotography #photography #urban
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innsertnamehere said:
I like it. BDPQ was clearly working with an extremely limited budget here and I think they have delivered about as much as you could hope for in an affordable rental building on the side of the 427. This was never going to be nor was it trying to be some starchitect design - the goal was to deliver affordable housing at a reasonable cost in an architectural form which is reasonably attractive.
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I agree that the materials don't look as cheap as what I expected in this area (and in this city in general), although I disagree that "reasonable cost" justifies typical Toronto black/white/grey. If the place was going to rent anyways on the basis of being affordable then why not just put some color on it (I refuse to believe black/white/grey is that much cheaper), given that there's no risk of not renting the place out because of radical/colorful design choices (black/white/grey was more justifiable on cut and paste condo towers in the middle of our anything generic sells so don't be creative/bald/colorful condo boom)
 
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