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Westbank Corp and Allied Properties REIT’s Downtown Toronto high-rise project, 19 Duncan, has been impressing passersby for different reasons over the past year. Features like curved corners, an eyecatching curtainwall glazing system, and exemplary heritage restoration at grade have assisted in carving out a comfortable spot for the project in the good books. As construction continues, the latest marvel to behold has been the pace of the tower’s rise, with the entirety of its 58 floors now completed. The only thing standing between the project and its topping off celebration now is final components of its mechanical penthouse, which is well into the process of being formed.
Designed by Toronto’s Hariri Pontarini Architects, the tower has been a distinct presence in the Entertainment District for months, but with its final floors in place, the scale of the final product has never been more clear. What’s more, the tower’s exterior expression is coming along handsomely, with glazing being applied to the concrete frame to seal the building about 80% of the way to the top.
Viewing the south and west elevations in the image below, we can see how the architectural details of the building envelope are coming together in physical space. The tower’s rounded corners continue to impress, while closer to the top, the disappearance of the vertical fins at the southeast and northwest corners allows the glazing itself to be the star of the show, bringing contrast to the facade with a smoother look. Still awaiting finishes are the tower’s balconies, only one run of them near the southwest corner and another near the northeast corner, which will receive the same treatment as the fritted glass on the podium levels.
Zooming in on the top of the tower, the image below captures a section that projects from the northeast corner of the 54th and 55th floors, another design feature that adds detail to the tower’s simple but effective exterior expression, while adding a subtle boost in the area of the floor-plate. The same curved edges are applied to the projection, and can be seen in the concrete framing at left, so how the curtainwall system comes together will be an interesting — and technical—- process to follow.
Three floors above, we can see that the tower’s 58th and final floor has been poured, with its thicker slab just below the final forms in the image below. The top floor will include a rooftop outdoor amenity terrace, and access for maintenance staff to the various mechanical systems that will occupy the more narrow mechanical penthouse volume above. The earliest traces of that mechanical penthouse are also pictured below, as a series of forms set back from the edge of the elevations on all sides.
With topping off around the corner, the project has already begun the process of interior finishings within the lower levels, and could be expecting its first occupancies in the coming months. The building will host an impressive mix of uses, with retail space at ground level, commercial office space in the podium reserved for news conglomerate Thomson Reuters, while the tower floors will bring 422 market rate rental suites plus 40 hotel units.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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| Related Companies: | Hariri Pontarini Architects, Jablonsky, Ast and Partners, Janet Rosenberg & Studio, Peter McCann Architectural Models Inc., Rebar Enterprises Inc |
