Canadian City Proposals

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by bolognium

Kind of curious what your solution would be then. London's downtown is literally full of uninteresting buildings, so should all future projects also stick with the prefab concrete status quo?

I've never been a huge fan of the "angles for the sake of angles" seen in some modern designs, but this building is shooting so much higher than all of our recent proposals that I feel downright silly saying anything negative about it.

I guess it will probably look a lot more natural once some time has gone by and other new buildings have been built nearby but it's just too many new elements all at once IMO. Nothing about this building reminds me of London. I can sympathize if there are a lot of architectural elements that Londoners are tired of but it would help to hold on to at least one here. Again, just my opinion, and it'll probably change over time.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Honestly I think maybe in the right context, with the right surroundings, this building could look great (or at least good). But based on the rendering this is not that context.

What type of setting can you envision for it? I'm having a hard to imagining it looking good anywhere tbh. It's just too busy with all those rectangles, and the colours are very heavy and dated. It almost looks like an old 70s commie block that someone tried to modernize by tacking the rectangles onto during a reno.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Maybe it's just the perspective, but that looks really awful to me.

I don't know, it kind of has a 70's office feel to it I don't mind. It's only 14 floors by the looks of it so it's not going to be a huge building. Perhaps they're trying to make it integrate with the Canary district to it's immediate south while maintaining the materials used in River City. It's hard to tell from one render though. I'm sure we'll see more in the coming weeks.

Content removed

[OTSkyline]

^Nice little midrise. I like

[rapid_business]

/\ Existing building retrofit?

[SteelTown]

101 Locke Street is an empty lot, formerly an Asian grocery store.

[CCF]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

It is, although by Waterloo student tower standards, it's a step up.

The biggest problem (in my opinion) with all the housing that has gone up around the universities in recent years is the complete disregard for how the buildings interact with the public realm. Little regard for how design can foster an attractive, engaging, pedestrian friendly public realm.

The main floor on most of these buildings are completely devoid of any life and design elements that connect them to their surrounding context. Increase intensification is great, but they have completely missed the boat on the importance of active uses on the main floor.

[TorontoDrew]

101 Locke is nice. Hamilton is on a roll.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by CCF

The biggest problem (in my opinion) with all the housing that has gone up around the universities in recent years is the complete disregard for how the buildings interact with the public realm. Little regard for how design can foster an attractive, engaging, pedestrian friendly public realm.

The main floor on most of these buildings are completely devoid of any life and design elements that connect them to their surrounding context. Increase intensification is great, but they have completely missed the boat on the importance of active uses on the main floor.

I suspect that, at some time in the future and assuming they're not demolished first, the ground floor of many of these towers will be blown out for proper streetfronts. At present, you are correct that the interaction with the street is nil, although one of the newer ones incorporated a food court into its podium.

Content removed

[Chadillaccc]

Our first semi-detailed look at the main tower Calgary's Arris in the East Village. A complex including 2 residential towers at 142 meters and 90 meters, along with an urban-format retail complex with over 200 000 sq ft, anchored by Loblaws.


http://www.arrisliving.ca/

[Martin Mtl]

Nice nighttime render of the NFB HQ now UC in Quartier es spectacles.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ I feel so sorry for that building with that huge open wound on the side. That must be really painful for it.

[Rico Rommheim]

Finally the Place des Festivals (downtown's main square), will be (mostly) closed in on all sides. Also, nice to see this part of Bleury street becoming a true hub of culture and activity, with the new Dance school complex next to NFB.

[Urbmtl]

[O-tacular]

That new version of the NFB looks even better! Hopefully they use top notch materials.

[Innsertnamehere]

35 McCaul Street

[TorontoDrew]

Not a fan.

Content removed