In this case, though I would prefer to see a slightly taller building, maybe with another 5 floors set back a little from the others, all in all it's not bad as it is.
I like the curved corner and white cladding as it appears
in the rendering - to my eyes it's not entirely unlike (though admittedly not as nice as) the Curve on South Park, which seems to have consensus as being a good design.
Regarding other points in the article, I am in disagreement with the committee, who asked:
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why he didn’t add more vibrant colours, include more public art, as well as other concerns.
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Given what I've seen around the city, we have a lot of recent buildings with multiple 'vibrant' colours, or variations in cladding, that are going to age quickly, and probably be considered 'tacky' or otherwise unattractive in a few years. I'm disappointed that the Design Advisory Committee doesn't seem to understand this. "Public Art" is so dubious in that most of it turns out to be cheap junk plunked down in order to get some design concessions, even though sometimes it does turn out to be quite nice (Queen's Marque comes to mind) - in this case I can only see it cluttering up the design, rather than improving it. Again disappointed that some members in the committee seem to not be able to see this - it's almost like they simply have have a standard checklist that they go through without actually considering the design, location, and context of the building they are reviewing.
IMHO, the architect was right on with his response:
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“We tried to create a building that was timeless and that won’t look dated in 20 or 40 or 60 years,” he said.
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Unless the article is misquoting, the statement:
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He also said the lot’s small size makes it tough to put up a taller building. The city has rules about how far back from the property line tall buildings must be, and on this lot “you are really left with nothing to build on.”
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...really makes it sound like the architect's hands are tied to creatively add some height without it becoming impractical.
In defence of the committee, though, I do think the suggestions of more height (if it were reasonably possible), along with better materials and lighting are good ones. Materials are hard to judge by renderings, which are optimized to make the project look as good, or better, than it ever could be... so 'better materials' is almost a given for a highly visible location like this one.
Above are just my half-baked opinions... no offence intended to any of the participants. Just giving out my actual thoughts with no filter applied.