Bruce Kuwabara West Harbour tower | 147 m | 45 fl | Approved

[davidcappi]

Interesting - I would have to disagree.

I spent a lot of time this spring/summer/fall down at coronation park, the music garden and hanging out along the waterfront watching boats. Sugar beach is a huge attraction and is constantly busy. So is HTO park and Sherbourne Common. The city is currently constructing Love Park and will start on Rees Park soon enough. Parts of the accessible waterfront green spaces aren't even remotely close to tall buildings. The improvements made to queens quay with the new paving treatment / bike lanes are a huge hit (real life bike lane traffic in the summer is really something to see!)

Waters edge promenade has become a mega tourist attraction in the fall with folks flocking to see the row of red maples, plus all of the work on the lower don lands with the future villiers island is about to essential quadruple accessible green spaces along the waterfront.

I will agree that it can feel disconnected due to the rail line / highway, but I don't think it has anything to do with the heights of buildings. Regardless, the crowds at the waterfront throughout all seasons point to it largely being a success vs a failure. Fortunately there is enough residential density to support a variety of business along the water.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

I like it, but don't think the location is right for it. This would be suited for one of the empty parking lots downtown, but not right on the waterfront. That should be reserved for low or midrises developments like the rest of the block. Toronto has shown how very tall towers on the water has created an uninviting space.

I believe the plan is this tower... and nothing else that scale. I can live with that. The rest of Pier 8 is planned to be exactly what you wish for, and I hope it comes together nicely. I'd hate to see a string of tall buildings lining the western shoreline.

There's really not any room for them anyway. In the other neighbourhoods in the north end there will be a fierce fight about anything that's too different... even getting those residents to be friendly to 4-8 floor new builds is and will continue to be a challenge. To the east, industrial port land will probably never be anything but industrial, and rightly so.

The only unknown, I think, is the rail yard. CN maintains that it's critical infrastructure and they'll hold onto it like Charlton Heston used to say his cold dead hands would continue to grip a rifle. But I believe that once the land value gets high enough they'll sell and move the operation elsewhere (with a generous government subsidy to do so... an argument for a different day) while keeping rights to a 3- or 4-track rail corridor through it all. Remediation of the rest will be costly, but the real estate revenue potential will probably more than make up for that. Does it become like Toronto, a "Harbourfront West", or a clone of what's going to happen at Pier 8? I think the city will plan for the latter and aside from allowing one or two 20-30 floor condos we will see a new residential area that is dense but much more waterfront-friendly than what's happened in other cities.

[TheRitsman]

I just think it looks odd among all the other short buildings. I'm not even against tall buildings at the waterfront. It's not my favourite thing, but I'll concede on this one. I'd rather see a mid-tall with the other buildings building up to it in height or something. I just think it's going to look odd with like 7 storey buildings beside a 45 floor one. It would make more sense to take this down to like 40 and add the ones lopped from the top to the adjacent buildings bringing them up to 10 or 12 storeys.

[Beedok]

The highway and the rail line are probably a bigger issue than the tall buildings?

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by Beedok

The highway and the rail line are probably a bigger issue than the tall buildings?

I think the main thing is most of the tall buildings in that area have absolutely no store fronts or shops. It's just condos. When I lived in Toronto I think I went to the waterfront like once, and even that was just to ride my bike down the (crowded) bike trail. Most of the people that visit that particular area are from out of town who don't know any better. There are far far more inviting spaces in that city. It's probably the worst example of urban planning in Toronto.

[SteelTown]

City one step closer to elevating Pier 8 residential tower 45 storeys into the sky

https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilto...o-the-sky.html

The City, as land owner at Pier 8, has applied for an official plan amendment to allow for a 45-storey residential tower to be built on Block 16 (65 Guise St.) of the waterfront development project.

If it gets built it’ll be one of the tallest buildings, at 147 metres, in the city. For world-renowned architect Bruce Kuwabara it could be the fulfilment of a career-long dream — to have designed an original landmark structure, not just in his home town, but in the very neighbourhood, the North End, where he grew up.

The OPA (official plan amendment) application, filed Dec. 1, sets in motion a rigorous public input and review process.

A tall tower building had been agreed to, among the design review committee stakeholders for the much-discussed Pier 8 development project, as a possible consideration in the plans. The application propels that consideration forward toward a test of approval, though, as manager of the municipal land development office Chris Phillips points out, it doesn’t mean the City or council officially supports it.

“There will be a lot of eyes on this,” says Kuwabara, who grew up on Ferrie Street after his parents and family settled in Hamilton in the wake of the Japanese-Canadian internment during the Second World War. “It should be a landmark tower. It would be a flagship, a beacon that can be seen from the Skyway Bridge, from Burlington and from the James North corridor.”

Will it — a project of such height and magnitude — create a polarizing rift in the city, not to mention in the neighbourhood, as has been known to happen in Hamilton in recent decades over civic identity-defining issues?

There will be opposition, says Herman Turkstra. “There are people who oppose high buildings, as a matter of course,” and often for good reason, he explains.

This time, though, the opposition will not come from him or the Northend Neighbourhood Association of whose planning and traffic committee he is chair.

The association knew development was going to happen, one way or another, and so what it wanted to ensure is that the developers would be “finding a way to get kids into the mediated settlement,” agreed to at the end of the design review process for Pier 8. The idea dates back to the early 2000s and the Setting Sail land use plan for West Harbour.

“Families and children have been critically important” to the thinking around what will happen with waterfront/North End development, says Turkstra. “If there are children on Pier 8, the parents become involved, in schools (and parks and other community infrastructure), and they will develop friends on John Street (and surrounding areas), and that will keep Pier 8 as an integral part of the neighbourhood,” not an enclave.

Without the tower, says Turkstra, there’d be too much intensification in the many six- to eight-story buildings that account for the vast majority of the 1,645 units envisioned in the agreed-upon Pier 8 plan. Too many single bedroom units with no room for kids and family, he says.

Kuwabara makes the same point in his case for the need for the tower. It releases single-unit pressure on the smaller buildings, fostering the more family-based orientation of the entire project.

Bill Curran, Hamilton architect and founder of PANERA (Progressive North End Residents’ Association), has clashed with Turkstra in the past but he is as ardently in support of the tower.

“It will dramatically raise the bar on design quality expectations,” says Curran. “We should expect more than the same old crappy building from the same old developers. This development is a game changer for Hamilton.”

The tower, he adds, speaks to the spirit of the city’s rejection of urban boundary expansion. Build in the city, up if necessary, to maximize “infill and intensification in existing vacant and underutilized space like Pier 7 and 8.”

Both Curran and Turkstra have praised Kuwabara’s vision for the project. Kuwabara, founding partner of KPMB Architects in Toronto, has designed award-winning buildings all over the world. Curran calls him “the most important Canadian architect of our time, full stop.” He did the redesign of the Art Gallery of Hamilton but as yet hasn’t put up an original building here.

The multi-firm team of architects he put together won the competition for the Pier 8 development.

Phillips says the building of the tower will require both a zoning and official plan amendment. “The public will have a significant impact” through the review and approval process. Council is expected to decide on the tower proposal in the summer. Construction is not expected to begin on any of the building for another 18 months, he says.

[Crapht]

Nothing about this building says “landmark structure” to me. Am I missing something? So it’s tall. I’d rather see it in the core or at the very least the city should allow this in the core. It just looks very mediocre to me from these renderings. Gotta up the game to call yourself “Landmark”

[TheRitsman]

Originally Posted by Crapht

Nothing about this building says “landmark structure” to me. Am I missing something? So it’s tall. I’d rather see it in the core or at the very least the city should allow this in the core. It just looks very mediocre to me from these renderings. Gotta up the game to call yourself “Landmark”

Maybe it'll have lights?

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Crapht

Nothing about this building says “landmark structure” to me. Am I missing something? So it’s tall. I’d rather see it in the core or at the very least the city should allow this in the core. It just looks very mediocre to me from these renderings. Gotta up the game to call yourself “Landmark”

The architecture here is actually quite striking providing it's detailed properly, which given that it's KPMB, it probably will be.

It's a simplistic expression but the cylindrical form is very unique and striking. The vertical fins will accentuate this, and the building really flows at grade despite not having retail (unfortunate). Provided it's well detailed it'll be the best looking tower in the city.

Don't expect anything dubaiesque here, It's still Hamilton and there isn't unlimited budget for some crazy architectural expressions. Given the budget it's best to stick to simple, well designed motifs that can create striking architecture without running up the construction bill too much.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

I think the main thing is most of the tall buildings in that area have absolutely no store fronts or shops. It's just condos. When I lived in Toronto I think I went to the waterfront like once, and even that was just to ride my bike down the (crowded) bike trail. Most of the people that visit that particular area are from out of town who don't know any better. There are far far more inviting spaces in that city. It's probably the worst example of urban planning in Toronto.

As someone who lived in Toronto for 8 years, and still visits regularly for work, I strongly disagree. But whatever, each to their own.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Crapht

Nothing about this building says “landmark structure” to me. Am I missing something? So it’s tall. I’d rather see it in the core or at the very least the city should allow this in the core. It just looks very mediocre to me from these renderings. Gotta up the game to call yourself “Landmark”

If it were downtown it wouldn’t be half as much of a landmark. Downtown it will probably get eclipsed and buried soon enough by taller towers. Out on the waterfront it will remain a distinctive landmark for… pretty well forever? And more visible from all over the bay than it would be downtown.

Whether it’s a pleasing landmark or not is debatable, sure, but it will certainly be visible.

[TheHonestMaple]

Reminds me of the US Bank tower in downtown LA.

[lachlanholmes]

It's definitely an understated design, which, fair enough, isn't to everyone's tastes. I happen to quite like understated, simple, elegant design so it's among my favourite proposals architecturally.

Regardless as to whether the design is exciting, I have a lot of confidence that it will be executed well and absolutely blow away the amateur-hour builds we've seen in recent years. It's Kuwubara and Cityzen, a very good combination.

It is reminiscent of the circular tower at the Azrieli Centre in Tel Aviv, although with a bit of a growth and in a residential format...



picture source

[King&James]

I just see the GM Building when I look at this, How fun would it be to have something like "the Gherkin"

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:30_St_Mary_Axe,_%27Gherkin%27.JPG#/media/File:30_St_Mary_Axe,_'Gherkin'.JPG

[Chronamut]

Ugh what a waste - no rooftop lighting? On a tower by the water that is supposed to represent a lighthouse, and instead looks like a giant smokestack? Well I guess that would be in theme with hamilton..

Originally Posted by King&James

I just see the GM Building when I look at this, How fun would it be to have something like "the Gherkin"

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:30_St_Mary_Axe,_%27Gherkin%27.JPG#/media/File:30_St_Mary_Axe,_'Gherkin'.JPG

That's too much complexity for hamilton - but yeah I feel this is a boring design personally - but hey as was said, at least it's circular - but not awe-inspiring.

[thistleclub]

Interesting evolution. Originally reminiscent of a tailpipe, now more unabashedly resembles an air purifier (or two models of the same brand of air purifier).

[Katrillion]

I live in Paris and one of the things that excited me about this project was the human-scaled building volumes. And perhaps more, the realization of decision-makers that maybe we don’t always need to build tall buildings in order to have liveable and dense neighbourhoods.

As far as buildings go, this one is quite elegant. There are still lots of positives about this project overall!

[jonny24]

I like the earlier renderings better, where it looked darker and had some more shape/light. I assume it will continue to change. I hope they lean into the Lighthouse idea and make it distinctive somehow at the top.

Don't mind a single large feature tower there, but it's gotta have retail/commercial at the bottom. The whole neighbourhood should IMO.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by jonny24

I like the earlier renderings better, where it looked darker and had some more shape/light. I assume it will continue to change. I hope they lean into the Lighthouse idea and make it distinctive somehow at the top.

It probably will go through a few more iterations.

I don't mind this design concept, but preferred the roofline of the original:

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Originally Posted by SteelTown

[TheHonestMaple]

I think it's the same thing?