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What would that look like?

Love to hear actual debate. Why? What should replace it? How does that apply to this project?

Thanks for posting, @Art Tsai . Here’s a direct link: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and-architecture/article-torontos-university-college-gets-a-bold-new-chapter/ With all respect to @northern Light’s strongly held views, this approach to historic buildings is in keeping with the...

My latest column, a response to the DSAI op-ed a couple weeks back: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto/article-ontario-place-therme-canada-architects/

True. But the outbuildings are of a comparable size. The Henning Larsen masterplan for this site kept two of them.

The German Gymnasium at Kings Cross would have been a good model for keeping some of the existing buildings. It makes a HUGE impact on that neighbourhood.

The design work is moving on. Now the question is whether this will ever be funded.

I wrote another piece on this recently, reiterating my support for the compromise: to rebuild the last section, east of Cherry, at grade. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and-architecture/article-changing-lanes-on-the-future-of-the-gardiner-expressway/ This would in fact open up more...

Second U of T project with Christensen & Co.

A 21st-century St James Town, home to 10,000+ people near downtown living car-light or car-free. But with lots of social housing, high-quality architecture, well-maintained streets and a first-class major park next door. This is… bad?

Well, LOL. It’s comparable to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which 1) is one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in the world, and 2) is much larger. This would be a tiny island of density in an ocean of parks and lake. If I stand next to Elon Musk, we are, on average, very rich.

The garage entrance pavilion in the southeast corner is coming along.

MVRDV with Diamond. https://www.mvrdv.com/news/4415/mvrdv-diamond-schmitt-selected-james-louise-temerty-building

Interesting to note that this will be a 183,000 square-foot building (!) and the lead designers are Taylor Hazell, whose practice has mostly been as heritage consultants rather than designers. No one at the TDSB cares, but this is an odd choice.

So with eight tall towers this is roughly half a Cityplace… but walkable to almost nothing, and with none of the public amenities except maybe a school and two poorly sited public parks. Plus the urban design is typical suburban Toronto and there’s no hint that the developers will hire good...

Fair point! But the fact that a stand-alone element is so badly done reflects the general lack of creativity, taste and care around these projects. WCH in particular. as with so much public architecture in Toronto, the standards are incredibly low.

Well, they’re trying that now with Ontario Place and the Science Centre. HPS staff have decided that these are battles worth fighting. They have also chosen not to touch any of the TDSB properties. Hard to speak to what happens behind closed doors. But when you have hundreds of modest shops...

This is a loss of very significant built heritage IMO. On a private res or office project, there’s no chance Heritage Planning would have signed off on this. There’s a very clear pattern in which they give an easier ride to public sector applications. And while we can debate the merits of that...

This is almost done and very nice. Glazed-brick walls framing a steel gate: And the “alley” itself