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Bay Adelaide Centre West Tower (Brookfield, 50s, WZMH)

Here is a picture wyliepoon took the other day.....

....funny enough in overcast conditions.

And yes BA is highly reflective and IMO moreso than RBP.

.. But of course that is up to debate.


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TKTKTK said:
You've never seen gold-tinted mirrors before?
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Nope...

egotrippin said:
Actually, glass buildings tend to be their most reflective in overcast conditions. The clouds diffuse the light, which is reflected more dynamically. However in direct sunlight it often lights enough of the interior behind the glass which cancels out some of the reflection. Also, the reflectivity of glass can be compared regardless of colour, I don't understand the gold argument. It's not like there are blue mirrors either.
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The glass on BA seems to go through a greater numbers of shades on the colour spectrum than RBP, most likely because it doesnt have the heavy gold tinting on the glass, like RB Plaza. Some days it looks, blue, some days grey, some days shiney sliver. I guess it depends on the weather conditions.

....

But back to the main point, which is the value of the BA Tower in the CBD. From my point of view, it's tall. It knows its roll. It's not trying to be a showcase tower, if so I'm sure it would have been taller and had more flare, whatever flare is in Toronto. - (We don't really get too crazy here with our office towers). This tower wasn't built by the banks, it was built by a property developer and leased out to 3 or 4 Law and Legal Services Firms not exactly the type of people that would go out on a limb with regards to design. (If you've ever hung out with Lawyers you probably know where I am coming from) And as far as the glass goes, it seems that we can all agree that none of the other towers in the Financial district have a cladding similar to BA. So in the end it does add some variety to the downtown skyline. If you guys want some whiz-bang-shabang, you'll probably have to ask one the bank or insurance CEO's to redo their office towers, and the likelyhood of that happening is slim to none.

3112597773_21cdf82914.jpg


This photo was posted a couple pages back.
This tower is very elegant, and from my perspective it holds it own against the bank towers.
 
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Come to think of it, by definition Royal Bank's glass could be considered a mirror, as it's glass coated in a metal.

I know it's a silly argument, but even in that photo, you can see the columns behind the glass. You can't see through RBP's glass during the day, and even at night you can barely see the interior. The glass behaves very similarly to a two-way mirror, which is glass coated in a very thin layer of metal, and gold has historically been used to make mirrors.
 
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caltrane74 said:
...And as far as the glass goes, it seems that we can all agree that none of the other towers in the Financial district have a cladding similar to BA...
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Agreed. Most of the buildings with similar cladding are in Brampton, Mississuaga, Richmond Hill, Markham...
 
TKTKTK said:
Agreed. Most of the buildings with similar cladding are in Brampton, Mississuaga, Richmond Hill, Markham...
Click to expand...


You guys keep saying that, but which building in Brampton, Mississuaga, Markham or Richmond Hill, has their cladding done by Soto Glass?

The glass on BA is premium curtain wall.

...even with shitty 905 glass, I wouldn't mind seeing some more 220 meters towers sprinkled further north in the downtown core.
 
caltrane74 said:
You guys keep saying that, but which building in Brampton, Mississuaga, Markham or Richmond Hill, has their cladding done by Soto Glass?

The glass on BA is premium curtain wall.

...even with shitty 905 glass, I wouldn't mind seeing some more 220 meters towers sprinkled further north in the downtown core.
Click to expand...

I wish we had towers in Mississauga like this one. I don't get why people are saying this either. There is only a couple of nice towers in Mississauga.
 
Sota's done its share of non-descript 905 buildings, too.

BA isn't premium anything. It's standard commercial curtainwall, nothing better or worse than the standard commercial curtainwall that gets used anywhere else in the 905 or 416 or whatever other area code.

I actually like BA and don't see anything wrong with it. I think people just had their expectations set too high for it. In a market like ours where we see so few commercial towers going up in our CBD (notwithstanding the current boom) people were anticipating something dramatic and inspiring, and when we instead got a clean, conservative, servicable box everyone acts as though they've been sorely let down. Yes, it could have been tweaked a little to look a bit nicer, but in a way I like how it's just politely understated.
 
alot of people here question whether this building, and therefore the architect, wanted to have "flare". or perhaps, whether the building should have been less reserved.

first and foremost, the height of this building had little to do with the designers' aesthetic intentions. the building is as tall as it is because it serves the necessary number of tenants that need space. if there was more demand in general there would be MORE FLOORS.

that goes for all toronto as well. many members of this forum scream for a "supertall" like chicago or new york. let's be honest here, if there was demand for a "supertall" in toronto, there would be one!

telus, rbc, and any other business tower in this city is exactly as tall as it should be, that is, as tall as the market demands.

chicago and nyc's respective economies are significantly larger than toronto's. having said that, let's understand the limited range of height we are afforded in this city and instead attempt to create buildings that are aesthetically appealing and not necessarily HUGE.

Look at the supertalls in dubai. ghastly in my opinion. bay and adelaide is conservative because the architects, tenants, and developers are trying to save money. i don't like how conservative the tower is, but look at those fly condos. i'd rather be conservative than brash and silly for its own sake.

toronto is not an economic superpower. maybe in the future. in the meantime, let's just strive for beauty.
 
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We might be expecting too much but why can we get condos that are interesting like Spire but not office buildings? And we may not be an economic superpower but we were, in the past, able to be build innovative buildings like the TD Centre, FCP, CC, Royal Bank, Scotia Tower and Brookfield Centre. No reason to think we couldn't do that again.
 
I dont know if this has been posted or discussed previously... but the signange of the building will be that of the main anchor: KPMG

the signange is going to be there main logo, obviously, and on all four sides.
 
That might explain the notches in the top corners without cladding??????

..i dunno.

That also means our hope for LED lighting at the top of the building is probably a non-starter.
 
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