Toronto 88 Queen | 167.35m | 52s | St Thomas Dev | Hariri Pontarini

xy3 said:
I think the dark glass and white mullion/spandrel combo was a bad choice.

A lighter aqua glass tint would have actually suited the white mullions and aqua spandrel more, and not looked so garish.

In order for this black glass to work, it would need black or bronze spandrel and mullions.

This could have been achieved without spending more on the actual materials, just making sure that the colors ordered matched.


I don't think this city has a 'green glass' problem at all. We have an haphazard/mismatched mullion/spandrel problem. It boggles my mind how developers act as if they dont have the time to get this right, when the city endlessly delays approvals for projects.
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Maybe it's time that mockups with materials used have to be provided before approved. I don't know what the cure to this problem is, but it needs to be fixed. I'm tired of seeing awful materials choices on the buildings we have to see every day.
 
khris said:
Maybe it's time that mockups with materials used have to be provided before approved. I don't know what the cure to this problem is, but it needs to be fixed. I'm tired of seeing awful materials choices on the buildings we have to see every day.
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The City has very little power over the aesthetic choices made by developers. (And by 'aesthetic' I really mean 'financial"!!)
 
DSC said:
The City has very little power over the aesthetic choices made by developers. (And by 'aesthetic' I really mean 'financial"!!)
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In many municipalities in the US, a project will not receive a Certificate of Occupancy if the building materials do not comply with what was approved at the Design Review Committee.
 
While I'm glad the podium is well crafted, apart from a glass wall at grade the tower cladding so far is very unfortunate. I guess I know really look forward to the tower on Queen and Church going up at some pointnin time.
 
Based on the renderings, I'm hoping that some sort of screening element will be applied to cover the mystifyingly-bad tower cladding. I'm not optimistic though. I see no evidence of another layer to come, i.e., no brackets are anything like that.

I'm baffled that HPA, one of the best firms in the city, seems to have been forced into this awful material choice. There's no way they would've chosen it willingly on their own. I'm assuming they made a trade-off with the developer to get the cladding they wanted for the podium.

Still, I'd have assumed that (a) the developer would be more respectful of a firm of HPA's caliber; if not, why hire them? (b) HPA, given their caliber, would hold their ground against such a huge and visible compromise to their design.
 
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May 10, 2023

IMG_20230510_135822046_HDR.jpg
 
DSC said:
The City has very little power over the aesthetic choices made by developers. (And by 'aesthetic' I really mean 'financial"!!)
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condovo said:
Based on the renderings, I'm hoping that some sort of screening element will be applied to cover the mystifyingly-bad tower cladding. I'm not optimistic though. I see no evidence of another layer to come, i.e., no brackets are anything like that.

I'm baffled that HPA, one of the best firms in the city, seems to have been forced into this awful material choice. There's no way they would've chosen it willingly on their own. I'm assuming they made a trade-off with the developer to get the cladding they wanted for the podium.

Still, I'd have assumed that (a) the developer would be more respectful of a firm of HPA's caliber; if not, why hire them? (b) HPA, given their caliber, would hold their ground against such a huge and visible compromise to their design.
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☝️This.
I'm usually pretty hyped to see a Hariri Pontarini project coming to life and didn't see this one turning out this way at all.
 
condovo said:
Based on the renderings, I'm hoping that some sort of screening element will be applied to cover the mystifyingly-bad tower cladding. I'm not optimistic though. I see no evidence of another layer to come, i.e., no brackets are anything like that.

I'm baffled that HPA, one of the best firms in the city, seems to have been forced into this awful material choice. There's no way they would've chosen it willingly on their own. I'm assuming they made a trade-off with the developer to get the cladding they wanted for the podium.

Still, I'd have assumed that (a) the developer would be more respectful of a firm of HPA's caliber; if not, why hire them? (b) HPA, given their caliber, would hold their ground against such a huge and visible compromise to their design.
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There appears to be indents in the balcony portions where the screen elements may eventually go. But it maybe awhile before they get around to doing that...so we'll just have bear and grin the toothpaste tower for a bit. >.<
 
I have to say I think I agree that I generally like the tower portion so far as well. I understand where the dislike is coming from...The colour scheme resembles the typical cheep toronto white spandrel/cladding. So it's almost like an automatic response to dislike it. But this does seem rather high quality and quite intentional.
 
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I think what people (including myself) are reacting to is that seeing this colouring and panels, we're getting PTSD from Pemberton's Social. Social looked pretty close to this at the start too (minus the great podium).
 
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