Toronto Aura at College Park | 271.87m | 78s | Canderel | Graziani + Corazza

Red October said:
^ I think my biggest head scratch about the podium for this building is their decision to go for lighter stone as opposed to darker stone, it seems really out of place.
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Or the fact that they used a veneer material that tries to visually approximate stone but fails terribly.
 
Tewder said:
I see the lack of design/quality here as somewhat organic, it reflects the values of the city (as they were several years ago when this pile was conceived, at least). It's just a bigger and more prominent representation of them. What's proposed to happen at the M/G site is an exception not the rule, driven by the vision of developers with a legacy agenda. How often does this really happen?

This latest building boom has been about speculators and investors looking to maximize profits quick in what was a grossly underdeveloped market. With certain notable exceptions this has not produced good results... and the ugly 'gravy-obssessed' attitude at City Hall only added insult to injury. They traded away all kinds of height bonuses etc. for pennies, letting developers get away with ugly cheap designs and token community benefits. Clearly this hasn't worked. Change is needed, and I rather like Torontovibe's suggestion that there needs to be more requirements with respect to quality and design.
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M/G is driven by two men that despite their best intentions will likely cave to get anything built or end up capitalizing on the upzoning. I have hope but, to count on the best possible outcome because the zoning is now in place is naive to say the least. Also, it would help if Mirvish actually had a development portfolio that wasn't mostly flipping property. There is nothing in the way of zoning to prevent a swap out for the likes of Page + Steele. What got approved on King is also much larger and taller than Aura and on a site that previously had lower maximums allowed. Certainly design did play into the heights and densities approved for M/G. We'll have to wait and see if it's a win or not.
 
modern™ said:
Or the fact that they used a veneer material that tries to visually approximate stone but fails terribly.
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can't say I've given it any attention aside from walking passed it but, it look like some sort of sandstone to me so, if it's not, I'd say it's successfully done.
 
thedeepend said:
Those beige scrabble pieces are not granite, limestone, or stone of any sort. The surface is, as Modern stated, a weird kind of cheap Ikea-like veneer. Anyone who looks at them up close can see this.
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The podium is just an urbanized version of a power centre, with matching architectural quality.
 
thedeepend said:
Those beige scrabble pieces are not granite, limestone, or stone of any sort. The surface is, as Modern stated, a weird kind of cheap Ikea-like veneer. Anyone who looks at them up close can see this.
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And anyone who looks at the sub-contractors invoices can see they used granite and limestone
 
Based on the size/thickness of those "sandstone" cladding pieces alone, one can tell that it is nothing more than a veneer. What's more, you can see the edges of them and you can also see units which have chipped and reveal the fibreglass beneath.

This is the cladding unit which was used at Aura: http://claddingsystems.ca/index.php/ahsp/description

6mm stone veneer is very thin, and I think it will age poorly. You're welcome to disagree, but let's call it what it is: a thin veneer. It's not as substantial as using dimensional stone panels like many other projects have used when stone is employed as a cladding material. There are ways that a thin stone veneer would work well, but the WAY it was used on this project makes it appear very cheap and unconvincing. An interior application would have been more appropriate, or at the very least a more delicate/lighter application of them on the exterior.

It looks worst at the corners, especially looking up, where you can see that it does not take the shape of a dimensional stone unit, and you can see the edges to the veneer very easily. I'm also puzzled at the choice to use these stone-veneer units (which are designed to have a "depth" and 3-dimensional quality to them) but then place the glazing units flush with the stone. I'm not necessarily opposed to that type of stone-veneer panel, but I think form an architectonic point of view, it's an inappropriate and heavy-handed use of a material. The biggest problem is the WAY they use the material, which is an important consideration in design.

Aura.JPG


Call me a Aura-h8er!!!111, but I would never use such a heavy-handed application of stone veneer panel in my own design work.
 

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There is some limestone and granite detailing at ground level. But the stuff that's above that is veneer. You could see when they were installing it that it was just aluminium paneling. I'm sure there are pictures earlier in the thread
 
The fact that we have to debate what materials were used says a lot about the architectural quality of this building. Whether it's granite or not, this podium and it's basement still sucks.
 
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