Toronto Ontario Square and Canada Square | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

Beavers frolicing and fiddlehead stalls?


I sense you're joking, but while relying on cliches can be fun when done in a clever way (Coupland) it's up to each new generation to continue to create new forms and new iterations of what reflects Canada and Canadians in design, by continuing to mine and reflect our society and our organic context. This is what disappoints me with the Chinese arch that was built where instead of taking an opportunity to reinterpret Chinese heritage in a Canadian context, creating something innovative, a cheddingtonista cultural approach was taken...

Tourists may come to a 'Canada Square' looking for Mounties and beavers but would leave with a more profound impression of us if instead they found a fresh and more relevent expression of the idea of Canada there.
 
That said, I wouldn't have problems with a Beavertail outlet here, corny as it might seem...
 
New presentations from WT:

Stakeholder Advisory Meeting 1
http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca//dbdocs//4b608d4fed083.pdf

Stakeholder Advisory Meeting 2
http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca//dbdocs//4b608d8c84a3d.pdf

AoD

Is the main 'urban square' really doubling as a bus loading area? (page 33-48 in meeting 2) And why do they want to turn a currently pedestrian entrance into a parade of cars? Wouldn't using the east side where cars need to also use the Queens Quay Terminal parking make more sense? Oh god. This proposal is looking weaker and weaker the more I look at it.
 
I was at the meeting and Waterfront TO indicated construction for the parking would begin in May of this year.
 
ProjectEnd, Sir Novelty Fashion, and I were all there too. They only have very preliminary conceptual plans for what the cultural village buildings will be up top, and it seems that Waterfront TO are open to suggestions from the public. Send them a note if you have a vision for the place!

Otherwise, Canada Square is to be at the south end between the Power Plant Gallery and Queens Quay Terminal, and open to the harbour: its north edge will be defined by the cultural village buildings which will run up to Queens Quay west of the QQ Terminal driveway. The other square is currently deemed the Urban Square: it will face Queens Quay, with the York Quay Centre making its west edge, the Power Plant theatre the south, and the new cultural village bordering its east. The parking garage is to sit below the urban square and the cultural village buildings.

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I was there also. Not a fan of the 4's buildings culture centre, but agree we need some thing 365 days a year and at nighttime. Otherwise, you take a bowling ball out like last night and not hit anything at all.

I don't how many times the same questions were asked over and over, weren't ppl listening??

Like the idea of a fire waterfall.

With Ells Don on board, they may get the garage build by March 2011.

As for using electronic signs saying which garage is open or close, you will still get drivers driving up to a close one and wait for the gate/door to open so they can get in and not have to walk from one further away. Or drivers who don't read sign in the first place.

It going to be a zoo getting in and out that garage with all the feet traffic in the way, as well the cyclist who fail to stop for lights in the first place.

Do need more drinking areas along the waterfront.

Having Canada Sq open to the water is a good idea.

Using daylight for the parking garage is a great way to go and long over due for buildings like this.
 
i42:

My understanding is that the cultural village on top will be the subject of another design competition

HiRiser:

It will have to be - this particular phase is a stimulus project and has to be done by March 2011.

AoD
 
spaced:

Nope, the timeline indicates the parking garage (below grade) is done by the first quarter of 2011 and the above ground portion by the first half of 2011.

AoD
 
spaced:

Nope, the timeline indicates the parking garage (below grade) is done by the first quarter of 2011 and the above ground portion by the first half of 2011.

AoD

Your correct on the timeline for the garage.

As for the top, it sounded like it was still years off with all the zoning and other paper work to be done this year, let alone 2011.

During various conversations before and after, my feeling it was more like 2013-15 time frame.

Has to be done by Spring 2015 to be ready for the Pan AM Games.

The earliest the Canada Sq can be done is spring 2012 and it must be completed in time for the ""War of 1812 events""
 
i42:

My understanding is that the cultural village on top will be the subject of another design competition

Not only will it be the subject of a design competition... it will be the subject of more charettes, etc., to figure out what to put in it in the first place. They don't even have that yet.

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