Toronto RioCan Hall | 145.2m | 42s | RioCan | Hariri Pontarini

Not usually a fan of twins, but I would definitely enjoy a slightly different take on Building A .. for Building B.. which looks odd here. Similar massing for B with setbacks, in yellow brick(ish) facade. Orange A vs Yellow B towers - nod to the city's brick heritage. Might be a sweet colour clash. Like the tower and podiums volumes but not the white appendage. Enough white underway.
 
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im happy that more and more architects are using bricks instead of the green glass. they should also look into colorful terra cotta like they do it in London.

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Glazed ceramic tiles cover Metropolitan Workshop’s tiny homes tower | Facade, Green facade, Tiny modular homes

Jan 15, 2019 - Metropolitan Workshop's London tower of tiny modular homes is covered in a "chameleon-style" facade of glazed terracotta that changes colour in the light.
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In the photo up above it shows one of the two buildings towers having a blue,greenish look for the balconies when it's white in the developer's new rendering . And the top end of the tower's floors should be angled the same way as it's other proposed tower. I was wondering if that building could be altered with out creating a new flyby Koops. Always appreciated great work !!
 
New docs posted May 8:

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I wonder if with movie theatres now closed essentially indefinitely and even after that likely seeing significantly decreased demand, it make sense for both RioCan and for Cineplex to fast-track this project. There's lots of factors of course — legal, financial, construction, and with other tenants — so it might not be possible, but if the theatre is going to be closed and under-attended for the foreseeable future anyway maybe best to rebuild during the COVID slowdown and then have a new theatre open as people are becoming more comfortable to go to the theatre again.

It will be sad for the somewhat iconic current theatre to be demolished, but I do like this building quite a bit — it attempts to do something interesting in a sea of snap-together spandrel boxes, plus more brick in the Entertainment District! Improving the street-level experience on Richmond and Widmer will also be very welcome. With Picasso, PJ, and now this redevelopment, this little nexus might actually start to bend away from the predominant monotonous glass/spandrel box style of the area.
 
I really like it - I hope the internal access issues were dealt with (the ridiculously small entry to the cinemas, for example). The POPS on the corner of John and Richmond hopefully integrates well with the planned renewal of John Street into a more pedestrianized space.

And yes, fast-tracking this sucker when we're probably going to have a very scaled down TIFF this year (if one at all) makes sense.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if TIFF goes virtual this year, or maybe even cancelled if they prefer to hold back movie releases. Which is a shame as I've started attending shows in the past couple years and quite enjoyed it.

If they can get the formalities with all the factors involved sorted out, then it would make sense to fast track this project. The theatre industry will be impacted for a while. Even when they open back up, until a vaccine is developed they'll need to adhere to social distancing policies such as capacity limits and increased spacing between viewers.
 
If the city hasn't already rejected this proposal, I sure hope they do just that. Why on earth would you demolish one of the primary venues for the Toronto International Film Festival??
 
ericn said:
If the city hasn't already rejected this proposal, I sure hope they do just that. Why on earth would you demolish one of the primary venues for the Toronto International Film Festival??
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Were that a material issue; it's not one the City could use to deny the application.

I would like to see more downtown screens, and I think we probably will.

Time will tell....

Strong rumours of screens being in the works at "The Well", but that doesn't mean it's true.

Edit to add: The City really needs a new dedicated Art House Cinema. Tiff doesn't cut it because they have only 3 good quality screens; and because, by and large, they don't run a full schedule of any one film for any length of time.

We used to have the Carlton, but that's gone more second-run, with limited first-run and some arthouse on the side.

The Cumberland was also a loss in that regard.

If Cineplex built a new mainstream cinema in the Bloor Zone I could see Varsity going all arthouse.

But I digress.
 
ericn said:
If the city hasn't already rejected this proposal, I sure hope they do just that. Why on earth would you demolish one of the primary venues for the Toronto International Film Festival??
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Just to be an even finer point on it than @Northern Light, the City simply has not been given the power by the Provincial Government to force particular businesses to continue in place. Even if the Province were to enact such legislation, it would eventually be taken down by the Superior Court, wouldn't even have to go to the national body. The City only has sway over land use categories in this regard, and then the application of various formulae to regulate density, shape the massing, and make servicing requirements. If the theatres here were housed in a designated heritage building, the City could require preservation of the heritage elements of the building, but they still couldn't force the cinemas to remain if the operator weren't interested.

I would have like to have seen The Well cinemas come to be, but no operator wanted to open there (assuming, at what it would have cost). That's too bad, and I lament the loss of cinema space too, for the reason you mentioned. Who knows where that's heading over the next while…

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