09-14-2023, 02:19 PM
(09-14-2023, 11:30 AM)ac3r Wrote: That's a good analogy indeed.
For me, it's just the genericism of it. I mean in the context of Waterloo Region it's unique because no building like that exists here. But there are tons of these sort of buildings across the GTA. It becomes particularly noticeable when there are just a handful of large architecture firms that get awarded the contracts to build these. A Kirkor building looks like a Kirkor building the same way we know when SRM was responsible for something. Makes it all kind of same-y.
Not sure if you can view all of these because this site is paywalled though you should be able to at least browse these, just no the catalogue. Here are a couple random of examples I pulled up that I think show what a unique tower can look like.
https://divisare.com/projects/445264-ser...ate-courts - Simple in form, but with unique facade and material elements.
https://divisare.com/projects/399892-lbr...re-reforma - This is amazing...definitely wouldn't work here though haha.
https://divisare.com/projects/387096-b72...orma-itaim - This is where they copied the Charlie West podium from...except they did it correctly so you can actually see it.
https://divisare.com/projects/370665-stu...aqua-tower - The famous Aqua Tower. Since balconies wrapped around the building are currently in (especially in Ontario lately) you may as well use the opportunity to create a unique visual feature with it.
https://divisare.com/projects/73207-herz...t-new-york - Herzog de Meuron going super sci-fi with this one in NYC.
The original proposal for this Station Park skyscraper had unique design elements with the sewed footprint, the randomly staggered balconies, the colours of some aspects of the facade and more. It could have used a bit more tuning I think...if I was the designer, I would have modified the parallelogram footprint of the main tower so that every 10-12 floors they would have a slightly different orientation. It would have stood out a lot more and made you look up. This new proposal you could plop down on any block in downtown or midtown Toronto and not be able to tell it apart from the hundreds of other skyscrapers. We'll forget it's there pretty fast.
So you provided examples from Singapore, San Paulo, New York, Mexico City and Chicago.... Come on! I get that it is black and white, but this building would look good in any of those cities, would it be the nicest in those cities, no but this is a well designed building with some unique characteristics. Also that chicago example is a boring building with a bunch of bird shitting ledges, looks like a poorer designed One York Street. KW is not a global city! should we demand more from developers and architects here, absolutely, but they finally provide with a decent proposal and 50% of the people here complain.