Station Park | 18, 28, 36, 40, 50 fl | U/C

[ac3r]

Oh my god they fucking ruined it! Lmfao this region just doesn't disappoint. It's an architectural wasteland. They had a unique, highly modern skyscraper and then turned it into the most generic fucking GTA looking condo they possibly could. Yuck. I hope it collapses. And I'm not just trying to be contrarian here. This is just awful. There are thousands of these dotted across North America. What a waste of potential. Get fucked VanMar.

[Lebronj23]

Wow! Where did you find this?

I worked my magic with city staff and they sent me the Urban Design brief. Can’t post the file here but DM your email and I can forward. 

This includes a grocer, pharmacy, and 4 levels of office. It’s 185 metres tall.

[CP42]

Wow! Where did you find this?

I worked my magic with city staff and they sent me the Urban Design brief. Can’t post the file here but DM your email and I can forward. 

This includes a grocer, pharmacy, and 4 levels of office. It’s 185 metres tall.

I wonder if the switch from grocery and several small retailers to just grocery and a pharmacy indicates they’re working with Loblaws/Choice Properties…

[tomh009]

This includes a grocer, pharmacy, and 4 levels of office. It’s 185 metres tall.

The Junction also promises a grocery on the ground level. If we had an urban grocery in just 10% of the development projects that promise to deliver one we'd all be happy.

[CP42]

Thanks to Lebron for the package, here are some more renders from it:

[Rainrider22]

looks amazing. It will balance really well with the Google building and give a nice progressive feel IMO...

[panamaniac]

It's like four different building piled up on top of each other. Like the fluted column.

[cherrypark]

Bottom section looks nice enough and frankly anything of this form factor and with a grocer is so sorely needed to make that side of the grade separation less of a wasteland. Google already ruined their street frontage, so might as well do better here.

Top is fine I guess, but can't help but feel like floor plate shape aside this is still a pretty generic design. Just a triangular version of the IN8 tower on Francis, which isn't saying much positive. Would have at least liked to see something a little more inspired in materials or design given the landmark positioning this one is going to have for at least a while. Still miles ahead of the original Sixo proposal, so worth keeping that in perspective.

[Rainrider22]

Tough crowd here. It is rare for anyone in this group to speak positively about any projects. I wonder what it is about peoples' expectations on this site that I seem to not possess. Is it because I am not an expert in the field ?. I find it interesting that many projects I see I like, yet get criticized here. Maybe I am actually the target audience that the designers are looking to impress, which means they did achieve their job. Or maybe it is somewhat like art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No matter what, it is certainly interesting.

[SF22]

Tough crowd here.  It is rare for anyone in this group to speak positively about any projects.  I wonder what it is about peoples' expectations on this site that I seem to not possess.  Is it because I am not an expert in the field ?.  I find it interesting that many projects I see I like, yet get criticized here.  Maybe I am actually the target audience that the designers are looking to impress, which means they did achieve their job.  Or maybe it is somewhat like art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  No matter what, it is certainly interesting.

I heard something once that was talking about video games, and it basically said "If you have any depth on knowledge on video games, and play more than 10 a year, and read articles about developments in gaming, you are an expert in your field. When you get mad at controls or graphics or UI, you have to understand that most people don't have the same exposure as you, and are perfectly happy with what they've been given."

I think the same absolutely applies here. I don't have an architectural background. I don't go into many high-rise residential buildings. I just see them as I pass by, and either my brain is happy or it isn't, and I don't think about it much further than that. And so I can be a lot happier with what is provided than someone who lives and breathes this subject every day.

[Momo26]

This should be interesting. Does the 5th building run the risk of 'not quite fitting in' with the 4 rectangle glass buildings that come before it on the same site? Or does that not really matter as this Is a standalone mixed use?

It'll be interesting to see what businesses gobble up the office floors (all in that white podium I presume?)

Will office floors warrant significantly more underground parking spots?

I like it - if nothing else it is completely different from every high rise built so far in DTK. The podium will make or break this I feel - will the materials in white look brutalist? Will it age well or start to have janky dark spots?

[Rainrider22]

Tough crowd here.  It is rare for anyone in this group to speak positively about any projects.  I wonder what it is about peoples' expectations on this site that I seem to not possess.  Is it because I am not an expert in the field ?.  I find it interesting that many projects I see I like, yet get criticized here.  Maybe I am actually the target audience that the designers are looking to impress, which means they did achieve their job.  Or maybe it is somewhat like art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  No matter what, it is certainly interesting.

I heard something once that was talking about video games, and it basically said "If you have any depth on knowledge on video games, and play more than 10 a year, and read articles about developments in gaming, you are an expert in your field. When you get mad at controls or graphics or UI, you have to understand that most people don't have the same exposure as you, and are perfectly happy with what they've been given."

I think the same absolutely applies here. I don't have an architectural background. I don't go into many high-rise residential buildings. I just see them as I pass by, and either my brain is happy or it isn't, and I don't think about it much further than that. And so I can be a lot happier with what is provided than someone who lives and breathes this subject every day.

Great analogy !!!   thanks for your perspective.

[ac3r]

I heard something once that was talking about video games, and it basically said "If you have any depth on knowledge on video games, and play more than 10 a year, and read articles about developments in gaming, you are an expert in your field. When you get mad at controls or graphics or UI, you have to understand that most people don't have the same exposure as you, and are perfectly happy with what they've been given."

I think the same absolutely applies here. I don't have an architectural background. I don't go into many high-rise residential buildings. I just see them as I pass by, and either my brain is happy or it isn't, and I don't think about it much further than that. And so I can be a lot happier with what is provided than someone who lives and breathes this subject every day.

Great analogy !!!   thanks for your perspective.

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.

[ac3r]

Also these renders really show you how ugly the streetscape is here. It's just sidewalks, train tracks, a road, a bridge and a bunch of poles and wires. Now I guess a giant blank white podium. Would be cool if we could get some nice public art pieces installed under the bridge. Or heck just let people paint graffiti. Place some planters and a couple trash cans there. A water fountain and a couple benches for people using the trail. It needs some colour, life and objects to make it feel like a place a human being should be occupying rather than a transitory non-place.

[tomh009]

It'll be interesting to see what businesses gobble up the office floors (all in that white podium I presume?)

It'll be a tough sell filling those floors up, at least for a while. Yes, this is probably three or four years away from completion, but at this point both DTK and Waterloo have pretty high vacancy rates for office space. New buildings like Glove Box, 342 King W and One Young (nee Mayfair Hotel) have a lot of top-quality vacant space looking for office tenants. And older buildings (55 King W, 305 King W, Galleria etc) have more space yet.