A new multibillion-dollar development has been approved in Toronto, clearing the way for what could potentially be the latest in a string of high-profile projects, including 55 Yonge and Gehry's King Street West, altering the city’s skyline over the next decade.
Situated above a 10.5-acre park that straddles the King West district between the city’s downtown and waterfront, the proposed Over Rail Corridor Area (or ORCA) aims to create a mega-district west of the CN Tower by decking eight residential towers along a 16.5-acre railyard site that will add 3,000 new units of housing connected to the park via series of ramps and elevators.
Safdie Architects is responsible for the multi-use development that will incorporate shopping and office space into the residential design in what the architect hopes is going to unite the continent’s, reportedly, most diverse city.
"Our design aspires to forge a reconnection in the community fabric by creating a lively park that is economically viable and promises a unique destination experience for Toronto," Safdie said in a statement. "As an isolated park is unlikely to generate the diversity of activity required to animate the neighborhood, our design integrates amenities for city life like shops, restaurants, and offices into the park itself, drawing in residents and visitors alike."
Once completed, ORCA will represent the Israeli-Canadian architect’s most ambitious project in his adopted country, coming full-circle in a career that began when Safdie was still an undergraduate.
Safdie coupled with Arup for the design of ORCA, which is awaiting a completion date after an initial ruling last month by Toronto’s Local Planning Appeal Tribunal finally granted air rights owner Craft Development Corporation the green light to pursue the project.
13 Comments
Hideous. Should have stopped connecting towers after Marina Bay Sands. Urbanistically and architecturally contrived scheme.
I'm completely untrustworthy as a critic, because I LOVE this but I suspect my generosity toward it is beacuse it's Safdie, who I like, not becauase it's the direction I think urbanism should necessarily be going.
I went looking for an architect post on Steven Holl's "Linked Hybrid" and found liberty bell gushing over it too ... hmm. https://archinect.com/forum/thread/90207/steven-holl-s-linked-hybrid
I like linked hybrid better though.
Part of the problem here is that architecture is a craft, and as a craft it requires both conceptual strength and obsessive attention to detail. At large scale it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve either one.
Not to mention the variety of forces at play in a multi billion dollar development where economic concerns are paramount.
And when time is a concern. The ancients pulled it off because they took 300 years to build a cathedral. The me me culture would never allow this type of multigenerational project. We are so entrenched in the me me culture that we can’t even conceive of aliens traveling the cosmos unless they have some warp drive technology that can get them from point a-b within a lifetime. We so easily forgot that this was the norm for most of human history.
i think i'd like it better as a physical model. not moody enough to render well.
Safdie's recent Asian mega projects are pretty low-res: They look like a model scaled up a thousand times, with no corresponding increase in design details. Now, obviously the technical details are all sound and the engineering team deserves great credit for all the skybridges and mega trusses the firm has been commissioned to put up in Singapore and China. The architecture itself and its massive urban form are ... lacking.
When I first saw Minecraft my thought was never "I wish real life could look just like this," but here we are.
Question will be, who will have done it better ... Safdie here, or Holl in Beijing?
Pritzker goes to the winner.
Now, I'm the biggest Safdie fanboy here (after Donna) but this is pretty bland... even for already mega bland toronto. I would love to see what these will look like in winter.
i didn't want to be the first to say it... but it's pretty nice for toronto ;D
This looks like a corporate version of Baruch Housing with sky bridges.
I admire Safdie but I really dislike this project. To be fair I think it is impossible to do anything good at this scale and under the conditions that control development there (corporate fascism). Safdie will undoubtedly do his best but he will be fighting ROI every step of the way.
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