The last two city blocks in the massive CityPlace development in the former railway lands are now being developed, under the architectural direction of Raw Design.
Blocks 33 and 37, as they're currently known, will be built into a 15-million square foot residential and retail project called Quartz.
"In order to give the development a distinct image in the area, and on the skyline, Raw is working with a crystalline geometry for the towers and organization of the ground plane," says
Raw principal Roland Rom Colthoff, who was also involved in the design of Panorama, another
CityPlace tower. "The fractured geometry will allow Raw to orient facades to specific views and defer to existing view corridors while using a subtle axial shifts to link the buildings together."
The development will have 30,000 square feet of retail and 25,000 square feet of amenity space.
According to Rom Colthoff, "Open public ways bisect the site linking the adjacent
Canoe Landing to Fort York and the new pedestrian Bridge north on
Dan Leckie Way, south to the lake. This completes a pedestrian path and strong organizing axis which begins east of Spadina."
The current plan calls for two towers of 38 and 33 storeys, though Colthoff says this may change.
Construction of the towers, which will be clad in glass, pre-cast concrete and metal panels, is set to begin in the fall, with a fall, 2013 completion date projected.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Roland Rom Colthoff
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