Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Dazzling Designs | Waterfront Toronto

    Toronto, Canada, has been booming.  With newly constructed buildings and skyscrapers coming up every week, the city is experiencing, not just an economic boom, but a construction boom.  It's a rare sight to see in many North Amercian cities, where there isn't much construction, simply because of the world's economic crisis.  Toronto, with its current population of 2.5 million, has been gaining 80,000 to 100,000 people per year!  And it's real estate sector has been moving along quite nicely since the 1990s. 

Lower Don Lands

    There is over 147 high-rise buildings being constructed right now in the city, and it's only getting bigger.  Suburbs also have been experiencing the boom, with towers popping up there, it's an interesting sight to see.  A larger project called the Waterfront Toronto Project, is currently being designed by Michael van Valkenburgh, Moshe Safdie, Pelli Clarke Pelli, and Saucier + Perrotte.  When the project is done, the architects plan that the waterfront will be able to have over 40,000 residents.  And don't forget that this group of people are going to make sure the Toronto Waterfront will make your draw drop.  (That's their job!) 

Lower Don Lands

    Because of other cities having bad economic downfalls, residents of Toronto fear that the real estate bubble will go to far and bust.  There are also critics that don't like how fast the city is growing.   “We have a city that isn’t proactively planned, and hasn’t been for years now,” says Meg Graham.  He is the principal of the firm Superkül Architect and a professor at the University of Toronto’s architecture school.  But many people disagree.  The city is booming, and there are good plans in place to make sure this all goes well for Toronto's residents.  Downtown Toronto is also booming, and having more wealthy residents is helping it speed up.

Lower Don Lands

    It's also hard to believe that about 50 percent of all the residents in Toronto, Canada, are foreign-born.  The city has very strong education systems and social services, so Toronto is unlikely to not be able to fund the waterfront project.  Siamak Hariri, a German born architect that studied at Yale said, “People have developed an appetite for apartment living. I think the city is anticipating a dramatic shift toward a more sophisticated, European environment.”

Lower Don Lands
Lower Don Lands
(Awesomeness to the Extreme!)

*All images and information are from archrecord.construction.com.
References:
>> http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2011/11/Toronto-on-the-Rise.asp
>> Slideshow here. (Also from archrecord.construction.com)

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