17th and 4th | 164m | 46s | Vesta | Zeidler

[haltcatchfire]

Maybe I'm out to lunch but to me there's nothing in those renderings that indicate the towers aren't perfectly decent.

 

[outoftheice]

17th and 4th is the crossroads of two of our most important mainstreets in Calgary so put me down as an enthusiast for this project simply because it clusters 3 tall towers together in an otherwise low/midrise area which means that it is likely to attract causal explorers of Calgary to the area.

I always think of my wife's first time in Calgary. She was visiting from Vancouver and attending the Stampede. She had heard 17th Ave was a cool place to check out so her and her friends left the Stampede grounds and started wandering 17th Ave. They gave up at 1st St SW and wandered down there instead because it looked far more interesting than anything that was further west on 17th Ave. If these towers had existed back then, guaranteed they would have kept going until at least 17th and 4th and then would have been right in the heart of the action and had been left with an entirely different impression of our city.

So I'm looking forward to these towers simply because they will attach a sense of significance to an already significant intersection and the podiums and urban realm appear to have been designed with that in mind as well so 2 big thumbs up for me.

 

[konradiical]

I mean this design if what they are showing comes true, it a step forward into pushing for better and more grand designs in Calgary. Everything we have had so far are just safe designs podiums or towers (some a great and some are bad) but this seems try to be different and seem something a major global city would do then a city like Calgary. Are the towers as of now super amazing, no, but they are still pretty nice. Im sure there will be changes anyways. Its more ambitious and raises the ceiling on what we can try to do here. It is sorta like the Telus Sky for me in the sense that it just is trying to be something less generic. Maybe ill be a hit or maybe it wont, but they are trying

 

[CallmeCatbread]

Shitting on it? You're a little too attached to this. My last post had nothing to do with architecture although it should be clear I wouldn't rate the group of towers 7 or 8s. Fine if you do. I consider the group a 5. What gets built above the podium certainly impacts the ambience of the place. This isn't San Diego, California. The Plus 15 climate controlled environment is a massive success for a reason. I'm speculating here based on what I've seen built elsewhere. Simple fan support doesn't interest me. I rather have more indepth discussion on proposals because, IMHO, it's critical to get every nuance 100% right with tall residential towers. There's such a rush in Canada to build large scale housing. The nuances that make high rise living great and the environments in high rise neighbourhoods have fallen by the wayside. Vancouver was at the top of the world. The city still hasn't completely given in. However, its suburbs look more and more like Toronto which has completely given in to developer's whims. The Ontario government even encourages developers to go more extreme.

The width of these towers indicate narrow shoe boxes for the non corner units. I, personally, find those units terrible places to live. The spacing is tight for the heights of the towers which tells me many units will have views into other units. I also find that less than ideal when you are a 20 or more storey elevator ride to the street. The whole point of living up high, paying a premium to live up high, is to have some sort of view.

This development reminds me a lot of this one. It would be a great office complex. It is oppressive as residential

88 Queen | 167.35m | 52s | St Thomas Dev | Hariri Pontarini

Visually more interesting than 80% of what we usually get. They even managed to make toothpaste green (which I detest) look good.

urbantoronto.ca

Like Golfing Guy said. You're judging livability based on like 3 low res renderings. How about we at least wait to see floor plans before we start claiming that the whole thing is gonna be worthless shoebox apartments?