Buildings
Curvy Tower to Help Remake Town Near Toronto
(archrecord.construction.com - 04/12/2006)
By Albert
Warson
A twisting and undulating tower designed
by Beijing-based MAD Architectural Design Studio has won a
competition for a 50-story condominium in Mississauga, Ontario,
a fairly nondescript town on Toronto’s western flank,
whose population is about 700,000. A nine-member panel of
architects, urban planners and urban design experts, as well
as 6,000 ballot-casting residents, chose the winning design.
The still-unnamed $114 million concrete-and-glass
condo promises to be one of Canada’s most adventurous-looking
buildings. This is ironic for a city whose main architectural
credits are its aging civic and performing arts centers, central
library and the Pearson International Airport. Mississauga
was a low-rise bedroom community for Toronto, but recently
began sprouting office towers, businesses, industrial parks
and high-rise condos.
Toronto-based developers Fernbrook Homes
and Cityzen Development Group say construction will be under
way within six months. They have hired Burka Varacalli Architects,
a Toronto firm, as MAD’s local partner. The Canadian
firm has already has three condos under construction in Mississauga’s
city center.
The developers say that when the high-rise
is completed in 2010 the it will be the flagship for their
five-tower “Absolute Community.” It is the first
project for MAD in Canada, which has has an office in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, and is also busy in China and Dubai. MAD
principal Yansong Ma, a Yale School of Architecture graduate,
told the Toronto-based Globe and Mail: "My work has always
tried to develop something more organic, more close to nature.
We are doing museums, all kinds of projects, but high-rises
have close relations with technology and culture. High-rises
are landmarks of culture."
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