Two thousand and eleven was the year the rectilinear glass tower started to turn into
Duplo towers, which bodes well for our skylinear future.
After years of straight-up glass and steel, the form had pretty much reached its apogee with
Spire and
Casa and maybe the new
Four Seasons (too early to tell—but all are Peter Clewes designs). There was no place left to go. At least, no place that was very interesting.
So architects and developers made the leap into the modular future together, coming up with
155 Cumberland (Quadrangle, Kingsett),
Exhibit (Roy Varacalli and Bazis),
Picasso (Stephen Teeple and Goldman and Monarch). Other shapes have started to emerge as well, with
Teeple leading the pack (Op Art and The Hive), and Core coming up with
12 degrees. There's no Gherkin yet, but we're getting there.
This was also the year that green went mainstream. This is not to say that we're home free and have no more work to do, but now that practically every
Tridel and
Minto building is green, and often
LEED-certified, it's no longer news, and is getting that much closer to be the norm rather than the exception.
When followed up by projects like
RCMI on University, with its zero-parking, it bodes well for the atmosphere, architectural, political and actual.