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| View of west facade looking south. Photo by Andrew Chiu |
At first glance, the Corus building is all about the glass. After taking a closer look, it is still all about the glass, and it will always be that way because that’s what it is: ageless, hard-edged, shiny and as long as we keep it clean, always perfect.
FACTS:
Official building name is Corus Quay, located just south of Queens Quay and east of Lower Jarvis across from Redpath Sugar. It is a 500, 000 square foot, eight-storey building. It is the headquarters of Corus Entertainment Inc. Designed by Diamond and Schmitt Architects, tenant interior space designed by Quadrangle Architects Limited.
Corus Quay reminds us of a perfect and complete design for a corporate headquarter. It is a finished product straight off of an assembly line. The process is to eliminate unevenness in an effort to improve the flow of work. It is working from the perspective of the client who consumes a product. ‘Value’ is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. It is the Lean principles that come from the Japanese car manufacturing industry. It’s manufactured purity meant to fit into any context in various ways. If I secretly air-lifted the entire building and turned it around, nobody would notice it other than the Corus employees coming to work the next morning.
Corus Quay reminds us of a perfect and complete design for a corporate headquarter. It is a finished product straight off of an assembly line. The process is to eliminate unevenness in an effort to improve the flow of work. It is working from the perspective of the client who consumes a product. ‘Value’ is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. It is the Lean principles that come from the Japanese car manufacturing industry. It’s manufactured purity meant to fit into any context in various ways. If I secretly air-lifted the entire building and turned it around, nobody would notice it other than the Corus employees coming to work the next morning.
There is a saying: “practice makes perfect”. If you do the same thing over and over, you will do it very well, and in some cases, not much else. Perfection is a process; Toronto is a city struggling to be perfect. Our waterfront is not complete, our bike lanes are not all connected and our public transit system is too small for a growing mega-city. As we are struggling to make sense of our city, we need to challenge ourselves to confront something less defined and familiar. Our waterfront will continue to evolve in the coming years. Torontonians want to see spaces and buildings that are exciting, innovative, and colorful, instead of their own reflection on the glass as they are walking by.
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