Wedged between the Don River, and the over-pass that is the east end of King Street, the location of Urban Capital's River City condominiums wouldn't seem ideal for the first residential development in the new mixed-use West Don Lands. Or at least it wouldn't seem like the location that this new neighbourhood would want to showcase, given the chopped-up nature of the site.

Yet, it would seem that no better scheme could have been sewn together for the location in question. Saucier + Perrotte Architects of Montreal have created something special here, which unites the new West Don Lands neighbourhood with the existing Corktown neighbourhood centred along King and Queen Street East. And given the sophisticated materiality and attention to detail displayed in previous designs by the firm – one good example by the firm being the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo – the materials are what just might make this difficult site an unexpected paradise for residents.

Recent photo updates have shown us little of the final materials that S+P have chosen for the development, but a visit to the project's website shows a use of smooth, frameless glass surfaces as well as textured black precast. What we see in recent photo updates from the construction site, however, are a multitude of different forms that work to pull the different pieces of the site together, through architectural nods to one another (slanting and sloping roofs and surfaces) as well as direct connections in the form of sky-walks. To date, the two buildings of the first phase are under construction; these are the two buildings closest to King Street East.

Saucier+Perrotte claim that much of the development is inspired by the area's industrial past – see the dark, industrial textures of the first phase – while the second phase's three “glass mini-towers”, as they are referred to by marketing, form a midrise inspired by the distant Toronto skyline. S+P are experts at creating context where there is only so much context to begin with; their use of modern, slick surfaces clad in a mixture of contemporary materials – glass and metal cladding – and natural materials – textured concrete and wood – always serve as a balance of old and new. At the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, for example, the abstract, modern design has long been incorrectly interpreted by locals as a methaphor for a computer chip; however, wood and concrete upstage the other materials when one takes a closer look, with most every office wall on its interior serving as a blackboard for the resident physicists to write on. S+P know that materials provide emotion and historical context, regardless of how they are woven together.

More information about River City can found in UrbanToronto's dataBase listing, linked below, including many renderings of the final product, while more updates on River City are coming to UrbanToronto soon. Stay tuned!