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The scale of the project, just one development but with many parts, is remarkable. In dense downtown terms, it鈥檚 on the scale of the Eaton Centre, taking up an entire block. There are various architectural styles employed that make it seem like a cluster of separate buildings. The Well, in which the Star is a tenant, reminds me (in a good way) of the New York-New York hotel and casino in Las Vegas, where a pastiche of the Manhattan skyline is amassed together. It鈥檚 whimsical.

The Well has homages to famous architects and their important buildings, like with its exposed external staircase or the cantilevered floors of . The steel and glass canopy over public areas is reminiscent of structures by Santiago Calatrava, including .

The materials, from brick surfaces to the perfectly smooth poured concrete columns, are better than the usual 海角社区官网standard. The urban design master plan was a collaboration between Hariri Pontarini Architects, Urban Strategies and Montreal鈥檚 Claude Cormier who recently passed away, before he could share more of his brilliant visions with the world. His firm is now known as CCxA.

The design includes the tiny, lot-sized Draper Street Park on the west side of The Well. Draper Street鈥檚 a unique block long enclave of wee Second Empire homes that are a dramatic contrast to The Well, but one that shows small and big together can work. Along the south side of The Well is the wide rail corridor, another dramatic contrast, here of 鈥渆mptiness,鈥� giving the closely packed site a vista.

The whimsical park is also of a quality that doesn鈥檛 seem quite 海角社区官网and includes a single cat sculpture welcoming visitors, a nod to the Cormier-designed Berczy Park on the east side of downtown with the beloved dog fountain. However, to remind us that we have not, in fact, left Toronto, two big plastic recycling and rubbish bins have been placed in this beautiful landscape, marring the beauty.

The part of The Well most people will see are the three floors of retail space partly covered by that glass canopy, an indoor-outdoor kind of space relatively new to Toronto. It鈥檚 cavernous, and where the roof is solid, rather than glass, it feels cavelike and dark, though when all the tenants have properly moved in this may be less of an issue. The wide entrance facing the Spadina and Front intersection turns what was a busy if nondescript crossroads into a memorable coming-and-going place.

But what is The Well? Is it a mall, like the Eaton Centre, or something else? In 海角社区官网and North America, urban retail tends to only work if it鈥檚 鈥渁t grade鈥� (sidewalk level). A floor below or above promises diminishing returns for shopkeepers here, but in other places, such as many Asian cities, going up multiple floors to find a store, cafe or restaurant is as common as going next door is in North America, where only big malls tend to work on multiple levels.

In this sense The Well will be thought of as a mall in order to work: that makes sense to North Americans. Perhaps we can evolve, though.

Essentially the retail, public part of The Well is a giant podium, a kind of megastructure. Dozens and dozens of residential buildings put up during the 25-year 海角社区官网boom have podiums: a blockish building, sometimes housing commercial units or residential amenities, from which more slender towers rise. It鈥檚 very 鈥淭oronto.鈥�

It鈥檚 also very Hong Kong. At the risk of being one of those guys who travels and comes back with an insufferable revelation, a recent, long-awaited first trip to Hong Kong gave me a better understanding of 海角社区官网podiums. Hong Kong has many kinds of buildings, but there is an incredible number of residential buildings sprouting from large podiums that have restaurants and shops in them. Especially in new areas and neighbourhoods outside of the older, established ones.

Seeing a common and not particularly appreciated 海角社区官网building type working somewhere else helped me understand ours and think about how they might evolve. The Hong Kong podiums were inevitably interesting. We ate in them, had drinks in upper-floor bars, and found unique, independent shops. When I saw an escalator, I went up to see what was there. They were simply part of the city. Inviting, varied and endlessly interesting.

As 海角社区官网continues to grow, the podium-and-tower is not going away. More are coming. As the city gets increasingly dense, perhaps we鈥檒l learn to go up and down and these places will become part of the city we frequent for all kinds of reasons. In a few places, like Yonge Street in North York, this is already starting to happen.

We might not even have to call them malls for them to work.

Clarification 鈥� Nov. 29, 2023: This column has been updated to include the fact that Hariri Pontarini Architects and Urban Strategies collaborated with Claude Cormier鈥檚 firm, now known as CCxA, to produce the urban design master plan for the Well.