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The M-City Development is located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is an in-progress development project that will transform a 15-acre plot of land located near Mississauga’s downtown core with the aim of “addressing the challenges of urbanizing the periphery of Mississauga”. Furthermore, this development represents the realization of the City of Mississauga’s Downtown 21 plan approved as of 2010. Specifically, Phase 1 + 2 (also referred to as M1+M2) Towers will be analyzed as the first set of towers to undergo the construction process. These towers will show how Core Architects are approaching the site.{ "type": "FeatureCollection", "features": [ {     "type": "Feature", "properties": {}, "geometry": { "type": "Point", "coordinates": [ -79.6451497077942,         43.58452544578913        ]      }    }  ] }

Context
Within the next 25 years, “Mississauga is expected to have a population boom of around 200,000 people,” which puts into question how the city in itself will prepare for such a population increase. Graham Haines, a research manager at the Ryerson City Building Institute, stated that. "It's a municipality that's starting to figure out how to build up instead of build-out."

Downtown Mississauga has changed drastically both in population as well as growth of the urban fabric, over the past ten years, the city of Mississauga Urban Planning department has had to tackle the challenge of urbanization on a large scale. Over time the city has seen developments accommodate such urban growth ranging from large-scale living spaces, restaurants, and commercial use. The City of Mississauga has set out to tackle the problem of urbanization through an extensive urban planning process and an outline that focuses on a variety of different elements when designing and developing an urban form in a desirable yet sustainable way. From a birds-eye view, the City of Mississauga describes: “ urban design is the art of shaping the interaction between people and places through arrangement, appearance, and functions, of cities.” With the growing population, residential and commercial, one ongoing development that aims to tackle these issues uniquely and innovatively is M- City by Rogers Real estate Investments Ltd+ Urban Capital Property Group.

Downtown 21 Master plan
Downtown 21 plan represents a direction toward which the city developed as a guideline for how it will start to grow and enhance the urban community. Initially created in 2010, the guidelines were aimed at a range of different aspects of the urban fabric, including looking at the city’s current state, the physical traits, transportation, and economic development in the region. Some of the main principles outlined within the plan include: “1) Catalyze Employment, 2) Build multimodal, 3) Create an urban space, 4) Living green, 5) Establish a focus, and 6) Create a development framework with predictability”. At a broad scale, these are the fundamentals that influence urban decisions moving forward, strengthening and developing Mississauga’s downtown core. As stated by the mayor of Mississauga, “The idea is to intensify the residential and commercial development of Mississauga’s downtown and animate it with more vibrant public spaces, walkable streets and easy access to public transit, including the coming Hurontario LRT ( Light Rail Transit)”. With the development of the Downtown 21 framework, a series of policy changes needed to be updated to reflect the values and plans that are outlined in the new proposal. These include “enlarging the City Center district boundary, Anticipating the role and impact of higher-order transit, Reflecting a block structure that can achieve a vibrant pedestrian-oriented downtown, Articulating the design of streets, Utilizing new powers to influence urban design, Establishing greater development predictability, Promoting a more balanced mix of use, Establishing parks and open space vision and Ensuring sustainability.”

Alongside the Downtown 21 Master plan’s fundamental principles and policies, a series of urban design Guidelines have been integrated alongside the master plan to create a form design approach to coexist with the Master plan. Some of the principles guidelines include “Block Structure, Street Network, Transit, Trails & Cycling, Retail/ Street Activation, Residential/ Street Activation, View sheds & Key Sites, Civic districts as well as Parks, and Open space frontage.”

One development that has integrated all of the core values of the Downtown 21 Plan includes the different parties involved with M-City Development. Specifically phase 1 tower designed by Core architects.

About the Site:
At the start of 2007, Urban Capital and Rogers, Real Estate Development Limited began the long and extraneous process of transforming the 15-acre vacant green lot located blocks away from Mississauga’s Square One. Located along Burnhamthorpe Rd E and Confederation, this prime lot can play a significant role alongside the Mississauga urban development plan. The process of developing the area from how it used to be vacant to where it is today had spanned a decade from 2007 to early 2017 when M-City development officially announced the start of the first building, Phase 1, in collaboration with Core Architects. The Vice president treasurer of Rogers "Telecommunication John Anderton stated that “The inspiration for the project was Mississauga's Downtown 21 Plan” . Urbanization in a growing city poses many challenges, which M-City aims to tackle through master planning, architecture, interior design, and how these aspects start to integrate with the cities plans for developing the urban environment.

Urban Planning:
Two blocks of land in the heart of the downtown core stood vacant until May 29, 2018, when the large development officially broke ground with phase one. The ongoing development of M-City is on a scale that is much greater than just a singular building, it proposes a network of towers that work together in cohesion, creating a community within itself. The goal of the development is “to create a dynamic public realm designed to add a new vibe to Mississauga’s thriving culture, while providing its residents with the things it needs to grow. With its future set on connectivity, character, and sustainability”. In collaboration with a series of different partners, including Core Architects for phase one + two, the series of towers will be the first and second building to be constructed in the M-City Development. Construction started during the summer of 2018. The M-City Development is described as being a model for addressing the ongoing challenges large urban cities are facing in regards to urbanization. The complications of urbanization outlined within the Downtown 21 Urbanization Plan are directly correlated to some of the design intentions made by the urban planning team at M-city. The master planning of the development has been a collaboration of New York’s Cooper Robertson & Partners. Phase one will be located at the major intersection of Burnhamthorpe and Confederation. it will stand 60 storeys high on top of a six-storey “podium” that will be a mixed-use arrangement serving a range of public amenities and commercial space. Considering building multimodal, the development specifically aims to accommodate people from all forms of transportation as M-City states “the new community is designed for the pedestrian.” This includes designing the spaces to be more “pedestrian-friendly,” which takes the form of curated entrances, retail units in the lower portion of the building, outdoor landscaping, as well angular streets that break up the flow of traffic from Burnhamthorpe, creating a more pedestrian centric experience due to the amount of traffic that comes from the six line roadway. Among the pedestrian-centric frame of mind, green and open space is one of the topics within the Downtown 21 plan as well as the M-City Development. In conjunction with existing trails and parks, M-City has integrated M-Park, which is a two acres of open green space, that has “dedicated connections to the (existing) Mary Fix multi-use trail and John “Bud” Cleary Park.”

Design:
Phase one (M1) is the first of nine buildings to be built in the M-City Development. Phase one & two was designed by Toronto-based architecture firm Core Architects. Located at the corner of the major intersection of Burnhamthorpe and Confederation Phase one is “the most visible tower” soaring 60 storeys tall on top of “an extended five-storey horizontal base or “podium” of public facilities, retail and recreational uses.” Originating from a design competition, Core Architects took on the challenge of the client’s design vision for this urban environment as such, Babak Eshlajou - Principal architect at Core Architects, stated that "The clients wanted something both iconic and economically feasible, with the Marilyn Monroe buildings [Absolute World] just to the east cited as a precedent." The M-City Development would serve as the west entrance into the downtown core marked by M1 & M2 towers with their unique sculptural forms, aiding in redefining the city skyline.

M1 Tower:
Looking specifically at the residences, one aspect of the design that the architects did not want to negatively obstruct are the living conditions within the residence as a result of the design. As said by principal architect at Core Architects Eslahjou, “we’re trying to have a distinct design element, but it is still a residential building to serve all the purposes and needs of inhabitants. It’s still about how your living and how it lives in the city”. The towers boast a unique form that stems from a geometry created from a series of floor plates that start to move. In total, there are seven different floor plates that combine to make the Phase one tower that “The corners of each plate floor plate shifts over one meter from the plate below”. A notable aspect of the design is the balcony as it contributes both to creating the exterior form along with creating an “extension of the living space” for the residences. The building is constructed with advanced reinforced concrete technology as well as “translucent white laminated glass wrap that wraps is notably seen around the balconies”.

An aspect of the design that plays a vital role in the design of Phase one, as mentioned previously, is the “podium” that the 60 storey tower sits on. Mark Reeve, who is a partner of Urban Capital project stated that “M-City’s tower will be instantly recognizable, but equal attention and care were given to the podium, which anchors the project.” The podium serves as a space to house a series of public amenities and retail space that primarily focuses on the public interaction with the development and how it connects back to the busy streetscape of Burnhamthorpe. The public realm is a primary focus within the entire development through the public amenities that are offered in creating an urban place. “Not only does the podium enable the lifestyle component of the building, but it defines how this and future phases interact with the streetscape and the fine grain network of blocks that characterize the master plan,” said Mark Reeve from Urban Captial. The specific podium within Phase one will flow around the road level that will be designed and landscaped with the pedestrian in mind creating a “lively and interesting pedestrian environment”. M1 Tower will serve as the cornerstone to the development at a pedestrian level that opens up into the surrounding towers to be built.

M2 Tower:
Similarly to M1 Tower, M2 will have the same podium and unique exterior form. This tower is a 56-storey tower on top of a six storey podium. The vision for this specific tower was to create a smaller identical twin while rotated 90 degrees allowing for both sets of towers will be visible at the same time at any angle. Core Architects described this design approach as “an approach that is deliberately different from ‘similar but different’ twinning strategy exhibited by the Absolute towers at the eastern gateway to Mississauga’s downtown.”. As previously mentioned M-city is creating a western gateway into the downtown much like how the absolute tower does so on the Eastern side.

Relation To The Urban Context:
Talks have been raised with questions regarding some of the City of Mississauga’s parking spot policy which has been said to be “ Stuck in the past”. In the world of urban developments and developers looking to design for the future, parking can have a large influence and become a limiting factor quite quickly with a 1:1 ratio of parking spots per studio unit in the city of Mississauga. Developments such as M-City require a large undertaking in underground parking to accommodate the capacity of residences it plans on offering. This brings up the question as the city plans to move away from individual vehicle transportation to a more public transit oriented model, is the ratio still relevant and brings the question of what the space will be used for in existing or in process developments. “Clients I am representing now are all looking for (parking) reductions,” says Ed Sajecki, Partner and Co-founder of Sajecki Planning and the former commissioner of planning and building for Mississauga. In M1 tower it is going to boast 5 storeys of underground parking spaces.

Construction Timeline
Summer 2018 - M1 + M2


 * Site prep has commenced on both M1 + M2 simultaneously

Fall 2018 -M1 + M2


 * Excavation is well underway

Winter 2019 -M1 + M2


 * The shotcrete shoring system is complete
 * Excavation continues through shale

Spring 2019 -M1 + M2


 * Detailed excavation footings continue
 * Tower cranes are installed
 * The underground drainage system at p5 / 4 levels are being installed

Fall 2019 -M1 + M2


 * Construction of the parkade continues to advance back to grade

Winter 2020 -M1 + M2


 * The parkade structure is complete
 * Concrete forming continues above grade with approx 30% of 2nd-floor slab complete
 * Masonry work in the parkade has commenced

Spring 2020 M1 + M2


 * The structure continues to progress and slabs and columns are now built to the 4th floor these are the most complicated slabs on the project
 * To continue with vertical works, it’s important to move personnel and materials up the building, s such the hoist is planned to be installed in the summer months

Summer 2020 -M1 + M2


 * With walls and columns progressing to l7, we are nearly on the typical floor, where we will begin to see increased productivity as the tower floor plate size is considerably smaller than the podium levels
 * Major pieces of mechanical equipment have arrived to site and are being set in place