IBI Group's gridded Axis Condos add honeycombed patterning to Toronto's skyline

IBI Group has completed work on the 38-story Axis Condos development in downtown Toronto. Design for the 541-unit tower was lead by IBI Group Global Director of Buildings Mansoor Kazerouni. According to the architects, the graphically patterned glass tower offers a six-story podium filled with retail and residential spaces, including "small format" storefronts along the ground floor and a setback facade that allows for the sidewalk surrounding the building to stretch to nearly 20-feet in width. At the corner of the project site, the building pulls back further to create spaces for al fresco dining. The podium level is matched with that of a neighboring tower complex in order to "ensure a consistency in the scale of the street wall," the architects write.  Offering angled balconies separated by thick white-walled partitions, the tower rises to its full height patterned in a honeycomb design along its northern and southern facades. The tower's more spartan east and west exposures rise...