Broadway on 17th puts a public square at the centre of a three-tower residential development in Calgary. Zeidler Architecture designed the mixed-use project for Vesta Properties along 17th Avenue SW.
Broadway Plaza and pedestrian routes through the site are intended to connect the surrounding streets. A brick podium brings the scale down to the pavement, with shops and everyday services below the homes. Terraces create additional shared outdoor space above street level.
The towers vary in height and placement to respond to sunlight, privacy and views. The project is listed as ongoing by the architect; the images show architectural visualisations rather than completed buildings. A verified completion date, current prices and property availability have not been established.
Sanctuary Residences brings a tall residential building into a wider plan for the streets and gardens of South Brisbane. Designed by Bates Smart for Aria Property Group, the 43-level tower will contain 231 apartments and is the first of three towers planned for the Sanctuary precinct on Melbourne Street.
The most interesting relationship is between two very different outdoor worlds: a public park at the base and a residents’ Rooftop Club above. In the architectural visualisations, the park is a layered scene of grasses, trees, brick walls and places to sit. The roof opens towards the skyline, with planting and a curved pool held inside the tower’s structural frame. One space belongs to the neighbourhood; the other forms part of the private residential programme.
At street level, Richards + Spence’s public-realm design works with brick and concrete rather than treating the tower as an isolated object. The visualisations show shaded passages, stepped edges and terraces that break the base into smaller spaces. Two heritage buildings, the former Bond’s Sweet Factory and Malouf’s fruit shop, are incorporated into the precinct. Their lower profiles introduce a different scale beside the new construction.
The tower itself has a strongly legible outer frame. Uprights and horizontal edges divide the elevation into deep bays, while balconies sit behind the facade rather than appearing as a thin attached strip. Planting gathers around terraces and the crown. Bates Smart describes operable glazing and naturally ventilated corridors as part of the design’s response to Brisbane’s subtropical climate.
The upper-level images are especially revealing. Instead of ending in a decorative cap, the building opens into rooms and terraces with the city as their backdrop. A spiral stair links different outdoor levels. The pool introduces a curved line inside the straight structural grid, while seating, dining areas and planted edges suggest several ways to occupy the roof rather than a single viewing platform.
Inside, the renderings move towards a quieter palette. Pale stone, warm joinery and rounded furniture appear in the living spaces, with full-height glazing framing long views. The communal interiors use a similar language at a larger scale: lounges, dining rooms and wellness spaces are arranged as places to spend time, rather than simply as circulation beside a lift lobby.
The wider precinct includes five new laneways and twelve retail and dining tenancies, with landscape design by Subtropic Design. These ground-level connections are central to its architectural promise: the building is intended to contribute a sequence of public spaces as well as homes above them.
Sanctuary Residences is under construction, with completion expected in mid to late 2029. All images shown here are architectural visualisations, not photographs of the completed building; the design and programme remain subject to change.
The missing corners of The Modernist’s towers have a purpose: they help sunlight reach the public space below. MVRDV shaped the two residential towers in response to Rotterdam’s high-rise daylight rules, creating distinctive “sun cuts” above a mixed-use base. Opposite Central Station, Maarsen Groep’s development combines 421 apartments with offices and a public passage to the Weenapoint courtyard. The approximately 70- and 125-metre towers are under construction, with completion targeted for the end of 2028.
A golden bridge brings a shared skyline to The Sax. MVRDV’s two residential towers on Rotterdam’s Wilhelminapier are designed around an elevated connecting volume and a communal roof terrace approximately 100 metres above the city. The 180-metre Havana and 82-metre Philadelphia towers combine homes with places for residents to meet. Undulating balconies give the taller tower its saxophone-like rhythm. Developed by BPD and Synchroon, the project contains just over 900 apartments; their published totals differ slightly.
Wasl Tower gives Dubai’s skyline a different texture. Designed by UNS, formerly UNStudio, in collaboration with Werner Sobek, the 302-metre mixed-use tower stands beside Sheikh Zayed Road. Completed in 2025, it combines the Mandarin Oriental Downtown Dubai hotel with residences, offices and shared amenities.
Its identity begins with a shift in posture. The tower does not read as a straight extrusion of one floor plate: its edges turn as they rise, bringing different faces into view. In the distant photographs, a narrow bright line runs along one side while a broader, darker surface recedes behind it. The resulting silhouette feels different from a uniformly glazed shaft. The apparent movement belongs to the whole building, rather than to a single gesture at its crown.
Up close, the facade becomes a field of individual ceramic elements. The photographs show repeated fins with warm metallic surfaces, angled edges and deep shadows. At one scale they form a fine-grained pattern; at another they merge into the tower’s larger folds. This relationship between component and overall form is the strongest visual thread in the project. A detail that can be studied in isolation also helps explain the distant skyline image.
UNS describes the ceramic fins as part of a shading system developed around solar orientation. The architectural interest is easy to see in the close views: the exterior has depth, with the glazing set behind an articulated outer layer. Bright highlights and dark recesses appear beside one another within the same elevation. The facade can therefore register a change in light without changing its material palette. Published environmental strategies describe design intentions; the photographs themselves cannot establish measured energy performance.
The base introduces another reading of the building. In the podium views, the upright rhythm of the tower meets broad horizontal bands, glazed edges and an elevated connection. The composition moves between the scale of a high-rise and that of a person arriving at its entrance. Around the outdoor pool, planting, pale surfaces and curved seating soften the transition from the patterned exterior to places intended for a longer stay.
Inside the hotel, the images show tall glazed lounges, suspended sculptural elements and reflective finishes. These scenes offer a useful counterpoint to the repeated ceramic units outside: instead of a dense surface seen from afar, the interior photographs foreground volume, furniture and the city beyond the windows. GA Design is credited with the hotel interiors.
Wasl Tower is compelling because its most recognisable feature survives a change of scale. The turning silhouette catches attention on the skyline; the facade detail gives that first impression something to return to. Seen together, the wide views, close-ups and interior photographs tell a fuller story than a single iconic image.