Pharrell Is Designing a New Condo Complex in Toronto

Pharrell Williams — Grammy Award winner, progressive fashion icon, and all-around provider to the culture — can now add another title to his resume: uh, Toronto condo tycoon?

Yup, Pharrell is for real. The artist has decided to link and build with two local firms — Reserve Properties and Westdale Properties — to help design a dual-tower condo project in the 6ix’s Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood (which the press release refers to as “the epi-centre of Toronto” LOL). The 750-unit development, dubbed “untitled,” starts sales early next year.

The announcement was made today at Yonge-Dundas Square via an oddly dystopian video on a digital billboard.

“To live your life ‘untitled’ means not having to live up to something or perform beyond a standard,” says Pharrell in the video. “For the standard to literally just be this beautiful matrix that allows people to create their own world.”

Pharrell is said to be working with architects IBI Group and interior designers U31 on the project’s exterior, interiors, and furnishings. It marks his first foray into residential development. There’s scant info about the “untitled” design so far, aside from a teaser photo displaying a metallic facade with a snaky profile.

Photo: Norm Li

“The opportunity to apply my ideas and viewpoint to the new medium of physical structures has been amazing,” Pharrell said in a statement. “Everyone at the table had a collective willingness to be open, to be pushed, to be prodded and poked, to get to that uncomfortable place of question mark, and to find out what was on the other side. The result is ‘untitled’ and I’m very grateful and appreciative to have been a part of the process.”

Of course, given that the condo is being erected in a crowded area of Toronto, at a time when there’s a lack of affordable housing in the city, not everyone seems to be very, ahem, happy about this.

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Architecture,Condos,Pharrell