Late last month it was announced that the 30 St. Mary Axe tower in London–also affectionately known as the Gherkin–had gone into receivership. The reason was a mismatch of assets and liabilities, specifically currency losses:

A fund managed by IVG Immobilien AG, once Germany’s biggest real estate company, and London-based Evans Randall Ltd. bought the Foster + Partners-designed tower from reinsurer Swiss Re Ltd. for 600 million pounds ($1 billion) in 2007. Part of the IVG fund’s loan was in Swiss francs, which have gained about 63 percent against the pound over the last seven years, increasing the amount owed to the point that it breached rules on how much debt could be held against the property.

But what I found interesting while reading Bloomberg and Monocle, and learning about the loan default, is that there seems to be a lot of people in London that really don’t like this tower. Shaped like a giant pickle, it’s been the brunt of many lewd jokes, I’m sure.

However, within the architectural community, the Gherkin tower is generally revered as a pretty awesome piece of architecture. It’s a highly sustainable building that employs a number of natural ventilation and passive heating and cool techniques. It’s estimated to consume half the energy of a “typical” office building.

At the same time, the mixed feelings surrounding the Gherkin tower reminded me of all the controversy surrounding the Royal Ontario Museum’s Crystal addition here in Toronto. In fact, I just read somewhere that somebody rated it one of the top 10 ugliest buildings in the world.

And certainly, I hear lots of people criticize the building here in the city. Often, they mention how much wasted space the angular walls generate, which makes me wonder why we have so many people living in the suburbs when there are so many space conservationists among us.

Personally, I love the Crystal. And I also love the Gherkin. They’re big and bold and they piss a lot of people off. Good, I say.

If you are under 30, you love Toronto and you care about public spaces in this city, I would encourage you to check out the NXT City Prize. It’s a public space competition being organized by a number of local organizations including Distl. (and my friend Mackenzie Keast), Loop, Gen Y, and the City of Toronto.

Toronto needs great ideas for its public spaces. Ideas that are big, bold and unconventional. Ideas from champions, outsiders and geniuses. Ideas that recognize Toronto’s greatness–and its potential for the future.

The competition opens today and anybody (under 30) can enter. The winner will receive $5,000 in cash, and then $10,000 to work on actually implementing the idea(s). What’s cool and unique about this competition is that it’s not just an ideas competition. It’s a competition based on doing and executing.

Click here to download the competition brief.

Last Sunday the Toronto Star ran this article talking about a $30 million class-action lawsuit against developer Elad Canada. The claim is that the developer failed to deliver on the promise of direct underground subway access from its project—Emerald City Condominiums—to the Don Mills subway station.

The developer, however, doesn’t feel that they made such a representation:

The lawyer for condo developer Elad disputes the claim saying, “there was never any representation that there would be underground access” from the condo building to the subway or directly to Fairview Mall: Both are easy to reach by walking out the lobby doors and six metres to the subway entrance right out front.

But when you check the project’s website, it says the following:

Emerald City is also a commuter’s dream come true. With easy underground access to the Don Mills subway, you can be in downtown Toronto in just minutes.

Now, I suppose you could argue that, since it’s the subway, that all access is underground. And that it’s certainly “easy”. But when I read the above statements, I can understand why somebody might think there’s underground access to the subway station from within the building. That’s what I would think. It’s misleading.

But I want to hear from all of you (especially if you’re a lawyer).

Do you think the developer unfairly led purchasers into believing that they would have direct and underground access to the subway station from their building?