It was great to hear that Reading Toronto contributors and friends PLANT Architect made the short list for the Nathan Phillip Square redesign competition. PLANT's principals, Chris Pommer, Lisa Rapoport and Mary Tremain are graduates of the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. They have a long history of creating design work that stretches the boundaries of expectation so their proposal for NPS will no doubt surprise and delight.



Here are the four finalists as noted at Archiseek.com:

Four design teams have been selected as finalists to compete in Stage II of the international competition to revitalize Nathan Phillips Square. The four teams short-listed by the competition jury to proceed to Stage II of the competition are:

• Baird Sampson Neuert Architects, Toronto, with VLAN Paysages (landscape architect, Montreal); Halcrow Yolles (structural engineer, Toronto); Cobalt Engineering (mechanical engineer, Toronto); and Mulvey & Banani International Inc. (electrical engineer, Toronto)
  
  
• Plant Architect Inc., Toronto, with Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners (architect, Toronto); Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architecture, Inc. (landscape architect, Chicago); Adrian Blackwell (design collaborator, Toronto); Blackwell Bowick Partnership Limited (structural engineer, Toronto); and Crossey Engineering Ltd. (mechanical and electrical engineers, Toronto)
  
  
• Rogers Marvel Architects, New York, with Ken Smith Landscape Architect (landscape architect, New York) and Buro Happold (structural, mechanical and electrical engineers, New York)
  
  
• Zeidler Partnership Architects, Toronto, with Group Signes (landscape architect, Paris, France); Halcrow Yolles (structural engineer, Toronto); and Hidi Rae (mechanical and electrical engineers, Toronto)
  

Forty-eight teams from around the world, with members from Canada, Chile, China, England, Finland, France, Germany, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United States, submitted design proposals in the first stage of the competition.