Aura

Aura is a very tall apartment tower in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has 80 floors and was finished in 2014 after building began in 2010. It is the tallest residential building in Canada, and one of the tallest in the world. It is the last part of the Residences of College Park, a group of condominium buildings near Yonge Street.

The tower is about 272 metres high. The card on the globe describes blue-green glass wrapped in white balcony bands, which get narrower in three stages up to a pointed crown. Under the tower is a three-storey base with shops, and in 2022 an urban-format IKEA opened there.

How tall is it, and how did it grow?

The first design was two towers, and the taller one would have had 60 storeys. In 2012 Toronto city council approved three more floors, to 78, and the tower ended up as Canada's tallest residential building. People started moving into the lower floors in fall 2013 while upper floors were still bare concrete. The building has about 100,000 square metres of living space.

Lights, birds and an IKEA

The lights on the top floors can be seen across much of the city. Once installed they turned out to be unexpectedly bright, which hurt migrating birds, so the city agreed that they should be switched off after 10:30 pm in the fall migration season. Another surprise: the shopping podium was bought by the company behind IKEA, and a small city-style IKEA store opened there on 25 May 2022, the first permanent store of its kind in Canada.

On the globe

The model shows the tall tower of blue-green glass with white balcony bands and a stepped, pointed top. Look for how it narrows in three stages.