The design was Sputnik Architecture Inc, Westland Construction, and Green Seed Developments’ submission to the Railside at the Forks Request For Proposals. The building is conceived as a box containing a beautiful array of human beings, each with their own personality and character. Covering this box of humanity is a quilt of life. Each individual unit bursts through the veil of plants with individually coloured balcony railings. This box bursting with life floats above a plinth of commerce. The overhang at the second floor will provide shelter to anyone walking along the storefront of the building.
The images above demonstrate the capacity of the building’s metamorphosis through the wonderful seasons experienced in Winnipeg. The tapestry of colour will change through the seasons. The alleyways are intimate and engaging. Imagine the potential of small ground floor food kiosks in spaces with warmed sidewalks heated by rooftop evacuated solar tubes.
The layout of each level allows for a potential range of unit sizes which vary from 300 square feet to 1200 square feet, and 4 to 6 units per level. The upper floors are proposed as live work condominiums. Where a building of strictly residential occupancy may empty each morning and fill up each evening, these units will encourage occupancy of the building throughout the day, and also maximizing the foot traffic on the ground level throughout day. If the six units on levels 5 & 6 were occupied by those uses allowed by City of Winnipeg zoning for live work occupancy, there may be reason to hope that a barista on the main floor might survive the gap between morning and evening.
