Program Overview

Program Overview

W Studio: Winnipeg's Architecture, a Metaphorical Journey is a place-based studio that utilizes Winnipeg as a design laboratory for the imaginative conception of individual architectural infill projects and collective urban design ones. The studio explores the potential for architectural design to benefit from establishing metaphorical connections between the local and the global, in search of conceiving architecture that responds to place-specificity and contains disciplinary universal elements.

Program Structure

The studio is divided into three groups, each focusing on a different urban morphology:

• Business District: represented by Winnipeg's iconic "Exchange" and connected to analogous districts in the North American Mid-West and abroad.
• The Strip: recognized for its potential to inform contemporary architecture and urban design, with significant arteries and vital multi-use corridors like Portage and Pembina.
• The Suburb: a modern idealization of nature, representing the quintessential setting for the American Dream, with its appeal, limitations, and possibilities for contemporary architecture and urban design to be analyzed and tested.

Program Objectives

In the course of the year, students will develop individual (architectural) and collective (urban design) projects, addressing the relationship between architecture and the city in Winnipeg comprehensively and in depth. The program aims to:

• Elaborate on the potential for architectural design to benefit from establishing metaphorical connections between the local and the global.
• Strategize based on the idea of an imaginary travel, of poetic nature, connecting local sites with relevant others across time and geography.
• Analyze and explore urban design propositions and individual infill projects within each urban situation.

Program Details

The studio will explore three typical urbanistic morphologies, developmental situations, and architectural conditions in Winnipeg, including:

• The Business District
• The Strip
• The Suburb Each group will focus on a different urban morphology, with collective sites to analyze and explore through urban design propositions, and individual sites for the development of final infill projects.