ArchShowcase 
Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. RESTRUCTURATION AND EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA CAMPUS in WINNIPEG, CANADA by IADNovember 21st, 2013 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: IAD GOAL OF THE COMPETITION The goal of this international competition organized by the University of Manitoba with the support of “Manitoba Hydro” the provincial Crown-corporation company specialized in hydro-electric energy, was to suggest a new vision of the Campus through a masterplan that integrates the challenges of growth, comfort and environmental quality and that will allow the positioning of the Campus as an exemplary space in terms of innovation, environmental values, variety and worldwide integration. This veritable urban challenge includes the development of 4.200 housing units as well as 21.000m2 dedicated to businesses and facilities in the «Southwood Precinct»extension along with a general reflection devoted to the flows and complementary elements to be integrated within the Campus core« Fort Garry Campus » as well as its peripheral areas, including the technological Park and the sports complex.  Image Courtesy © IAD
 Image Courtesy © IAD AREAS OF INTERVENTION
PROGRAMME:
 Image Courtesy © IAD TO SERVE AND PROTECT LANDSCAPE INTERVENTION: WHEN URBANISM BECOMES LANDSCAPE AND VICE-VERSA How to integrate a dense but responsible urbanism within a sensitive environment while integrating user-mobility and not harming the existing tree-scape? This is the true challenge we have attempted to resolve through a strong and sensitive intervention. Our first influence for the development of this eco-sensitive urbanism comes from a protection system often used by the natives to establish their Wigwam which consists of the generation of an area below the ground, an excavation which offer the less possible amount of surface unprotected from the wind, cold and snow. One of the important environmental solutions of this proposal is the topsoil reuse from the excavations of the field itself through earthworks and embankments which will allow us to:  Image Courtesy © IAD 1. Lean the buildings against them thereby creating a community space sheltered from the wind within. 2. Generate within these embankments activities linked to user-mobility and the technical functions of the buildings. 3. Generate a soft landscape where the ecosystem is not visually assaulted by what is built on it. In a region where 70% of the population uses cars as their main means of transport, it was crucial to find an urban solution which would allow vehicular access in a responsible fashion, controlling it both in terms of capacity and visual impact. We have then decided to include a peripheral technical ring along the embankment generated by the excavation that defines the living areas, thereby allowing all residents of each ‘hamlet’ to access the traffic core of the building, to park their cars in a protected area near the housing without the need to create under-ground parking. The embankment also includes technical and waste facilities needed for the correct functioning of the hamlet.  Image Courtesy © IAD SOUTHWOOD PRECINT THE PLURAL HAMLET: A DIVERSITY CARVED AND STRATIFIED The building, concealed and masked by the amount of ground extracted for the creation of each place, gives onto this central space in the form of stratums that shift from level to level. This allows for a ‘living’ yet leveled surface which makes the interiors seem larger and illustrates this diversity of living according to the proposed program. A two-level penthouse is also proposed, protecting the superior pedestrian circuit of each hamlet. On the ground-floor, the more advanced stratum offers a translucent covered boulevard for each of the hamlet’s local commerce and restaurants, all while generating a neighborly atmosphere due to the inclusion of community facilities such as the cycling club, laundries and particularly the gardening club whose vegetable gardens respond to the needs of the inhabitants and businesses of the hamlet. We also had to, voluntarily but in a controlled manner, increase certain critical points of the Southwood precinct as the crossroads made by the major distribution axes around the tall buildings which grow along these axes give the site a contemporary urban character. These volumes, reminiscent of totems, emerge and contrast with the landscape as defined by the hamlets. The buildings both natural and resistant, welcoming communitarian spaces and high gardens, retaking the hamlet’s balconies, offer a different vision of the place. |THE FREE LAB: A MULTI-USE SHACK| In order to engage the student, the visitor or the inhabitants with a new “eco-urbanism” way, we thought it was essential to think of a specific, different and iconic typology for each hamlet all the while offering a multi-use surface according to the needs of the place. Our idea is to offer, just as for an industrial building of Tribeca or any other brownfield, a nearly untreated surface, that will be able to adapt itself to the needs of the different social profiles of the hamlet: Loft; Art workshop, creation centers; Cultural, student and educational associations; Senior club; Business incubator; Study and experimental laboratory centers; Communication center; Observatory of flora and fauna; This building takes voluntarily a close form of a tipi without really looking like it. This sophisticated shack is independent, because of its characteristics of a lunar module, it can position itself in a flexible way on the slope or on the protective penthouse of the embankment thanks to its three dimensional structure. This atypical building must be self-sufficient in terms of energy. It enjoys then the energy of a wind power which takes profit of the building to expose itself to the wind. Moreover, it also has many functions such as being a benchmark not only in the Southwood precinct but on the whole surface of the project, in particular in the Fort Garry Campus. Its aesthetics far from being neutral create spiritual and visual bridges between the different cultures in the campus and the different areas of activities in the urban network. It is this dialogue between a substantially modified but respected landscape and the tipi carved in the local visual memory that creates what we want for this project. The feeling of harmony is sensed everywhere in the Campus.  Image Courtesy © IAD URBAN CONCEPT: NATIVE HARMONY REGAINING A HARMONIC STRUCTURE AND NATURAL NETWORK ON THE SITE “The answer is in actually being strong in carrying your own world around with you at all times. Your own Native reality. It is then that you can be in almost any situation and function in a harmonious way.” Douglas Cardinal, Native American Architect. This quote reveals the prevailing will for harmony we have to translate for the Manitoba site: First by the identification and the personal and constant treatment of the areas emptied of meaning and harmony. This is then followed by the will to extend the activity, to reinforce the meaning of the existing urban spaces of Fort Garry so that they should become the benchmark for future interventions at the Southwood site: The large scale intervention on the site is above all about extending, not modifying, the landscape. This connection shown as a graphic network on the Masterplan, takes on a completely different three dimensional social scale. It defines a target area, which is to be enforced according to urban or rural situations, by systems that will combine a communitarian or personal use, a clean energy source and a landscape. This trilogy: Use | Energy | Landscape, should be the common theme for visitors of the new Campus. It refers to the well-being of the user, of a native of these lands through these specific interventions which show this timid willingness in the way of living and teaching or even of teaching through living. FORT GARRY CAMPUS URBAN INTERVENTION: WHEN THE INTERSTITIAL SPACE BECOMES A REFERENCE An urban intervention within the Fort Garry Campus can take several forms, especially in the reorganization of spaces and the landscape. We have identified three kinds of situations where the neglected urban space generated today by the Campus can play an outstanding role tomorrow: The current intersection of traffic flows We found that the intersections of existing traffic flows throughout the campus are not adequately structured by an important urban element, which by its form and the use we make of it redefines the place, gives potential and, in the case of traffic flows, transforms it into an efficient landmark of the Campus. Proposed typology: the X-Building We want to considerate this urban intervention like something that gives meaning and use to the Campus: classrooms, commercial zone, workshop and social club. The ‘in-between’ generated by the university buildings One of the advantages of the project imagined for the urban restructuration of the Campus comes from a wish to take advantage of the existing poles of attraction and in particular of the empty spaces between those poles, the majority generated by the more important university buildings. These interstitial spaces must be treated in order to use the best areas of the Campus in the most practical manner possible. Proposed typology: the In-between facility This appropriation of the place allows to increase the areas not to add a building but to use an existing surface we come to cover. This intervention is useful in particular to give to the Campus small protected areas along the walking way and cycle course: waiting areas, bike sheds, information points. and social club. Neglected spaces and lots kept from meaning and use The will of the project is not to foment a homogeneous flat landscape, but to enhance it with sequences that create a significant attractive effect for the community. One of the characteristics of a Campus is engraved in its “urban center”, organized around the main university buildings. Many offset points of the Campus are thus deprived of use and meaning in our restructuration. Like the two situations defined before, these neglected spaces need a landmark which, in the case of these areas, should be an iconic element that allows a direct, automatic and attractive identification by its evoked image. Proposed typology: the free LAB© A specific, different, and iconic typology for each identified space while offering a multi-use surface according to the needs of the place. ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY REPORT GENERAL PHILOSOPHY One of the major vectors of the project is characterized by a charter specially created for the Manitoba Campus and already mentioned in the Design Concept Report called Use | Energy | Landscape. This charter includes the following main ideas: USE The project takes into account in a precise manner the existent uses on the site in order to propose an appropriate and complementary program to the existing structure. In the context of these new facilities and uses, the project proposes an appropriate and responsible communications network that allows for access to the different places created around strategic points that are served by public transit as defined in the context of “Transit Oriented Development”, that is, within a distance of 100 meters of a mobility structure or pedestrian circuit. The presence of vehicles is voluntarily reduced within the project which takes into account local habits regarding the means of transport as 70% of the population uses trucks or vans to get to work. Parking lots for the people who will eventually live inside the Southwood precinct are created within the buildings (c.f. Design Concept Report). The architectural project is strategically conceived to optimize construction costs. The simplicity of construction methods and the impact of structural and infrastructure costs are part of the environmental policy of the project that allows for more investment on other priorities such as energy saving and environmental welfare on the site. ENERGY An axis of energetic production defined from the existing infrastructure of the Central Energy Plant is created on the site. This axis foments the use of renewable energy and the transformation of existing structures in order to adapt to the defined criteria, in particular that of hybrid energy production using biomass, hydroelectricity, solar and wind energy. Peripheral areas, particularly in the south of the existing Campus, are defined in order to position the areas which collect snow in winter and areas with agricultural residue deposits to power the new biomass district. Each hamlet is endowed with a central biomass unit running in parallel or alternatively with geothermal heat pumps whenever the district’s energy system is not locally available. This energy source will be completed with localized sources such as solar and wind energy for the electricity and water needs of public areas.  Image Courtesy © IAD LANDSCAPE As indicated in the competition brief, the preservation of fauna and flora in the target area is an immovable principle of this charter. The buildings are positioned in order to preserve 90% of wooded areas, all trees located within intervention areas will be replanted on the site. 100% of the amount of earth modified due to excavation or embankments is kept on the site in order to form the new site scape. The formed embankments allow for the containment of possible river overflows along the riverfront area. In the environmental context of the project, the traceability of construction materials is a principal strength and defines a clear image for the project. The economy achieved on the number of materials used allows for an improved control of their origin. Wood, white concrete, occasional aluminum and steel for the free-lab structure and other specific elements are used in a controlled and aesthetic manner. Vehicles have a low-key but dominant role in the landscape. Vehicular networks are ranked to allow the flow of the vehicles towards the hamlets while the access to the interior of each hamlet is restricted to deliveries and goods movements. Access to the peripheral ring under the embankments is restricted to private parking and waste removal.
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