What went wrong in Winnipeg was not just about architecture, and 5468796 were stuck trying to make the best of a bad situation. The pulling out of government support to make Centre Village an actual co-operative changed the [project's direction]...'It’s time to get the peanut butter off our fingers,' said Ross McGowan, former chief executive and president of CentreVenture...He admits that a failure to understand the needs of the community took a considerable toll on the project. — The Guardian
Despite good intentions to help families in need, perhaps the worst nightmare an architect can face when designing affordable housing is realizing that the project — which would of course already be fully built — doesn't meet the actual demands of the community, and then some. That's basically what happened to the 5468796 architecture-designed Centre Village project in Winnipeg.
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4 Comments
It sounds like the architect approached this as an architectural problem, which it wasn't.
“We live big, and we think we should be living smaller”
Their solution was to design the housing units as narrow, three-storey walk-ups. The biggest four-bedroom unit is just 875 sq ft. Neufeld calls it a unique living choice that challenges conventional norms.
The problem at hand was providing safe, affordable housing for immigrant families. Their solution sounds like it was targeted at challenging middle-class suburban norms of restrictive privacy and spatial waste. Wrong paradigm!
Architects should be wary of doing project types they themselves don't know well for clients with no relevant experience. It's very easy for everyone involved to go off track and miss the point. Architecture actually needs expertise, not merely at the level of construction, and almost never at the level of image making.
Unfortunately this will add one more example of failed public housing for those who oppose it, and failed 'designer' architecture for those who despise it.
What it really is though is muddled thinking by 2 parties with little understanding of the issues at hand. An architect with experience in this could have given the client guidance towards a more pragmatic solution; a client who developed and operated public housing before could have directed the architect to focus on the relevant needs of the end users. Both should have sought more understanding why the Province felt this model would fail.
Mid, I've had the pleasure to share a beer with one of the principals of this office and you're statement about seeing this as an "architectural problem" is spot on. This was pointed out by the architect a few years back when I spoke with him though, so I don't think it's anything new.
Moral of the project for the under-grad kids: "don't make triangular bedrooms simply because it fits the space that's left".
NS, I generally like the firm's work, and don't want to excoriate them here. I actually find the image of this project appealing. It's just that that's not the aim of public housing. What might be a desirable project for grad student housing or studio-type condos in a trendy neighborhood doesn't suit the needs of poor immigrants in a rough neighborhood.
I hope the architects aren't discouraged nor defensive and learn from this to broaden their approach. It will make them more versatile and better capable of scaling up in their work if they can learn to lead on studying a program without jumping into a building design.
Virtually everything about this project and story is emblematic of what is wrong with architecture in the modern era. It's like a case study in the toxicity of narcissism.
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