The junction as urban attraction

• Program
  Public space and infrastructure
• Client
  Municipality of Winnipeg
• Team
  Ekim Tan
  Theo Hauben
  Marco Vermeulen
  
• Collaboration
  Schout Hoppenbrouwers Group
• Location
  Winnipeg (Canada) Portage Avenue - Mainstreet
• Area
  4750 m2
• Date
  2004-05-01

The Portage Avenue - Mainstreet junction forms the centre of the Canadian city of Winnipeg and 92,000 cars and buses pass by daily. The assignment is to transform this traffic interchange into a representative heart of the city. The first intervention is the replacement of the junction with a roundabout. This not only promotes the traffic flows, it also creates potential for a residential area in the midst of the traffic tumult. There is an underground concourse for pedestrians under the present junction. Between the traffic roundabout and the concourse space is created for a second roundabout for a fully-automatic public transport system (people mover). A shell-shaped deck (roof) connects the roundabout at ground level with the underground plaza. On sunny days this, together with the timber-clad shell, as in the eye of the storm, forms an attractive plaza where the traffic streams past endlessly on the upper edge. The shape is highly suitable for an open air theatre and film shows. But even on days with poor weather the bowl-shaped plaza provides shelter against the wind. The plaza not only brings light and air into the underground shopping arcade, it also provides a view of the surrounding high-rise buildings, thus creating an underground sense of place, too.

In order to announce the centrifugal working and the importance of the roundabout, a double skyscraper is added. IN the life centre of the city dominated by generic corporate commerce, this 'city hall, is built as a retreat exclusively for the inhabitants of Winnipeg. This city hall, functioning as the most public and the most exclusive spot in Winnipeg, and where admission is free of charge, acquires extraordinary symbolic and collective value. The individual and personal character of the city hall is expressed in the architecture that refers to the wealth and introvert nature of the surrounding area of rural Manitoba.