Public City’s Role

Landscape Architecture

Team

1x1 Architecture

Client

Province of Manitoba

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The Provincial Law Courts Plaza is redesigned as an urban commons for Winnipeg. Situated at York and Kennedy, the terraced landscape transforms institutional territory into public gathering space while solving access barriers to justice. The design weaves universal entry paths through a series of informal courts, turning security requirements into opportunities for pause and exchange. Working above an underground structure, the plaza was a complex and technical urban landscape renovation. Many of its complexities were solved with strategic grading and integrated seating. As importantly, however, this project establishes a new pattern or mindset for the design of institutional space, where accessibility, in all of its nuanced meanings, is de facto public right.