Market Lands Urban Design Framework Plan
Public City’s Role
Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning
Team
Blueprint Inc.
Client
CentreVenture
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The Market Lands Urban Design Framework emerged from our urban engagement work for the site. It sought to establish new civic territory in Winnipeg's Exchange District at the site of the old police headquarters and would provide new affordable housing and urban market space in keeping with the original character of the early twentieth century socially-charged market site. We developed strategic design principles for the site—which bound to a public trust— and shepherded those into common socially oriented goals for future development. The framework prioritizes human-scale connections where civic infrastructure can support public health through integrated urban landscape, cultural programming, and year-round activity. From street-level retail to a public through plaza, the new site framework was designed to guide entrants in the subsequent international competition towards a community scaled and focussed design response. In our role, we advocated for citizens, economy, history, and urban wellbeing in the transformation of this long impenetrable institutional site into an open public legacy.
