Client | H5A & David Penner Architecture
Location | Winnipeg, Manitoba
Year Completed | 2018

2022 Prairie Design Award of Merit

This civic building is used as a linking mechanism between adjacent site constraints of a community pool, golf course, and active transportation line through its triangular site geometry, welcoming transparent façade and use of texture in exposed structures. The roof space frame and cantilevered column canopies were intended as a welcoming open space without typical edges or a more traditional spatial hierarchy associated with steel framed buildings. This openness and more informal approach to structure was highly intentional. Exposed cast in place concrete and stacked coursing masonry ground the building’s lightness and provide the necessary strength, sound dampening, durability and security for washrooms and staff support spaces.

Exposed weathering steel provides opportunity for bookworms to engage with the layered cladding finishes, acting as solid mass in some locations, peeled back as screen in others, hopefully allowing for continued discovery over multiple visits.