The completed residence is the outcome of a fully collaborative approach between client and project team, and their commitment to image and quality goals has resulted in a project that stands out in this affluent neighbourhood.

Winnipeg has many excellent examples of modernist residential architecture, which were generated by many gifted designers and enlightened clients between 1945 and 1975. The client’s primary goal for this project was that their home was to capture the spirit of a classical Manitoba modernist architecture, as well as to offer tribute to these progressive visions.

Within the historical and physical context of the image goals and the existing neighbourhood of Winnipeg’s Old Tuxedo, the house was designed to respect the corner lot condition, the existing setbacks and the views inherent from the site.

Spatially, the home utilizes the interior courtyard as the centre point or fulcrum to establish the physical order of the design. A clear definition of space and its ordering provides clarity to the internal circulation and informs the scale and shape of the spaces. A sense of inter-locking volumes is created through minimizing spatial separations in the open plan and through generous fenestration. The transparency in the design creates the essential relationship between site and building, both visually and physically. The discourse between texture, colour, density, solid and void body embodies modernist concepts and allows them to be understood with clarity. Form, texture and composition are all modulated through light and transformed through the constant changes of day and night. Materials and details were selected to together interlock and resolve each other or contrast for accentuation and visual tension.

Manitoba Tyndall Stone was chosen as the primary exterior and interior material, as it is the classic Manitoba masonry product and has been used as a key building element by many Manitoba modernist architects since the beginning. The actual finished product on the residence is primarily a buff coloured, sawn stone. It is cut and set to an appropriate residential scale. Reflections of the modernist legacy embedded within the façade are horizontal articulations as well as textured stone as character highlights. Interior Tyndall Stone is featured at the entry and living room, while it also forms part of the interior space composition and aesthetic through its visual relationship with the predominant views to the courtyard and patios.

The completed residence is the result of a fully collaborative approach between the client and the project team, as well as everyone’s commitment to the original image and quality goals. This process has resulted in a project that stands out, but fits into its distinctive neighbourhood, near the banks of Winnipeg’s Assiniboine River.

The residence includes formal living and dining rooms, bedrooms, home office, interior courtyard, family rooms, as well as an integrated exterior living room. Complete architectural and interior design services for this new single-family residence, were provided by the submitting firm.

Stantec provided complete architectural and interior design services for this new single-family residence, and used fully integrated modernist solutions within the context of a traditional Winnipeg neighbourhood. The residence includes a home office, atrium, fully functional fireplace and several large-scale windows that allow for large amounts of natural light to enter the kitchen area.

Project Profile:

Client:
Location: Winnipeg, MB
Gross Building Area: 4,400 SF
Construction Completion: 2004
Verne Reimer’s Experience with: STANTEC

Consultant Team:

Landscape Architects: Scatliff Miller Murray
Interior Designers: Todd Littleford, Stantec Architecture
Structural Engineers: KNH Sawatzky & Associates
Mechanical Advisors: Tower Engineering
Electrical Engineers: Unknown
General Contractor: Daytona Development