ARCHITECTURAL RECORD
OCTOBER 2015 MULTIFAMILY HOUSING
OZ Condominiums | Winnipeg, Manitoba 5468796
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
LEANING IN Assertive stepbacks animate the facade and create appealing outdoor spaces. The ground floor is zoned for retail as well as residential use, in the hopes that future commercial activity will further enliven the street.
A distinctive new building fosters community and honors the local mood. BY ADELE WEDER
T
he Winnipeg neighborhood known as Osborne Village boasts a marvelous elixir of mixed demographics, indie businesses, hipster “speakeasies,” walkability, and that elusive attribute that can be described as an edgy vibe. All of this compelled the Canadian Institute of Planners to dub it “Canada’s Greatest Neighbourhood” in 2012. The irony of enclaves like these, though, is that they attract homogeneous new developments that threaten to snuff out the charm that made them desirable in the first place—over the past few years, a smattering of suburban-looking shoebox buildings have crept into this zone of artists’ studios and tattoo parlors. But with the new OZ condominium project, the local firm 5468796 offers an alternative response. On the corner of River Avenue—the area’s main thoroughfare—and a quieter side street, OZ enriches the densely textured urban fabric with its distinctive, asymmetrically fenestrated form and outdoor spaces carved out of the building’s mass. Named for both the utopian land in the century-old children’s novel as well as its own neighborhood, it is a building that aspires to link its residents to street life and each other. “With our work, there’s always this social agenda to create buildings that are not purely inward looking,” says 5468796’s lead architect Sasa Radulovic. “We tried to do this through ‘erosion’—by biting away at the black box with white space, connecting balconies and patios through the building.” The team further broke up the massing by creating what are essentially two discrete boxes, linked artfully by a multi-height glazed transition that serves as the building’s main entrance. The material palette is emphatically modern: white cement board and corrugated black metal cladding, aluminum window framing, and perforated metal screening over the smaller windows. OZ offers a sleek counterpoint to the texture of clapboard and brick elsewhere on the street, yet honors the liberated spirit of the community.
P H O T O G R A P H Y: © JA M E S B R I T TA I N
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