Saba Ammari

TENSSIONS WITHIN: Employ and Privilege Differing and Contrasting Dualities Within an Architecture to Heighten Experience and Create Narrative

Growing up in a culture and context that narratives have powerful influence on art, literature and architecture, storytelling plays an important and central role in my understanding of the context. Here by narrative, we mean collection of stories, events and history that have happen or are still unfolding in that place. Coming to Winnipeg as a new observer or explorer I found city’s narrative and stories spread away and non-traceable.

After the railroad reached Winnipeg, the Exchange District became one of the parts of the city that quickly began to flourish and develop. This part of the city transformed into Winnipeg’s industrial hub, housing primarily warehouses and wholesalers. And now, this neighborhood is considered the cultural and driving force of Winnipeg—a place that holds numerous narratives within itself.
The structure of the Maw’s Garage, composed of steel trusses, allowed the building’s proportions to connect the block it occupies to the surrounding streets on all four sides in a cross-like layout.

However, the surrounding buildings are very different in their uses, designs, and size. With a closer analysis of this building, I discovered numerous contrasting conditions. The single-story design of this building has allowed it to accommodate two contrasting programs over time. Currently, one-part functions as a parking lot, while the other serves as an event space for the Exchange District.

I think a building acts as a container for events. To design a building that effectively interacts with its environment, we need to understand the relationship between the building as a container and the surrounding events. When buildings are constructed and architecture is created, a framework is being provided that shapes the narratives of the city. Narratives naturally form when buildings come into existence. What fascinates me is how, as architects, we can contribute to ensuring that architecture provide a framework and infrastructure that enable people, the users, to have an impact on the narratives that will emerge in those spaces. In this project, by juxtaposing different spatial geometries, we aim to create new and sometimes contradictory narratives. By creating new pathways and fostering dialogue between different spaces and programs, we can enable users to create new narratives themselves. This interaction allows for the coexistence of elements that might not typically be found so close together in a city, creating a dynamic environment where diverse narratives can emerge and coexist.

In this project, we aimed to utilize an existing structure that had significant potential from technical, structural, and most importantly, narrative and historical perspectives. The goal was to generate new narratives within it—programs that are intertwined yet still distinguishable. We can understand them separately, but they are all nourished by a single identity and framework.