Pumphouse draws praise 5468796 Architecture-designed East Exchange property finalist for Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize By: Aaron Epp Posted: 5:47 PM CST Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025

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A mixed-use property in the East Exchange District has been named one of the top five buildings in the Americas by a prestigious architecture competition.

Pumphouse, designed by 5468796 Architecture Inc., is a finalist for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize. Organized by the Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture in Chicago, the prize recognizes projects that redefine design excellence, innovation and social impact across North, Central and South America.

The finalists include:

• a marine life research centre in Mazatlan, Mexico;
• a veterinary clinic in Buenos Aires;
• an 800-metre-long square pier in Bacalar, Mexico;
• and a school in Bentonville, Ark.

The winner will be announced May 5 at a ceremony in Chicago.

5468796 Architecture is thrilled by the recognition, according to Sasa Radulovic, a partner at the Winnipeg firm. He and his colleagues already feel they have won: “Whatever happens in Chicago is just going to be the cherry on top of the ice cream.”

Pumphouse (109 James Ave.) is a redevelopment of the historic James Avenue Pumping Station, built in 1906. It was slated for demolition after more than a dozen attempts to revive the property.

Taking on a role outside of the usual scope of architects, 5468796 Architecture developed an unsolicited conceptual design paired with a financial pro-forma and presented the business case to Alston Properties.

Radulovic and his colleagues started working on the 119,000-square-foot project in 2015. The final budget, including restoration and new construction, was $22 million. Construction was completed last year.

The first phase of the plan was a renovation of the pumphouse, which added office and retail space to the upper level of the building in the summer of 2017.

In September 2020, Pumphouse East, a 28-unit high-end apartment block, was erected. Pumphouse West, a 65-unit multi-use block with 1,600 sq. ft. of commercial space, followed in 2023.

The rental housing buildings float on slender columns and frame the early 20th-century pumphouse while preserving public access and sightlines. Inside, massive historic pumping equipment is showcased behind a glass-wrapped ground floor.

MCHAP is a biennial prize. Nominations are put forward anonymously by a network of architects, scholars and critics. Following the nomination process, the architects responsible for the nominated works are requested to submit a dossier about their project.

After reviewing the dossiers and naming the finalists, the jury visits each finalist and meets with the respective stakeholders to better understand the projects and how they fit into the surrounding community.

The winner will be recognized with the MCHAP Award, the MCHAP Chair in the Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture, and US$50,000 to fund research and a publication documenting the winning project.

Pumphouse is innovative and clever, said Dirk Denison, MCHAP director, who accompanied the five-member jury during its trip to Winnipeg in November.

“It doesn’t look like everything around it, but it is respectful to its context and provides a richness to the urban environment,” he said.

“It doesn’t look like everything around it, but it is respectful to its context and provides a richness to the urban environment.”–Dirk Dennison, MCHAP director

For Bryce Alston, director of Alston Properties, the recognition is satisfying given the amount of work that went into the project.

“It’s great to look back and see that all that work has now paid off and it’s widely recognized as a very, very successful intervention of an existing heritage building,” he said. “I’m certainly grateful.”

This is the third time 5468796 Architecture has been recognized by MCHAP, making it the most honoured firm in the prize’s history.

It was previously shortlisted in the prize’s emerging category for the Old Market Square Stage (also known as the Cube) in 2014, and for OZ Condominiums, a 25-unit residence in Osborne Village (90 Bole St.), in 2016.

Pumphouse has received numerous awards, including the 2024 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture, which Gov. Gen. Mary Simon presented to 5468796 Architecture representatives during a ceremony at Rideau Hall on Feb. 13.

Promoting infill development and multi-family housing is important to 5468796 Architecture, and the recognition “is proof that you can produce housing of a very high quality,” Radulovic said.

“It’s very important that instead of building outward, we build inward in our city — meaning we build through infill and densification,” he said. “We don’t have to just be building boxes in the suburbs to provide housing.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca