Form over function?

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This article was published 05/01/2016 (3617 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province is doing a safety review of an affordable-housing project criticized for putting high-minded design above function.

Centre Village, the modernist, orange-accented complex on Balmoral Street near Cumberland Avenue, is home to 25 families. It opened in 2010 and was originally conceived as a high-density co-op that would allow Muslim immigrants to have a shot at home ownership. It would foster a sense of community using a central courtyard as a gathering place for children and families.

But, an online story in the Guardian newspaper by a Toronto-based architect and journalist Monday criticized the project for prioritizing form over function. The article said the buildings, designed by the city’s much-hailed architecture firm 5468796, are poorly suited to family life because of their small size and three-storey design. And the courtyard is a magnet for drunks, fights, litter and drug deals.

The article also noted the project did not develop into a co-op as originally planned, in part to ensure Muslim residents, mostly newcomers from Africa whose religion forbids paying interest, could move gradually into home ownership.

The project was originally developed as a partnership between CentreVenture, the province and Knox United Church, located in nearby Central Park. CentreVenture transferred ownership of the property to Manitoba Housing Dec. 1.

Staff at CentreVenture and the province said there is some merit to the criticism of Centre Village’s architecture.

“Innovative designs aren’t always going to work,” said Carolyn Ryan, Manitoba Housing’s executive director of portfolio management. “Sometimes you have to go back to basics.”

There is little Manitoba Housing can do about the layout of the units, but Ryan said the province will launch a safety review this month to see what can be done about loitering and disturbances, especially in the courtyard. Fixes could include better lighting, gates or cameras.

But both Ryan and CentreVenture president and CEO Angela Mathieson said the perception the complex is unsafe is more a function of the everyday issues in the neighbourhood, among the poorest in Winnipeg and close to the Balmoral Motor Hotel’s beer vendor.

Both also took issue with the criticism the project failed as a co-op.

As the project evolved in 2009 and 2010, it became clear a co-operative model wouldn’t fly, in part because residents were mostly new Canadians and were already grappling with many challenges. It’s tricky enough to get non-profit co-ops off the ground among more affluent people who aren’t already struggling with low incomes, language barriers and culture shock.

Mathieson said all parties, including Knox United, agreed a more traditional subsidized rental project made better sense.

Both Mathieson and Ryan said it’s unfair to call the project a failure when it provided 25 new, much-needed affordable units in the city’s core, adding density.

Centre Village cost $3.7 million, including about $1.5 million in initial grants from the federal and provincial governments.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca