‘Design for a better world’ Winnipeg architecture firm Nadi Group thrives on vision, inspiration, professionalism of founder Made in Manitoba
By: Aaron Epp Posted: 7:47 PM CDT Thursday, Mar. 27, 2025

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This article was published 27/03/2025 (570 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Occasionally, when Emeka Nnadi’s three sons consider the problems people face today — climate change, inequality, increased isolation and fragmentation within communities — they challenge him to consider what he’s doing to make a difference.

“They’re young and they’re vocal enough that they say things like, ‘Your generation and grandpa’s generation screwed up everything and now you’re leaving it for us to fix,’” Nnadi says. “(I tell them) that’s not exactly true. Some of us are fighting the fight and we want to make the world better than we found it.”

Nnadi aims to make a difference through his work with Nadi Group, the company he started in 2010 in Winnipeg. It’s a collective of three businesses that collaborate in architecture, urban design and landscape architecture.

“The vision and the inspiration for the firm is very simply to design for a better world,” says the 54-year-old president and CEO. “That’s our tagline. It’s on the wall.”

Nadi Group envisions a future where people live, work and play in perfect harmony with nature — a future where sustainable technologies merge with local cultures and ecological processes and where communities contribute just as much as they consume.

The company’s mission is to co-create this future by designing mixed-use developments, outdoor hospitality and amenities, and intelligent communities that bring this vision to reality today.

“The world is on fire these days,” Nnadi says. “There’s all sorts of chaos and craziness going on, but I believe that from a built environment perspective, we have the knowledge and the technology and the awareness … to be a lot more sustainable and sensitive to our environment.”

His work, he adds, is predicated on the idea with every day that goes by, creating projects with environmental sustainability in mind are more and more essential to human and environmental survival.

“Why not get ahead of it?” he says. “Why not design better and smarter and leaner and more ecologically responsible and more environmentally resilient communities?

“Why not do that now?”

Headquartered on the top floor of 289 Garry St., a once derelict three-storey building Nnadi bought and renovated about 10 years ago, Nadi Group employs 18 people and has satellite offices in Toronto and Detroit.

While the company works primarily in Canada and the United States, the company has contributed to projects in the Bahamas, Netherlands and Iceland.

Locally, the company is perhaps best known for its contributions to the Bridgwater neighbourhood in southwest Winnipeg.

Nnadi, who holds a bachelor of architecture from Enugu State University of Science and Technology in Nigeria and a master’s in landscape architecture from the University of Manitoba, has been involved with Bridgwater for 20 years. He’s helped transform 1,400 acres of former provincially owned farmland into multiple neighbourhoods with thousands of homes.

That includes researching and developing architectural guidelines for Bridgwater Centre, the focal point of the Bridgwater Forest, Bridgwater Lakes and Bridgwater Trails communities.

Nadi Group encouraged active living in the design, providing 80 kilometres of pathways that weave through numerous lakes, parks, playgrounds and green spaces. The company incorporated colonial-style furnishings and street lighting for stores, businesses and housing. It also split traffic from Kenaston Boulevard into two one-way streets that circle the centre’s edge, slowing down any vehicle traffic and ensuring a pedestrian-focused design.

The houses in Bridgwater were created according to visitable design principles, Nnadi says. Wide doors and hallways, no-step entries and wheelchair-accessible main-floor bathrooms ensure people of all abilities can comfortably enter and navigate the spaces.

Born in Nigeria, Nnadi moved to Edmonton with his family when he was two years old. When he was 10, the family moved back to Nigeria.

As a teenager, he was an avid painter who aspired to make his living as an artist. Worried about Nnadi’s financial prospects, his father encouraged him to use his interests in math, technical drafting and design to become an architect.

The idea automatically appealed to Nnadi.

“(Art is) introspective. It’s all about how I feel and I don’t care what anybody else says about it. It’s my personal expression,” he says. “But (with) architecture, you’re doing something for the social good. Success in architecture means that I’ve solved your problem — I haven’t just told my own internal story.”

After finishing his undergraduate degree, Nnadi moved with his parents to Winnipeg. He accepted a job in Chicago after graduating from the University of Manitoba, returning to Winnipeg five years later. After working with Smith Carter Architects and Engineers for eight years, he started Nadi Group.

Nnadi says the “ping pong journey” of his life has made him a global citizen. He’s traveled extensively across the globe, and on each continent he’s visited, he’s been exposed to both dire poverty and extreme wealth. That’s shaped the approach he takes to his life and work.

“Nadi Group desires to be part of the transition to more responsible, more resilient, more sustainable community development,” he says.

That work is important, says Uche Nwankwo.

Nwankwo, who lives in Bridgwater and belongs to the advocacy group AfriCans in Winnipeg South, successfully lobbied for the City of Winnipeg to name a park after the architect.

A ceremony was held in June for the official naming of Emeka Nnadi Park at 119 Bridgeland Dr. It is the first park in the city named after a Nigerian Canadian.

“I was fascinated by the work and effort and professionalism and dedication that was put into this neighbourhood, so I tried to find out who did the architecture work,” Nwankwo says.

In addition to honouring Nnadi’s work, Nwankwo hopes the name of the park will inspire others.

“I see this as something that will also motivate and challenge young people of colour,” he says. “If you excel in your career and do your best, you can be recognized.”

While Nnadi appreciates the recognition, as well as the awards Nadi Group has received, they aren’t what motivate him as he continues to expand the company and chase bigger projects.

Visiting a completed project and seeing people enjoy it is the ultimate prize.

“Just watching people engage with the stuff that we created — that’s the award,” he says.

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca