Urban fragmentation in Winnipeg

Abstract

Winnipeg is a spatially, culturally, psychologically and visually fragmented city, particularly due to the vehicular-oriented growth which has engendered segmented land-use, dismantled walkable networks and provoked disconnection between culture and nature as well as within nature itself. In particular, the displacement of daily life from the complex web of interrelationships in ecosystems, which are essentially the mechanisms supporting our existence, should be the primary concern of urban design. In order to resolve this critical issue, this practicum will isolate and examine a problematic site while deconstructing fragmentation into specific causes, namely pollution, habitat degradation, placelessness and lack of urban ecological education. Concluding that this condition is ultimately created by our own fragmented thinking, the production of pragmatic solutions which continually evoke further fragmentation, I present a series of solutions to these challenges in the form of a landscape architectural design proposal for the City of Winnipeg.