This practicum paper looks at the work of contemporary artists: Char Davies, Jen Southern, Wolfgang Laib, Pierre Huyghe and Max Neuhaus. From examining the artists ideas on perception many links and ideas are drawn out. From this examination the author plays with the idea of perception and the training of the senses. Sound becomes an important element. In the end the author designs a strike walk. The strike walk is focused on the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.

This project examines the spatial relationships that exist between Winnipeg, Canada and Tokyo, Japan, with the intent to develop an understanding of the preciseness of the world. Different site-specific systemic conditions were used as critical tools to explore the implication of distinct design catalysts and inhibitors. I have concentrated on the relationships that exist between time and space, to identify and displace localized, momentary events that exist in one site to the other. Familiarities of my local surroundings were deliberately obscured to make explicit a heightened awareness of my position on the planet. This helps to facilitate discussions. I have created a space that is dissembled through abstract understandings of displaced elements in the environment. It is my intention for this space to be experienced in a different way each time we come across it, by shifting and changing ones perception of their character in the world.

Criminalized women are a segregated population in society due to their few numbers and it has only been recently that the correctional system has responded to their gender-related needs and has orchestrated programs and services to rehabilitate them for society. Many criminalized women are mothers. Many criminalized women are Aboriginal. Many criminalized women have no safe place to go after release from prison. It is here that this practicum intervenes by offering transitional housing for a woman released from a correctional institution, reuniting with her children, and hoping to succeed and sustain herself and her family. By designing a therapeutic landscape that offers play, solace, and community, the bond between a mother and child can strengthen, many of the needs of a woman can be met, and the development of a peer group of neighbours can identify, support, encourage, and share their own personal experience, during this time of transition.

In recent years, Winnipeg’s ethnocultural profile has been diversifying due to historic levels of international immigration, especially from Asian, Middle Eastern and African places of origin. In spite of these changes, little is known about the ways in which the City's planning processes are addressing the needs of people living the experience of being new to the city, or how the needs and preferences of these emerging ethnic groups are affected by planning decisions. This research examines the City's response to ethnocultural difference by analyzing municipal planning policy, and by conducting focus groups with City of Winnipeg planners and with key informants from organizations that serve newcomers. This research explores what Winnipeg’s Planning and Land Use Division, and organizations that serve newcomers, each hope to accomplish with respect to planning for ethnocultural difference, compiles their aims and methods with those suggested in the literature, and develops recommendations for change.

A better understanding of people’s attitudes to housing is fundamental to attracting new residents and retaining those who already live in or close to the central city. As such, this study operating in a Canadian context adopts Hägerstrand’s model for the process of innovation diffusion. The study draws on the findings of an online survey and interviews with city planners in both Edmonton and Winnipeg to explore the demand and supply dimensions of city-center living and attitudes towards different types of housing and neighbourhood design. The study shows that the central area in Winnipeg and Edmonton are at different stages regarding housing. Prospective home owners who are interested in housing in the central area share a number of environmental attitudes. These attitudes were related to the care for recycling, the importance for eating organic food, the use of public transportation, volunteering in non-profit organization to help the community and the interest in attending cultural activities. Based on the results of the study, it can be expected that housing types such as apartments, townhouses and even loft housing can be more common in the future and especially in Winnipeg since apartments and townhouses are already common in Edmonton.

ABSTRACT The modern day City of Winnipeg is situated on the poorly drained floor of pro-glacial Lake Agassiz, one of the flattest regions on earth. Within the area now bounded by the Perimeter Highway sixteen major streams and at least twenty small coulees once emptied into the Àssiniboine and Red Rivers. Behind the levees of these rivers large areas of marsh existed providing detention storage of surface waters. The overflow from these wetlands fed many of the streams. The first settlers in the region mimicked the natural drainage regime by damming the waters of the streams to drive grist mills. Later agricultural settlers, occupying the uninhabited but marginally drained lands behind the levees began to drain the wetlands. During the explosive growth period of the City (1880-1910) the drainage regime was radically altered and an expensive and inadequate conduit system was substituted in it's place. Serious flooding episodes have occurred from the first alterations up to the present day. In an attempt to solve the flooding problems, overcome the expense of conduit systems and add amenity, a series of stormwater retention ponds was introduced by private developers in 1965. Functually these impoundments imitate the original hydraulic relationship between the ponds, wetlands and streams of the native landscape. Approximately on hundred years after the elimination of the natural drainage regime, Plan Winnipeg 1981 calls for the preservation of all natural watercourses in recognition of their high value for storm drainage and recreational amenity. Of the original thirty-six streams and coulees only nine exist today. All wetland storage areas have been eliminated. This practicum traces the historical progression of land drainage in the City of Winnipeg, summarizes the design criteria for future urban stormwater management, and outlines the present condition and rehabilitation of the historic water features.

Indigenous planning continues to emerge globally, with increasing emphasis being placed on Indigenous autonomy and planning practices. By discussing an urban example of Indigenous planning – specifically the values and characteristics of the Neeginan project or vision for the North Main area of Downtown Winnipeg – this thesis aims to shed some light on urban Indigenous planning, as well as how it may differ from, and overlap with, other forms of planning and other types of spaces and built environments within the city. In doing so, it offers not only an assessment of Indigenous planning as it has been undertaken in a particular urban context. It also offers an assessment of how planning in general can continue to decolonize its practices as it learns to better support and relate to Indigenous priorities and planning approaches.

This practicum focuses on the issues of the overlapping boundaries between Student housing and downtown redevelopment. Can graduate students find a place in the downtown to meet their need for off-campus housing, and simultaneously help build a healthy, vibrant, downtown community; ensuring the housing facility represents a quality space for both graduate students and the local community? The following is an investigation of related issues including: Richard Florida’s notion of the Creative Class, multi-purpose development, the university as an urban catalyst, and adaptive reuse. The combination of graduate housing and the city’s downtown redevelopment will create new design typology that benefits both graduate students and downtown community. The practicum project consists of a live/work space for Winnipeg in the Waterfront area by adaptively reusing the James Ave Pumping Station building. The renovated building includes a bookstore, a coffee shop, a daycare, and an urban grocery store. However, the design focuses on the informal learning space and the quality of graduate students’ living experience through aspects such as accommodation, study space, meeting and casual spaces.

Lake Winnipeg is under examined, yet a very interesting lake. This 10th largest lake in the world supports a small-scale fishery, which today is pre-dominantly for walleye. Currently, the fishery is very strong. Historically, however, it has been characterized by fluctuations in both catches and returns. The end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s was a turning point for the fishing industry. At that time, the fishery experienced declining catches and diminishing returns. In order to reverse the trend, the Provincial Government of Manitoba introduced a quota system while the Federal Government established the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation (FFMC) to handle the marketing of freshwater fish. Today, the fishery on Lake Winnipeg has been at a record level of production and these two institutions play a significant role in the fishery. To gain an insight into fishers’ social context in the Gimli area, a social well-being analysis was applied following design of the ESRC Wellbeing in Developing Countries Research Group adapted by Sarah Coulthard and colleagues. The social well-being analytical tool shed light on three domains of fisher’s life; material well-being, subjective well-being and relational well-being. Together, these domains give an insight into how satisfied fishers are with their current social environment. The analysis of fishers’ social experience in the Gimli area shows that current policy seems to be working equally well in the areas of relational and subjective well-being. In fact, the quota system and the FFMC still have great impact on the fishers, not only from an economic view but also for their subjective values and relational well-being.

Intercultural communication addresses some of the apparent challenges that surface from interactions among diverse people. The concept stretches beyond language and dialect barriers and includes the ways in which culture influences how people understand, create and respond to communication depending on where they are from, their life experiences, social structure, ethnicity, religion, education, occupation, and so on. This research acknowledges that culture is a broad and difficult to define concept because it influences individuals and groups in different ways, especially in an era of globalization. Through an exploration of literature, semi-structured interviews and a focus group, and applying the concept of intercultural communication to active planning practice, the research examines how a sample of Winnipeg planners learn and practice such intercultural communication. Their perspectives on this practice are then considered in the context of collaboration, where it is concluded that intercultural communication competencies can directly foster collaboration. The practice has potential benefits for the many diverse publics that now need to be better served through planning processes. Intercultural communication is an important practice of planners in culturally diverse cities such as Winnipeg because planners often find themselves in intermediary 'bridging' roles among diverse cultures. It is confirmed that intercultural communication requires a necessary set of competencies, values and skills that must influences one's planning practice.