Manitoba

The main grid routes offer direct access across the site, promoting the spread of cultural, educational, and leisure activities into daily life for students, faculty, and the broader community. Reaching out to nearby urban context, Southwood and Smartpark’s wide planning areas introduce new urban areas that connect easily with the existing street layout. This simplicity is complemented by a finer network of footpaths and cycleways that add a landscape design sensibility, making the masterplan both an urban plan and an urban park.

The retention of natural and quasi natural features in the Southwood area (mainly wooded areas & water features) is a key driver in the organisation and spatial arrangement of the plan.  The broad organising structure of the grid has been developed both for legibility and simplicity but also to minimise disruption to these features. The disposition of high and low density planning areas follows a simple arrangement of roughly north/south bands, arranged as a triptych of low density ‘pavilion’ blocks to the west,  park land through the centre, and progressively higher density urban blocks to the east.