This studio responds to proposed changes to residential zoning in Winnipeg, which may allow up to four housing units on lots previously restricted to single-family homes in established neighbourhoods near frequent transit. The brief underlines that for increased housing density to positively contribute to the neighbourhoods, additional urban design measures must be considered to support and foster desirable, walkable, resilient, and social communities.

In this phase, students created 60-second films portraying seven Winnipeg neighbourhoods guided by prompts from Richard Weller’s 2024 publication, To the Ends of the Earth: A Grand Tour for the 21st Century. The prompts — Paradise, Utopia, Machine, Monster, Ruin, and Instrument — offer a taxonomy of landscape and urban forms tied to indicators of Anthropocene stress. This framework connects climate concerns with conceptual exploration, providing a critical lens for understanding cities today.

Using these prompts alongside storytelling techniques from film, students examine neighbourhoods as both tangible and intangible entities shaped by form, perception, and myth. The films explore how the neighbourhood, its parts, or specific elements of its communities, architecture, landscape, or infrastructure embody aspects of the archetypes - creating revealing and insightful portrayals.

The films were screened at Winnipeg’s Nuit Blanche festival on September 28, 2024, in collaboration with Storefront Manitoba and at the venue of the Community Design & Planning Centre. The studio is a collaboration between Leanne Muir and Lawrence Bird.