[wardlow]

Congratulations on saving an old building and having a very quantifiably large development. This is all very encouraging.

But, to rain on the parade a little... I'm trying to understand the reasons for, or appeal of, this whole business of creating quasi-private 'space between buildings' as a more important consideration than the actual public space in front of the building - the street. This is basically the guiding design principle at Railside, and now it's being transplanted to a traditional street-block context of the northeast Exchange District.

(And I know this block doesn't have a rear lane, and how creating new ones serve very practical purposes... but the lanes or whatever seem to be the focus here.)

I really don't know where this trend is coming from. Is it just a local thing, or something in the design world more broadly right now? Is the public street environment so bad in downtown Winnipeg (traffic noise, crummy pedestrian environment, etc.) that designers want to create a better space elsewhere? I'm obviously critical, but I am honestly trying to understand this a little better... it just screams housing project to me. A cool Scandinavian housing project, sure, but still a housing project.