Muse Flats is a mid-rise residential building in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba. Designed for The University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation 2.0 (UWCRC 2.0), the 15-story building includes commercial space on the ground floor and 119 residential units above. Located immediately across the street from the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the building is positioned on the edge of the city’s cultural core to the south and a largely residential neighborhood serving the University of Winnipeg to the north. The building’s range of unit types, including (28) studios, (59) one-bedroom units, (29) two-bedroom units, and (3) three-bedroom units, with an integrated affordable housing component, giving appeal to a wide range of mixed-income residents.

At the ground level, floor to ceiling storefront glass along the property line captures the greatest area for commercial program and is capped by a thin roof slab. The residential towers rest upon this transparent plinth, appearing to float above the ground.  The massing of the building’s upper levels emphasizes the verticality of the design, creating a “bundle” of five residential towers organized around a central circulation tower. The individual towers have varied footprints and heights to emphasize their individuality, give the massing a twisting motion, and lend a human scale to the urban presence of the project.

The building fenestration complements its massing, with diagonally organized windows accentuating the twisting of the towers while curating the residents’ views of the city. By maximizing the number of corner units and integrating large windows, the residential suites are afforded sweeping views, creating powerful visual relationships between the building and downtown Winnipeg. On the apartment interiors, the irregular placement of the windows, with some low and some high within the room, frame multiple views of the city, the landscape, and the sky simultaneously. These large windows allow generous amounts of natural light to reach deep into the unit interiors, creating bright, light-filled apartments throughout the building. The 10th floor amenity spaces and an adjacent rooftop terrace area provide shared common spaces for resident’s use.  By positioning the community areas on one of the building’s upper stories, the amenity level is flooded with natural light and has commanding 270-degree views to the north, east, and south.

Muse Flats is led by Michael Maltzan Architecture in collaboration with local Associate Architect Cibinel Architects Ltd.w. Photos by Stationpoint Photographic