A tropical zone is one of four biomes housed within The Leaf.
PROJECT The Leaf, Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg, Manitoba 
ARCHITECTS KPMB Architects in association with Architecture49 with HTFC Planning & Design and Blackwell
TEXT Lawrence Bird
PHOTOS Ema Peter, unless otherwise noted
One of Winnipeg?s most popular parks has become home to an innovative new conservatory. The Leaf, by Toronto?s KPMB Architects in partnership with Winnipeg firms Architecture49 and HTFC Planning & Design, is a building and set of landscapes that are oriented, in every respect, toward the sun. Minimizing structural and mechanical systems, and eschewing glass in favour of an innovative material assembly, the designers have created a complex as light and intricate as the flora and fauna living within it. Assiniboine Park has been one of Winnipeg?s most prominent green spaces since its creation in 1904. Designed by Frederick Todd, Canada?s first registered landscape architect, the park spoke the language of the Victorian City Beautiful movement: it was expansive, picturesque, and domesticated. One of the gems within this symbol of Empire was the grand Palm House, where exotic plants from around the world were displayed. But times and styles change, and in 1970, Pratt Lindgren Snider Tomcej and Associates? conservatory entombed and then replaced the Palm House, deploying concrete and brick in service of a sober, sensitive modernism. The Leaf, which replaces the conservatory, speaks a completel...