Pipe Dream

Winnipeg's pumphouse is a heritage building retrofitted for the housing crisis

- Katie Underwood

AS CANADA FIGHTS VALIANTLY to jack up its missing middle-density housing stock, the country's heritage buildings are getting second lives. In Winnipeg, the conversion of the James Avenue Pumping Station has been decades in the making. It was first built in 1906 to supply the city's hydrants with water drawn from the Red River. After it was decommissioned in 1986, however, it sat idle, scaring off developers with its foundation's questionable integrity.

Finally, in 2016, after 17 false starts, it was revived by the architects at 5468796, whose flashlights illuminated a gamechanging feature on an early tour of the boarded-up facility.