Moving railways in Winnipeg

I came across this article from the CBC regarding the current CPR lines through northern downtown area. There are some speculation that the area maybe reconfigured into green space and condos, not necessarily the best solution. They assume that the current rail lines would relocate but that seems a lot of expense and energy when we should be trying to configure the space to coexist with these still functional railways.

I then started looking at what perhaps other cities have been doing to deal with the issue and i came across this design from Calgary by a architectural collaborative with Mark Boutin, here is an excerpt from Canadian Architect:

"This project is a design for the first of an envisioned series of international networked centres dedicated to fulfilling the United Nations mandate for international cooperation towards a healthy global community. Spearheaded by a society of scholars worldwide, the centres are conceived as forums for the discussion, debate, and dissemination of world affairs. The client's mandate was to create an architecture that symbolically and functionally evoked a bringing together of diverse people to share and celebrate their differences and similarities, aspiring to greater tolerance and understanding.

The 25,000-square-foot building melds visitor service and exhibition space with discussion and debate forums, lecture halls, curatorial areas, theatre, parking, and public event spaces. Retail spaces are also provided at ground and lower levels of the public plaza.

The site is a residual space presently occupied by a Canadian Pacific Rail line that divides the city of Calgary immediately south of downtown. Although functionally and symbolically connective at the national scale, locally the rail manifests a schism that cuts off one side of the city from the other. The site is currently surrounded by mid-rise and high-rise buildings..."