What happens when a grand vision meets the harsh reality of poor project execution? The Leaf, the centerpiece of Canada’s Diversity Gardens, stands as both a botanical wonder and a cautionary tale. This 84,000-square-foot showcase suffered major failures in time, risk, cost, and procurement management—transforming a potential triumph into a lesson in project management fundamentals. Discover how this ambitious project derailed and what valuable lessons it offers to project managers everywhere.
Known as the centrepiece of Canada’s Diversity Gardens, The Leaf began construction back in 2019 at the hands of Bird Construction, the project manager, and Architecture49, the main architecture firm, contracted by the Assiniboine Park Conservancy. Having faced a multitude of setbacks, from design conflicts and rework to lawsuits and short funds, The Leaf is more than just a horticultural attraction. Finishing $55 million dollars over budget and two years later than anticipated, The Leaf is a blooming example of the consequences of poor project management practices.
As part of the last phase of a program to redevelop and revitalize the Assiniboine Park and with 84,000 square feet, The Leaf submerges visitors into three different biomes in what was described as “something new, something visionary, something exciting for the city, for the province and for our country.” 1 Nevertheless, early aspirations of an exemplary project were clouded by four main oversights: time management, risk management, cost management and procurement management.
Time management was undoubtedly one of the main challenges The Leaf faced that contributed to schedule delays and increased costs. After stopping construction in June 2019, the completion date was moved back from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021 2 , signifying the biggest delay this project experienced. It was later disclosed, through the publication of a lawsuit, that it was caused by the redesign and remedial work needed for the cable-net roof system. Unfortunately, The Leaf was not only affected by poor planning, tracking and managing of project activity durations related to the structural work package but in this case, was further impacted by Manitoba’s cold weather conditions that meant the ETFE plastic roof could not be installed till the spring of 2020. This started a domino effect that pushed back project activities and meant project milestones, such as the completion of the building’s shell, were not met on time. The next delay came at the end of November 2021, when the project faced a lack of financial resources due to construction delays and legal costs. Missing $25 million dollars and trying to accelerate their fundraising efforts, the project was now estimated to reach completion by the end of 2022 3 . While this delay can be allotted back to poor time management exercised during the structural work package, it is clear the project was plagued with uncontrolled schedule changes all throughout. To such an extent that even minor items like a bridge installation and understaffing further delayed the public opening 4 , eventually bringing this project to completion two years behind schedule.
While The Leaf was stunned by three separate lawsuits, the importance of risk management is best exemplified with Assiniboine Park Conservacy’s lawsuit against Architecture49 and Toronto firms Blackwell Bowick Partnership Limited and KPMB Architects on June 11th, 2021 5 . As mentioned before, the project faced significant construction delays due to the redesign and remedial work needed for the cable-net roof system. In the lawsuit, Architecture49 is deemed not knowledgeable enough to oversee the roof system construction and did not consult the engineering firm, Blackwell, who did not provide the appropriate design work to support the complexity of the system. As a whole, the defendants were accused of failing to advise the client of the “particular risks and potential complications” 6 of the leaf-shaped design. The lawsuit, however, does not include Bird Construction who, from a project management perspective, would be the main culprit for neglecting risk management practices that could have identified, analyzed and strategized to mitigate or avoid such potential complications that affected key project objectives. In any case, this legal issue not only highlights the communication breakdown and lack of collaboration within the project team but implies that the project either lacked a risk management process altogether or had an incomplete risk management plan that led to the oversight of risks that cost the project two years and $32.2 million dollars.
The Leaf was a project that, while it may have had stronger performance in other project management knowledge areas, the public information available points to the conclusion that it came short in time management, risk management, cost management, and procurement management. However, as far as the sequencing of project activities and resources, monitoring project progress and performance, and communicating project status and updates to
stakeholders, The Leaf showed enough integration management to ensure the different components of the project were consolidated and project objectives were still achieved. There were also references 13 to project milestones throughout the construction of this building which reflect an established outline of project objectives and deliverables that imply proper scope management. Additionally, the fact that the client was aware of these milestones and their importance, reinforces the idea that a communication management plan was in place which allowed the project team to know and understand the project status on an ongoing basis. Lastly, while there is no public reference to a formal change control process, it can be assumed that this project had an efficient change request system including forms, some sort of change review board and a change log. Especially given the fact that the design for the cable-net roof system, one of the most critical items of this building, underwent a series of changes.
