With the long-awaited opening of the river trail at The Forks, Winnipeggers looking to hit the ice will have a chance to stay warm in style, as six new warming huts opened to the public Friday.
The huts — part of a design competition that featured more than 200 submissions from around the world — include work by artists and architects from close to home in Winnipeg and Peguis First Nation, alongside projects from the U.S., England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and beyond.
Among the winning entries is Amisk, a beaver-themed creation by a group of students from Winnipeg’s École St. Avila School — the youngest winning team in the history of the annual competition.
“Over the years, our community has come to love warming huts as part of the Winnipeg winter experience,” said Sara Stasiuk, CEO of The Forks North Portage.
“Every year we’re blown away by the creativity we see through this competition – it’s a true celebration of art and winter and community and we can’t wait to see people out there enjoying the 2024 warming huts.”
Many of the far-flung creators attempted to capture the essence of Winnipeg and the iconic meeting of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers at The Forks — despite never having visited before.
Sublimation, a structure based around a single structural pole, was constructed by a pan-European trio of architects — Alexander Pollard from the UK, Italian Barbara Stallone, and Portugal’s Francisco Silva.
“Sublimation is the process of water turning into vapour and back into water again, so with this pavilion we’re aiming to accentuate these climactic phenomena that have been at the heart of Winnipeg people for millennia,” Pollard told Global Winnipeg.
“As such, this pavilion transforms itself every day in tune with the climactic conditions. When it’s colder, it freezes over and provides protection for those inside. Today with the winds, the fabric is blowing beautifully and we’re excited to see how this transforms over time.”
The three creators said they’ve felt welcomed by the people of Winnipeg, and that creating their ‘landmark’ structure on the ice — in January in Manitoba — was an exciting experience.
“I’m actually from the coast (of Portugal), so for me this is really new,” Silva said. “I’m used to much warmer weather, so this time, we got to work in these particular weather conditions which is fun, in a certain way …if you don’t need to stand outside for too long.”
Other designers from warmer climates include Christopher and Jordan Loofs, from Oklahoma City via Texas.
Their piece, Murky Waters focuses on the skull of a catfish and is based around archaeological digs at the historic Forks site.
“Our original idea was trying to link the world below (the river) right now with the world on top of the ice — so we really just wanted to bring the life of the river front and center on to the top of the ice,” Christopher Loofs said. “We were inspired by some of the findings of some of the archaeological digs that happened a few years ago, all the catfish bones and other artifacts they found. We wanted to bring a little bit of that culture, that people and celebrate it in the way we knew how.”
Loofs said it was a pleasant surprise the duo’s design was accepted.
“(It was) a little bit of shock, honestly,” he said. “This was the first competition we’ve ever entered together. We love designing together, we’re both architectural designers, and I teach at the University of Oklahoma, so lots of free time on our hands to do something fun like this. It was kind of amazing to hear that we got selected.”
Free walking tours of the warming huts will be held at 1 p.m. Saturdays, from Jan. 27 through Feb. 24 attendees are asked to register ahead of time to make sure they can get free tickets.