Three teams have been selected as winners of this year’s 2020 WARMING HUTS: And Arts + Architecture Competition on Ice at The Forks.
Of the nearly 200 submissions from all over the world this year, the winning structures hail from Japan, France and Calgary.
The huts will be unveiled to the public on Friday, Jan. 24, and will be on display until the end of the skating season.
This year, due to the river trail not being open for skating, the warming huts will be placed throughout The Forks site for residents to see.
Forest Village – Ashida Architect & Associates Co. – Japan
The architectural team from Japan chose to submit a Forrest Village for their 2020 entry. Team members Masato Ashida and Adrian Stecheweh are in Winnipeg for the weekend to oversee the construction of the huts.
The structures were originally designed to be made out of straw but instead were made from cattails as there is an abundance of the plant in Manitoba.
Thursday morning, crews were assembling the warming hut. The design was brought to life by using a mechanism created by Dave Froese from The Forks. Instead of hand-rolling the bales, Froese invented a Cattail baler.
S[HOVEL] – Modern Office – Calgary
The warming hut will be made of 194 aluminum shovels. The team said they challenged themselves to design a warming hit that could be built and subsequently disassembled using only a wrench and hand drill.
The Droombok – Onomiau – France
The Droombok design concept – The Forks
Submitted by a small architectural team in France — The Droombox concept is based on a mystical creature living along the river trail in Winnipeg.
Architect Noël Picaper said the structure has a rough exterior to symbolize hard Canadian winters, with the inside made from white spray foam to mimic Canada’s snowy landscape.