Competition on Ice:
Designs by World Renowned Architect Frank Gehry and Four Other Competition Winners Unveiled
The Forks, Winnipeg – The warming huts on this year’s river trail are an eclectic collection of varying interpretations of shelter, it was revealed today.
Five new huts will grace the trail this year with their combination of warming functionality and stunning art and architecture.
The first, and possibly the most anticipated hut, comes from world renowned invited architect, Frank Gehry. “Over the past two years this competition has grown exponentially in terms of international recognition. Case in point, Frank Gehry agreed to participate base on an ask by letter,” says Paul Jordan, Chief Operating Officer, The Forks. “Having Gehry and his team participate is the icing on a very big cake.”
Gehry, the designer behind such iconic projects as the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Dancing House in Prague, and the Strata Center in Cambridge, will design a hut made from large blocks of ice entitled, FIVE-HOLE. The blocks are slated to be shipped from Montreal especially for Gehry’s project.
Three huts were chosen from over 40 other entries in the open design competition. The winning designs, WIND CATCHER, Ice Pillows, and ROPE Pavilion represent Norway, Czech Republic and New York respectively.
“We saw some spectacular and fantastic ideas,” says Jordan, “It was a difficult task for the jury to only choose three designs. These three are going to blow people’s minds once they are built because they truly push the design envelope.”
The fifth and final hut, entitled HOTHUT, came from a call to University of Manitoba Architecture students who competed in teams for the final coveted spot.
”The University has developed a unique and functional hut providing more than just a shelter from the elements” says Jordan. “They plan to engage visitors in a social and cultural experience.”
The competition, supported in part by the Manitoba Association of Architects, was announced September 2011 with an open call for submissions through the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), the American Institute of Architecture, online at archiforum.com, and other prominent architectural websites.
The Warming Huts v.2011 An Art +Architecture Competition on Ice is made possible through the generous support of: Inn at the Forks, Manitoba Association of Architects, University of Manitoba, Faculty of Architects & Partners Program and KGS Group.
It is estimated the huts will be built in early January on site (weather pending) and brought down the river trail shortly after. Seven huts from previous years will join the five new huts on the ice.
About Warming Huts v.2012: An Art + Architecture Competition on Ice
Warming Huts v.2011: An Art + Architecture Competition on Ice, was an open competition, endorsed by the Manitoba Association of Architects. Proposals for the competition were all submitted online at www.warminghuts.com. The jury, comprised of last years’ participants have selected the designs that best “push the envelope of design, craft and art.
Three huts were chosen from the open submission process, one from a separate University of Manitoba competition and one is being designed by invited architect Frank Gehry.
2012 Winning Designs
Five-Hole
Gehry Partners, Los Angeles, CA
The concept for the Gehry Partners warming hut is an abstracted igloo comprised from chiseled blocks of ice, stacked and composed in a sculpturally casual way. The interior space, intended to contrast the exterior, provides a sense of warmth through the use of a Douglas Fir timber structure, timber benches as well as a central fire pit. It is intended that the warming hut reads like a crystalline structure during the day, gesturing out from its snow covered surroundings. During the evening, the warming hut would contrast its daytime persona, becoming a lantern drawing visitors in and marking a destination along Assiniboine Credit Union River Trail.
Wind Catcher
Tina Soli and Luca Roncoroni, Norway
Wind Catcher is a simple (furniture-like) structure, a “hole in the wall”. The goal is to create a playful architecture, an object that stimulates curiosity, desire to interact and to discover. At the same time the weather, in particular the wind plays an active role with the architecture and to communicate with the public. This might be with sound, like a horn, or with “snow-formations” that build up around the hut, enlarging the physical space and making the hut constantly changing throughout the winter. The “hole in the wall” itself is also a toy/play-element, a photo opportunity framing people and landscape, a resting spot; with the swings hanging from the ceiling, this hut is a perfect entertainment area for the whole family. Strong colours emphasize the shapes and their functions, in contrast with the surrounding landscape.
Ice Pillows
Mjölk Team, Czech Republic
This resting space for ice skaters extends the provision of mere shelter. Instead of adding a new structure to the landscape, the landscape is transformed into shapes which offer shelter, serving as an exciting extension to the river trail. The pillows are made with the help of bug-like looking pump and sprinkler system that is connected to a generator and a compressor. The pump punches a hole in the ice and sprays the icy river water over an air-filled silicone balloon to create the pillow extension. Once frozen, the silicone balloon is removed from inside the ice sculpture and used to create the next ice pillow. The pillows are placed with their entrances facing each other creating the look of a flower. Each can be climbed on or slid down, and offers a space to hide inside.
Rope Pavilion
Kevin Erickson and Allison Warren, New York, NY
Through the combination of simple materials, ROPE pavilion creates a highly articulated form and space while nestling itself into the Assiniboine Credit Union River Trail’s landscape. Its relationship of skin, made from manila rope, and structure, crafted out of birch frame, merge to form a warming hut whose dense shell blocks winter winds while still being perforated for light and views. The wood interior creates a sense of warmth through colour and texture and its multilayered rope exterior collects snow, further embedding it within the site. The hut’s dome-like form is optimized for heat retention, bifurcating only for an entry threshold and oculus to the sky above. ROPE Pavilion’s simple, yet highly refined tectonics provide an enhanced visual and tactile experience to those traveling down the Assiniboine Credit Union River Trail.
HotHut
University of Manitoba, Faculty of Architecture, Winnipeg, MB
Charged with the task of designing a space that is warm, low-cost and of a limited size, this warming hut is made entirely of foam. Providing more than just a break from the wind, HOTHUT is an exploration into foam’s inherent structural, visual and acoustic qualities by intensifying the hut’s social and cultural experience. Carved from a solid block of high-density foam, HOTHUT is a collection of body spaces that engage visitors. Experiences such as sitting, leaning, standing, kissing, looking through, meeting, stretching, resting, waiting are examples of what give HOTHUT form. HOTHUT playfully questions the relationship between empty and full, positive and negative, contained and exposed, generating spaces to rest and escape in ways that feel both inside and out.
