Warming Huts Competition: Atelier Big City

The winners of the Warming Huts v.2013: An Art + Architecture Competition on Ice have been announced. Three huts were chosen from the open submission process; one was selected from a separate University of Manitoba competition, and yet another is being designed, and built in Winnipeg, by Atelier Big City (Adjunct Professor Howard Davies, Randy Cohen and Anne Cormier, all B.Arch. 1982). Endorsed by the Manitoba Association of Architects, the competition received over 100 entries this year. Jury members selected designs that best “push the envelope of design, craft and art.”

From Canadian Architect: "Atelier Big City’s design emphasizes keeping warm together. The great open-air gathering space is inviting and receptive, welcoming skaters in for a moment of rest. The simple yet grand structure out on this natural rink is a hovering silhouette, somewhat blurred into the colours of the ice and snowy winter setting. Finished in Tyvec, a material inevitably linked with things to come, the scale of the warming hut is larger than life to imitate the wide open space surrounding it. A true beau geste of a building – part mirage, part air, a skeleton of everyday construction aspiring to create a place. Big City’s construction can be compared to a giant thick blanket, with the layers filled with air, forming an insulating layer, giving form to the hut, absorbing the sun's warmth, hopefully creating a brief pause in the cold winter skate."

For full details, please see the article in Canadian Architect and the competition website.