Winners of annual warming huts design competition unveiled

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This article was published 07/11/2018 (2143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The warming huts have returned.

The Forks Renewal Corporation, which hosts the annual competition for the little huts along the Red River Mutual Trail, announced the winners for the 2019 international competition Friday.

The huts mark points on the skating and skiing trails along the Assiniboine River to The Forks and along the Red River each winter.

A jury of experts chose three winners from among 219 entries submitted by national and international artists and architects for Warming Huts v. 2019: an Arts and Architecture Competition on Ice.

This is the 10th year for the event.

Paul Jordan, chief executive officer of The Forks Renewal Corp., said in a statement the winners include entries from Berlin, New Jersey, and Winnipeg.

“The warming huts competition started out totally organically with the creative community right here in Winnipeg,” Jordan said. “It continues to attract fantastic art and architecture to our community.

“As always, the submissions were outstanding, but we’ve narrowed it down to three that we think will see a lot of love on the Red River Mutual Trail this year.”

From Berlin comes Hoverbox, designed by Simon Kassner and Wilko Hoffmann of Naice Architecture. It is a large white box that hovers over the ice and encloses a labyrinth walkabout, turned upside down by way of two narrow openings that lead inward.

The effect is to disorient visitors, suspending them above the frozen river, allowing them to see only the legs and feet of other visitors. Corridors snake through the body of the building and benches.

The second selected entry is more down to earth and downright cheeky.

Huttie, by Winnipeggers Jennie O’Keefe and Chris Pancoe, is billed as “your friend when the weather’s rough.” It is an anthropomorphic hut in vivid Technicolor splendor.

Inspired by the 1969-70 children’s TV series H.R. Pufnstuf, the hut is designed to relax its visitors. Once inside, the public are invited to seek a seat in the plush recreated interior of the character’s open mouth, along the red carpet of its lolling red tongue.

From the United States, the third selection is Weathermen, a series of interactive art sculptures that mimic people clustering around the scenery typical of the river trail. The scale of the sculptures varies from 1.5-metre-high standing objects to three-metre pavilions that are hollow inside to function as warming huts.

Created by Haemee Han and Jaeyual Lee of JaeMee Studio in Jersey City, N.J., the multi-structure installation is made out of stacked insulation foam with a plaster coating in a palette of warm tones.

The invited artist for this year’s competition is Terje Isungset, a Norwegian musician who will perform using instruments made of ice from the Red River.

Isungset’s performance will take place at Pavilion Sub-Zero, a specially designed tensile structure that will include a stage, seating, screens, lighting features, and an ice bar at The Fork’s historic port, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers.

The structure was designed by Sputnik Architecture, with elements contributed by the University of Manitoba’s faculty of architecture.

In addition, The Forks will also feature Arctic Topiaries, an installation by the Winnipeg Art Gallery (designed by Inuit Art Centre planner Michael Malztan Architecture of Los Angeles).

Raw:Almond, the mid-winter culinary experience, is also booked to return to the frozen river this year.

Construction of the huts is set for early January. Weather permitting, they will be ready for visitors by the end of that month. Several favourite huts from previous years will be brought back to join the new entries.

Over the last nine years, the event has drawn an estimated three million visitors.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca