Warming Huts: The Latest Architecture and News

Each year Winnipeg’s Red River Mutual Rivertrail is transformed by a series of site specific "Warming Huts" that bring life and refuge to what is the world's longest naturally frozen skating trail. The annual tradition’s popularity has grown exponentially, attracting participation from firm’s worldwide. This edition is offering visitors a highly acclaimed pop-up restaurant, a ski-through museum, and an eclectic collection of warm shelters, including a “hybrid” wood hut designed by Mexico’s Rojkind Arquitectos. You can see all eight completed installations, after the break.

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Capturing the spirit of the annual Warming Huts design competition, Paris and Barcelona-based architecture firm Kilometrezero, or KM(0), has developed this conceptual project for a warming hut in Winnipeg. Fondly referred to as the "Valentine's Day concept" and aptly named KM(3) – Warming Heart, the project is intended as an inviting space for visitors to escape the winter chill between sports activities, and a symbolic structure that visually evokes the idea of warmth.

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A “blind” jury has announced the 2015 winners of the international Warming Huts competition. Selected from 100 entries, two winning “shelter” designs and one “installation” design were awarded. Each winning proposal will be constructed in January alongside the longest naturally frozen skating trail in the world: the Red River Mutual Rivertrail in Winnipeg, Canada. More about the winning designs, and four other highlighted proposals, after the break.

Toronto-based RAW Design has been crowned winner of the annual Warming Huts competition, which is intended to “push the envelop of design, craft and art” by encouraging architects to design innovative warming shelters along the frozen Red River Mutual Trail in Winnipeg, Canada.

Moving away from the traditional notion of an enclosed shelter, the firm’s winning proposal “Nuzzles” engages skaters with a playful arrangement of “insulated appendages” (a.k.a. pool noodles) supported by a geodesic lattice structure that is illuminated and heated from within. Users are encouraged to “nestle into the structure” and manipulate its fur-like exterior into informal resting areas.