Warming Huts

Started in 2009, Warming Huts: An Art + Architecture Competition on Ice has been melding world-class design and art with Winnipeg’s famous winters. The competition has seen entries from across the globe and caught the attention of international architecture publications and awards, as well as admiration from newspapers such as the New York Times.

Warming Huts is an open competition, supported by the Manitoba Association of Architects. Proposals for the competition are submitted online at www.warminghuts.com. Once entries are submitted, a blind jury selects designs that best “push the envelope of design, craft and art.”

Nearing the end of January, competition winners travel to Winnipeg to begin construction on their warming hut. The weeklong building blitz gives designers a chance to watch their vision come to life while allowing the public to watch them at work.

Warming huts are then brought out to the Nestaweya River Trail for visitors to skate to, interact with, and enjoy. Warming huts will remain out until the end of the skating season.

Competition Format:

Three teams will be selected as winners of the WARMING HUTS COMPETITION: Arts + Architecture Competition on Ice from submissions of designs for a warming hut or art installation. Winning entries will be placed along the Nestaweya River Trail located on the Assiniboine and Red rivers in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A jury will select the winning designs based on their creativity in use of materials, providing shelter, poetics of assembly and form, integration with the landscape, and ease of construction.

Eligibility for the 2024 Competition

This call for entries is open to all architects, students of architecture, landscape architects, interior designers, artists and industrial designers who have a proven portfolio of design work. It is the intention of this competition to foster and encourage the formation of multi-disciplinary teams.

Schedule

• Oct. 3, 2023 2:00pm CST – Deadline for submissions
• Oct. 6, 2023 – Jury of Competition
• Oct. 6 – 23, 2023 – Technical Review
• Nov. 9, 2023 – Winner Announcement
• Nov. 17, 2023 – Construction Documents Due
• November 2023 – January 24, 2024 – Construction Period
• Jan. 24 – 28, 2024- Building Blitz (Teams travel to Winnipeg)