Warming Huts v.2026
The Warming Huts Competition 2025 is an international arts and architecture competition inviting innovative designs for warming huts or art installations to be placed along the Nestaweya River Trail at The Forks, Winnipeg, Manitoba. This unique event combines creative design with functional shelter, offering participants a chance to engage with extreme winter conditions in a public landscape historically significant and heavily trafficked by locals and tourists alike.
Winning entries must demonstrate creativity in material use, shelter quality, poetic assembly, landscape integration, and ease of construction. The huts become part of a winter experience on ice, where visitors travel by foot, bike, skates, or skis along the frozen river trails. The competition encourages multi-disciplinary teams and challenges designers to respond thoughtfully to the harsh climate and cultural context, creating engaging, durable structures that invite reflection and warmth in sub-zero temperatures.
Eligibility and Submission Requirements
The competition is open to architects, students, landscape architects, interior designers, artists, and industrial designers with proven design portfolios. Multi-disciplinary teams are encouraged to apply.
Submissions must be made electronically through the competition website in English, consisting of:
- Design Submission Sheets (2 pages, 11” x 17” or A3):
- Project summary (150 words) including the unique registration number.
- Selected images and drawings, including elevations, perspectives, and materials.
- Team Information Sheets (up to 4 pages, 8.5” x 11” or A4):
- Team member CVs, contact information, and a 100-word description of the team’s strengths.
- Artist and architect registration details.
- Portfolio images of past projects.
A unique registration number is assigned upon registration and must appear on all submitted pages.
Dates and Deadlines
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| Submission Deadline | October 7, 2025, 2:00 pm CST |
| Selected Teams Notified | October 13, 2025 |
| Technical Review Period | October 13 – 28, 2025 |
| Construction Documents Due | November 21, 2025 |
| Construction Period | November 21, 2025 – January 27, 2026 |
| Launch and Events | January 28 – 30, 2026 |
Awards and Budget
| Budget Item | Amount (CAD) |
|---|---|
| Designers’ Honorarium | Up to $3,500 |
| Materials and Consultants | Up to $7,500 (including taxes) |
| Labor Costs | Up to $4,000 |
| Construction Management | Up to $1,500 |
| Accommodation (foreign teams) | Up to $1,000 |
| Airfare (foreign teams) | Up to $2,500 |
The total budget for each winning project is $16,500 CAD.
Jury and Selection Process
A blind jury composed of architects, designers, artists, community representatives, and a University of Manitoba student reviews submissions. They select 10 finalists, then rank the top 5 before conducting a technical review to choose 3 winners.
Site Context and Project Challenges
The Nestaweya River Trail at The Forks is a historic meeting place located at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. The trail is heavily used in winter, serving as a transit route and recreational space for skating, skiing, and curling.
Winnipeg’s winter temperatures can plunge below –30°C, with ice on the rivers up to 1 meter thick. Designs must respond to extreme cold, wind chill, snow, and solar radiation while being structurally sound and easy to build.
Project Delivery and Community Engagement
Winning teams collaborate with The Forks Renewal Corporation’s project manager for construction. Final construction drawings are due in November to allow timely fabrication. Teams are invited to Winnipeg to oversee installation and participate in community events, including public talks, student engagements, and celebrations.
Design Criteria
Entries will be judged on:
- Creativity and innovation in material use and shelter design
- Originality, coherence, and clarity of concept
- Durability and appropriateness for extreme climate
- Cost-effectiveness and ease of construction
✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight
The Warming Huts Competition invites inventive architectural responses to severe winter environments, emphasizing both form and function. The visual and material poetry required fosters structures that engage users experientially while offering shelter. However, balancing artistic ambition with practical constraints poses ongoing challenges, especially under budget and construction limitations. Nonetheless, this competition enriches the dialogue on temporary winter architecture, highlighting possibilities for public space activation in cold climates and expanding architectural thinking around impermanence and environmental responsiveness.
Conclusion
The Warming Huts Competition 2025 presents a distinctive opportunity for architects, designers, and artists to create functional artworks that enrich Winnipeg’s winter public realm. This competition uniquely merges creative expression with technical rigor, addressing extreme environmental conditions while encouraging social engagement.
By fostering innovative design solutions that offer warmth, shelter, and poetic interaction with the frozen landscape, the competition reinforces architecture’s capacity to transform public spaces into meaningful experiences. The multi-disciplinary and community-centered approach not only cultivates professional growth but also invites the public to experience art and architecture in an inspiring winter setting. This blend of creativity, function, and place-making makes the Warming Huts Competition an influential platform for contemporary winter architecture.
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