
From a present to a half sunken car, from a school made of snow to a beaver, from a grain elevator to a prototype of a transitional home, this year’s six new Warming Huts bring creativity, colour, conversation, and community to the Nestaweya River Trail.
Artist and architects from Scotland, Hong Kong, the United States, and Winnipeg are at The Forks putting the finishing touches on this year’s Warming Huts including Pom Pom, Prairie Castle, Prototype Home, ROSEMARY Skool, The Present, Wrong Turn.
“Since its inception 15-years-ago, the Warming Huts competition has been about connection. Connection with the community, connection with art, and connection with our rivers and this place,” says Sara Stasiuk, Chief Executive Officer, The Forks North Portage. “This year’s huts capture this spirit and we can’t wait to see people out enjoying and exploring the 2025 Warming Huts.”
The winning teams have been busy this week, completing their huts, plus connecting with each other and the community. On top of taking a field trip to the University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture the winning teams also participated in a 10x20x20 event, where they highlighted their designs, and got to hear about other Winnipeg design projects.
This year’s invited artist’s Suzanne Morrissette and Jaimie Isaac – co-directors of ROSEMARY Gallery – are using their hut, ROSEMARY Skool, to not only be a visual piece to admire on the river trail, but also as a location for programming and events.
“We have a great list of arts-based projects, performances, and public discussions, plus a community feast and other celebrations that will all take place in and around ROSEMARY Skool,” says Jaimie Isaac, Co-Director, ROSEMARY Gallery.
The hut will represent a birchbark basket and will be built of snow and bricks formed from clay gathered from the river.
“The organic materials used to build the hut will return to the river with the spring melt, as an ephemeral evolution,” says Suzanne Morrissette, Co-Director, ROSEMARY Gallery.
All six new huts are open for folks to explore, admire, and warm up in, and they can be found around The Forks along with other favourites from years past.
Returning for a third year, free walking tours of Warming Huts are taking place on Saturdays, Jan. 25 and Feb. 1, 8, 15, and 22 at 1 PM. Guests must register for their free ticket as space is limited to ensure the best experience: https://3common.com/warminghuttours2025
Warming Huts v.2025: An Arts + Architecture Competition on Ice was announced in July 2024 with an open call for submissions. The winners were selected by jury in October 2024.
This competition is made possible with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
About Warming Huts v.2025: An Arts + Architecture Competition on Ice
Warming Huts v.2025: An Arts + Architecture Competition on Ice was announced in July 2024 with an open call for submissions. Proposals for the competition were all submitted online at www.warminghuts.com. The jury worked together to anonymously select the designs that best “push the envelope of design, craft, and art.”
Three warming huts were chosen from the open submission process, and one school was selected to participate through the school program.
Note: All descriptions are provided by the design teams.
Warming Huts Competition Winners:
Pom Pom
By Haoran Deng and Bicen Song
Hong Kong
The beaver, a national symbol of Canada, embodies productivity, resourcefulness, and persistence. It teaches teamwork and the importance of individual contributions, symbolizing creativity, cooperation, and harmony. The Pom Pom, resembling a friendly beaver on ice, serves as a temporary public winter shelter, warming visitors and inspiring them with the beaver’s spirit.
Inspired by the beaver's ball shape when wrapping for heat, the Pom Pom’s form is spherical with a hollow center. The shelter encourages reflection on nature and sustainability. Using natural materials, it highlights living in harmony with the environment, promoting a deeper connection with nature and fostering a sense of community and shared responsibility.
Imagine a snowy landscape where the Pom Pom stands, its fluffy tree branches glistening with frost. The construction process involves community members, and craftspeople working together, much like a colony of beavers.
As the sun sets and stars twinkle, the Pom Pom pavilion becomes a magical haven. Visitors are encouraged to engage in communal activities like storytelling, music performances, and workshops, fostering a sense of community and shared purpose.
This design provides a functional shelter and reminds us of our responsibility to protect and preserve the natural world. Using materials that blend seamlessly with the environment and promoting sustainability, the Pom Pom pavilion embodies the beaver's spirit and invites visitors to reconnect with nature and one another.
The pavilion starts with wood beams on a wood base. The external finish, made of locally sourced tree branches, repels snow, keeping the interior dry and cozy. These materials are chosen to ensure the structure is both durable and harmonious with its natural surroundings.
Inside, the pavilion is insulated with natural materials like straw, creating a warm atmosphere.
Prairie Castle
By Nick Green and Greig Pirri
Scotland
Grain elevators have long been a symbol of the Prairie Provinces, towering over the plains and earning the affectionate title ‘Prairie Castles’. Our design combines the distinctive forms of these Manitoban icons with features borrowed from rugged ancient castles such as small offset windows and an imposing archway, referencing our home in Scotland.
Prairie Castle is a memorial to the lost grain elevators of Canada, the many colours of which are combined into a bold pattern wrapped around the tower. Having travelled down the Assiniboine River from prairie to city, collecting fragments of forgotten elevators along the journey, the design brings together the rich and varied stories of the plains into one landmark.
Visitors drawn to the tower to seek shelter will be greeted by an ever-shifting pattern of shadows and colours, as light falls through coloured windows onto the deep blue interior.
Wrong Turn
By Christopher Loofs, Jordan Loofs, and Kaci Marshall
Oklahoma, United States
Wrong Turn brings a playful critique of climate change to life on the frozen river. A vintage car, saved from the wreckers, appears to have crashed through the ice, its body sinking into the frozen surface. Next to the sinking vehicle, a vintage gas pump raises questions—was this an accident, or the intended destination? The installation hopes to bring together the gas-guzzling automobile with a legible site of climate change in the frozen river surface as past winters have become shorter and warmer. The cantilevered design simulates the moment of impact while allowing access to the interior. Inside, two upright seats invite visitors to sit shielded from the wind, providing a space to take a break or retie their skates. LED lights in the installation aim to create a soft, glowing beacon at night, especially in fog, drawing people closer to explore.
The Poem:
Wrong Turn
Norwood Bridge. Wrong Turn. Kerplunk. Looking for gas, now taking a dunk.
Ice once was thicker, more solid, and colder. Now here I am, swerving off of the shoulder.
Lo and behold, I did find a pump. Watching my Canso sink like a chump.
Just wanted a top off, my gas tank to fill. A wrong turn straight to an oil spill.
Why do we drive these carbon machines? These gassers and guzzlers, oh so unclean!
Temperatures rising, a walk on thin ice. We spin. We sputter. We roll the dice.
Invited Artist v.2025
ROSEMARY Skool
By Suzanne Morrissette and Jaimie Isaac
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Our Warming Hut takes shape as an abstracted birchbark basket constructed from a snow form, with a brick entrance into the basket architecture. The bricks are formed from clay gathered from the river and from clay 12-feet under the city’s surface. The organic materials utilized for the build will return to the river with the spring melt as an ephemeral evolution. The birchbark basket warming hut came from the concept that baskets are knowledge carriers and vessels to contain gifts. Our plans are to continue the programming from the ROSEMARY Gallery inside and outside in the ROSEMARY SKOOL basket warming hut for the duration of its physical presence on the confluence on the frozen rivers. ROSEMARY SKOOL is a roster of arts-based projects, performances, public discussions, and a community feast. To learn more about ROSEMARY you can visit www.rosemarygallery.ca
School Program Winner:
The Present
By: Grade 10 Students
MET Exchange School, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Cold and chilly, the snow falling and the wind whistling. In the distance, resting atop the snow, a present resides. Filled not with toys, or games, but memories and sensations. The welcoming crackle of a fire, the rich scent of hot chocolate and pine needles, the warmly tinted lights around the room.
These are all things that come to mind when we think of the holiday season, things that this warming hut encapsulates.
The interior is reminiscent of Christmas morning from when we were little, the childlike joy of opening gifts with family and reading story books together.
To capture this feeling, a real tree will be placed inside and accompanied by walls adorned with beautiful lights and decorations that kindle the warm tenderness hidden underneath the snow.
Present-shaped seats and a small book library will be inside as well, open to all who’d like to read some familiar tales.
The exterior mimics that of a present, with ribbon and festive wrapping paper. To form this shelter, a wooden frame will be constructed as well as waterproof fabric to act as a ribbon, and an entrance into this holiday magic.
In this hut the line between our fondest memories and now is blurred; we are children once again, in this hut we are warm. The warmth of a cup of coco. The warmth of excitement leading up to Christmas day. The warmth of an embrace, for with love you’ll forget about this cold and chilly night.
University of Manitoba:
Prototype Home
By The Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba
In this year’s the Faculty of Architecture contribution to the Warming Huts investigates “the idea of home.” In a world where the “sense of home” is always changing, with the economic transformations, local social and political challenges, high global mobility, major migration movements, and urban growth, mental health challenges, the idea of home for the individual is always transforming, where a mass of nomad individuals is continuously in search of “home.” Home becomes suddenly an elusive notion, a basic human need that requires a special attention. What is home? What is home for you?
A growing number of encampments in Winnipeg surging for the past few years points to an urgent issue of homelessness in the city, and the critical management of our riparian landscapes. The Forks embraces a significant part of the riverbanks downtown and is vulnerable to encampment occupations as well. How could we respond to this critical urban issue? Using the context of the Warming Huts [Art + Architecture Competition on Ice], we were commissioned by the Faculty of Architecture to develop a project for the 2025 edition. For the past few years, the faculty has been dedicated in developing initiatives that address community critical issues as in homelessness. This opportunity allows us to consider a more consequent project: a prototype for transitional home for the Winnipeg homeless community under Winnipeg’s social, geographic and climate conditions. We are working in close collaboration with Marion Willis and the St. Boniface Street Links organization.