The 2016 Winter Stations Design Competition unveiled its winners on Jan. 11, wrapping up the second consecutive year of the contest. Created by Toronto-based architecture firms RAW Design and Ferris + Associates, and local design consulting practice Curio, the competition encourages residents to engage with the outdoors through the colder months. The annual event transforms a select number of identical lifeguard chairs found along Toronto's Lake Ontario waterfront into temporary exhibits. This year's theme "Freeze/ Thaw" was a nod to the city's notoriously unpredictable winter weather patterns and competitors were asked to incorporate the definition of both words within their designs.
The competition, which launched on Sept. 14, 2015, received 378 submissions from both local and international artists. The jury selected a total of seven designs: four submitted by practicing architects, and three entries designed by students at Ryerson University's Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Sciences, OCAD University's School of Environmental Design, and Laurentian University's Faculty of Science, Engineering and Architecture. The budget allocated towards the realization of each station will be 15,000 Canadian dollars (about $10,537), plus an additional CA$3,500 (about $2,459) awarded to each of the four winners.
"Visitors will discover a feast of textures in the schemes—from vessels clad in charred wood to sailing rope to vintage furs. Inventive, playful and irreverent, all of the installations can be read like pieces of poetry on the beach." jury chair Lisa Rochon said in a press release.
This year's jury comprised: jury chair Lisa Rochon, Friends of the Beach Parks founder; Jane Hutton, landscape architect and Harvard University assistant professor; Alex Josephson, Toronto-based Partisans Architecture co-founder Lily Jeon, 2015 Winter Stations Design Competition winner; Diana Koncan, 2015 Winter Stations Design Competition winner; Catherine Osborne, Azure Magazine editor-in-chief.
Winter Stations will be on display from Feb. 13 through March 20 in the heart of The Beach community in Toronto.
Student Projects:
