The Winter Stations are now standing along Toronto’s East Beaches!
By Lucas on Feb 16, 2016
Last week, we had the pleasure of attending the Winter Stations Pecha Kucha at the Gladstone Hotel. A pecha kucha is a Japanese style presentation where 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each. This format allowed the winners of the Winter Stations Design Competition to present and explain their designs.
This is the second year RAW Design, Ferris + Associates, and Curio have held the Winter Stations competition, which aims to transform lifeguard stands along Toronto’s east beaches into interactive art installations. This year, the competition received 378 submissions from 45 countries! Four winners were selected and three schools participated, so there are seven designs in total. You can see all the winners here.
There was a great turnout to hear the artists, architects, and students, speak about their innovative designs, and we actually had a chance to chat with a few of the teams to get some more insight on their thought processes.
The first team we chatted with was the group of students from Laurentian University, which consists of Chris Baziw, Ra’anaa Brown, Trevor D’Orazio, Andrew Harkness, Matthew Hunter, Danielle Kastelein, and Terrance Galvin, Director of Architecture. Their design is called Aurora Borealis.
Aurora Borealis
“We used thermochromic tubes, colour changing paints,” explained Harkness when describing the fabrication method. “This is going to sound really cheesy, but you know those shirts from the ‘80s that had the colour changing around the armpits and everything? That’s what we based it off of.”
Resembling a large chandelier, the tubes will dangle and change colour in an instant as the temperature changes, whether it’s the air becoming warmer, someone breathing on the surface, or simply coming in contact with it.
“There’s a transition. As it’s cold out right now, the tubes will stay one colour, but as it gets up to that 10 degree point, it will flip,” Harkness said when relating the design to the Freeze & Thaw theme of the competition. “So one day, the dog walker walking down the beach will see the one set of colours, and then might come back and see a completely different set.”
The next design team we chatted with was the three artists that designed In the Belly of a Bear, Caitlind r.c Brown, Wayne Garrett, and Lane Shordee, all from Calgary. This design is large and ominous, but supposedly very comfortable inside.
In the Belly of a Bear
With regards to the Freeze & Thaw theme, Shordee said “We approached it more on a psychological level. So, when people go in there, it changes their experience from being freezing outside to thawing in our cozy environment.”
The exterior is mainly burnt pine and the interior is lined with fur, which is a mixture of real fur and faux fur. Brown pointed out that any fur that was purchased was faux and that all the real fur was used from recycled coats.
They spent about three hours in the cold last Thursday supervising the fabrication of their design. Since they all have artistic backgrounds, they are not used to watching someone else create their work for them. Garrett expressed that it was an honour to watch someone else make what they had designed. Of course, they were still hands-on during the fabrication.
“I like the ominous twist to it, like this idea of being digested as well is really interesting,” said Brown. “It’s like you’re hibernating in this space, but it’s also this menacing, sort of bestial kind of quality.”
“We have no background in architecture whatsoever,” Brown continued. “We’re sort of like artists on the fringe of design and architecture in a lot of ways because I think we’re quite interested in functionality and spaces that can be entered, and people moving through spaces, but it’s not our background, so it's all really interesting to us!”
The last group we chatted with was Team Secret (Calvin Fung and Victor Huynh), who designed Flow. These Ryerson graduates took a very interesting approach to the Freeze & Thaw theme. “We sort of reinterpreted this ice crystal, using that as a space module and how it loosely comes together, it can sort of be fluid and loose, but also it can sort of bind together,” explained Fung.
Flow
The pieces all slot together loosely, but when they are all jumbled together, they create this solid mass, “kind of like paper clips.” In total, there are over 1,000 pieces that make up Flow. All the materials were on site at the time of the Pecha Kucha and Team Secret were looking forward to helping put it all together over the weekend in preparation of the big unveiling on Family Day. Huynh estimated that it would take three to five hours to assemble.
(L-R) Calvin Fung and Victor Huynh
Yesterday, all of the designs were unveiled and Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon and Platinum Sponsor, Christopher Wein, President of Great Guelph were in attendance for the event. The Winter Stations will remain standing until March 20th, 2016, so head out to Kew, Scarborough, and Balmy Beaches to warm up!
Winter Stations 2016
In the Belly of a Bear by Caitlind r.c Brown, Wayne Garrett and Lane Shordee. Calgary, Canada. Photo credit: Khristel Stecher
Floating Ropes by MUDO (Elodie Doukhan and Nicolas Mussche). Montreal, Canada. Photo credit: Khristel Stecher
Aurora Borealis by Laurentian University. Sudbury, Ontario. Photo credit: Khristel Stecher
The Steam Canoe by OCADU. Toronto, Ontario. Photo credit: OCADU
Lithoform by Ryerson. Toronto, Ontario. Photo credit: Khristel Stecher
Flow by Team Secret (Calvin Fung and Victor Huynh). Toronto, Canada. Photo credit: Khristel Stecher
Sauna by FFLO (Claire Furnley and James Fox), Kent, UK. Photo credit: Khristel Stecher
Platinum Sponsors: The Ontario Association of Architects, Great Gulf and Diamante Development.
Gold and Silver Sponsors: Rockport Group, The Daniels Group, Demirov Group, Urban Capital, Fieldgate Homes, Marlin Spring, Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, Bousfields Inc., Bridging Finance, Grace Real Estate and the Design Exchange
