The shelter for Winnipeg appears as a free standing ice monolith in the landscape with an intriguing object on the inside. The project is drawn from the organic sculpted landscape field that produces a continuous interior, blurring boundaries between outside and inside. The outside of the shelter maintains its autonomy with an ice semi hollow monolithic structure which contrasts the curvilinear landscape and interior.
It is our intention to engage the users with surprise and excitement; as the project is a mute monolith on the outside, but as the user gets closer and moves around they start to see the intrinsic qualities of the object inside.
Between outside and inside the objects, an ice poche that melts according to natural weather conditions is generated; achieving a mutual agreement between objects and the environment. When the ice rock starts to melt the soft interior object appears as a new thing coming to life; announcing the end of winter and beginning of spring.
The object maintains its autonomy but at the same time cannot exist without the landscape and the weather conditions. Delivering a sublime event that depends on architecture, nature and technology.
The inner object is structured with bend aluminum pipes covered with fiberglass and fabric on the inside to produce a warm space. The curvilinear lines of the aluminum pipes are the structure of the two objects, and also create an ornamented fiberglass skin. The monolith is achieved with plastic molds fabricated with CNC and vacuum technology.
This subtle approach that speculates on the ambiguity of the thing, yields a novel understanding on the take of tectonics, matter and program. As the thing is too big to become a furniture peace, too clumsy to be seen as a sculpture, too small for a house, and overly design to become a standard space. Rather than us giving it a specific purpose or function, we like to leave this ambiguity open to be all or none of the above and speculate on future uses