2026 Warming Huts Winnipeg

Design Competition Entry – Winnipeg, Manitoba

Misko (Ojibwe for “cardinal”) is a site-specific installation created for the 2026 Warming Huts: Art & Architecture Competition on Ice, an annual international design competition inviting architects and artists to design shelters along the frozen rivers of Winnipeg.

Perched like a bright bird on the snow, Misko introduces a vivid red form into the vast white landscape, a gesture of warmth and joy amid the stillness of winter. The design draws inspiration from the northern cardinal, a resilient year-round resident that endures the prairie cold without migrating. Its form rises from a timber skid, a humble construction base reimagined as architecture. Once flipped, the skid becomes the roof; cross-laminated timber walls and a stabilizing bench complete the enclosure.

Inside, a dialogue of cold and warmth unfolds. Patterns and hues recall curling stones, river ice, and aurora-lit skies, transforming the hut into both refuge and beacon. What appears as a simple shelter reveals a meditation on adaptation and presence, how life persists, bright and steadfast, through the harshest season.

By merging craft, myth, and landscape, Misko turns shelter into symbol, an architecture of endurance that invites gathering, reflection, and quiet wonder on the frozen river.

About this competition.
Each winter in Winnipeg, the Warming Huts: Art + Architecture Competition on Ice invites architects and artists worldwide to create shelters along the frozen Nestaweya River Trail at The Forks, where the Red and Assiniboine Rivers meet. The event turns one of Canada’s coldest cities into a landscape of creativity, endurance, and community.