The Snowball Effect

The Snowball Effect

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Cycles in nature produce useful matter from waste, dead and decaying material by transforming and reincorporating the spent material into new habitats, shelters, subsistence, or fuel. Our own accumulation of post-consumer waste, however, is too rarely re-incorporated back into productive use. Here, like a snowball accumulating icy particles as it rolls and grows, the Warming Hut accumulates and reclaims discarded, broken objects into a new form. Seen from afar, the Warming Hut appears as a large snowball. As one skates closer, the particularities of broken outdated and discarded objects begin to emerge on the surface as a highly textured enclosing shell. The final inversion of expectations occurs where a portal in the shell provides access to a world of colour and glitter. In this whimsical grotto, small groups of skaters can congregate and contemplate this culture of accumulation and the possibility of inventive reuse.

Credits

Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited Kevin Weiss – Principal, Minette Murphy, Andrew Ard