Warm Form

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Warm Form

Winnipeg, Canada

The Warming Huts competition calls for the design of a small structure along the Assiniboine Credit Union River Trail – an 8.5 kilometer recreational skating path in Winnipeg, Canada. Because of the difficulty of accessing the trail by car, all proposals were required to be designed to be broken down, pulled on a skid to the site by snowmobile, and reassembled. We began by thinking through the kinds of component-based assemblies this requirement suggested, but with a particular interest in the range of configurations that might be achieved through a repetitive, self-similar component. Rather than focusing on the design of the individual part, we appropriated the familiar shape of a common snack food: the veggie straw. Looking at the range of difference evident in any given bag of straws, we discovered instructive similarities and differences: each straw is roughly the same length and texture, yet also a slightly different variation on the type in shape and color. We began working with the straws to physically model possible configurations for our proposal, exploring ways in which the inherent structural and formal properties of this found component informed logics of enclosure, surface, and aperture. In the final prototype, the straw shape is recreated from liquid expanding urethane foam, cast into custom-milled MDF molds - each utilizing specially-designed edge and end caps during the casting process to produce particular articulations in the final forms. These embellishments to the basic component are designed as seating, gripping surfaces, hand-warming openings, and hooks to hang one’s skates while changing socks.