Now in its 8th year, the annual Winter Stations design competition returns to Toronto’s Woodbine Beach with a series of experimental structures.
Designers from around the world have submitted work to the competition, which challenges them to dream up lifeguard stations that will encourage people to head to the beach in winter. The theme this year is resilience.
Five beach stations have been named winners, and they range from the Wildlife-Guard Chair – shaped like a northern cardinal bird and designed by Mickael Minghetti and Andres Jimenez Monge – to The Hive, a hexagonal dome inspired by bees and designed by Kathleen Dogantzis and Will Cuthbert.
Another winning design is Cemre Önertürk & Ege Çakır’s Enter-Face pavilion – a pair of boxes with room for one person to enter each, and watch the world around them. The designers describe it as a comment on our pandemic-driven relationship with the digital screen.
A student team from the University of Toronto, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design also made the cut this year, with a submission designed as a direct reference to the challenges of the last two years. The bright red shelter, named Introspection, contains a lifeguard tower at its centre – which the design team says expresses the ‘inherent stability within us’.
The structures are all on display at Woodbine Beach until the end of March.
