Winter Stations on Display in Toronto
John Hill
27. February 2023
Photo: Phil Marion
For the 9th winter in a row, the lifeguard stations at Woodbine Beach in Toronto have been transformed by architects, designers, and students into “bold designs that spark conversations.”
For the latest iteration of Winter Stations, which was launched in 2015 by RAW design, Ferris + Associates and Curio, the theme is Radiance: “Designers were asked to celebrate their growth, inner strength, and freedom in defining and showing what Radiance means to them.” Given that the annual program is a way to enliven the cold and otherwise empty waterfront during the coldest days of the year, the open-ended theme is a fitting one.
Hundreds of entries were submitted to the competition and five winners were selected by the jury, which was comprised of Melissa Agostino, Michaela MacLeod, Mary-Margaret McMahon, Stefan Novakovic and Brad Bradford. Accompanying the five winners are three student designs from Toronto Metropolitan University, Waterloo Department of Architecture and Guelph University.
Below are photographs of the winners and student designs, which can be seen at Woodbine Beach until the end of March. Afterwards, some of the winning designs will be featured at a pop-up exhibition in Mississauga and at Sir Casmir Gzowski Park in Etobicoke’s Sunnyside neighborhood, effectively turning the Winter Stations into Spring and Summer Stations for even more people to experience.
5 Winning Designs for 2023 Winter Stations
3 Surfaces Pavilion (S-AR: César Guerrero, Ana Cecilia Garza, Orlando Garcia), Mexico (Photo: Phil Marion)
CONRAD (Novak Djogo & Daniel Joshua Vanderhorst), Canada (Photo: Phil Marion)
delighthouse (Nick Green & Greig Pirrie), United Kingdom (Photo: Phil Marion)
LIFE LINE by WeatherstonBruer Associates (James Bruer, Nick Roland, Jacqueline Hampshire), Canada (Photo: Phil Marion)
the(Home) by Scott Shields Architects (Yulia Belova, Andrew Shields), Canada (Photo: Phil Marion)
3 Student Designs for 2023 Winter Stations
Ripple Hut by Cesar Rodriguez Perfetti, Jake Kroft, Breno Gualter, Dean Roumanis, Lead by Associate Professor Vincent Hui, Toronto Metropolitan University Department of Architectural Science (Photo: Phil Marion)
We[AR] by Saina Amin, Craig Klomp, Lauren Mac Isaac, Catherine Yan (Design team), Mahmoud Afshari, Kaveh Eshraghian, Roozbeh Moayyedian (Tech team), Lead by Assistant Professor Afshin Ashari, University of Guelph, School of Environmental Design & Rural Development (Photo: Phil Marion)
