Winter Stations 2020

Client: City of Toronto

Date: 2020

Team: Daniele Sini

Role: Lead Designer

Design and CGI by Daniele Sini

International competition, with a brief that asked designing temporary winter art installations which incorporate existing lifeguard towers spaced strategically across the city’s Kew and Woodbine beaches, with a design theme that consider what refuge means to each of us. My response was to design a pavilion with an installation of a 'bedroom' that can be viewed (but not entered) while seated on top of the lifeguard stand. Visitors can reflect upon their experiences of feeling safe in their own beds (bed as a refuge), and maybe think about how this experience is negated to many other people that are homeless - Refuge as an idea of a safe place to be when you are most vulnerable. The pavilion is organized as a one way system with separate entry and exit, with the lifeguard stand used as a platform from where to view the 'bedroom'. Materials are solid wood for the structure and burnt wood planks for cladding and flooring, with a waterproof membrane (for the central part of the pavilion). The bed is cocooned by burnt wood, with plenty of natural light coming through a polycarbonate sheet. The components of the pavilion are mechanically fixed hence easy to dismantle, and the materials are fully reusable on other projects.