The average temperature in Winnipeg during the winter is roughly 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit (HOLY FREAKING CRAP!), but even during those freezing days, the city hosts various events ranging from curling to broomball to the annual Warming Huts design competition, which chooses a new series of shelters to be built along the river’s banks.  These “warming huts” my be part of the festivities, but they also serve a very important purpose by making sure people don’t get seriously cold while traversing along the trail. Here are some of the winners that were announced from the competition:

1) Snow Shelter

This snow shelter is actually inspired from the old Wile E. Coyote cartoons.  Can you see it? It’s referring to the Coyote’s use of a “hole” (sold by the great folks at ACME) to capture the Roadrunner, which — of course — fails every time. Regardless, the architects at Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited named their concept after it anyways. They took colorful ridged tubes and wedged them into the snowmass along the river, resulting in the creation of a warm area among the cold tundra.

2) Mirror Camouflage

Somewhat similar to the earlier hole-inspired shelter, this project was designed by students at the University of Manitoba.  The shelter’s purpose is to have the structure fade into the landscape by the use of a façade of one-way glass mirrors, rather than the surrounding mounds of snow.

3) A Restaurant on Ice

As part of the festivities, a temporary semi-outdoor restaurant is often built along the river for an entire month. This year’s restaurant is being designed by the architecture studio OS31, who is also planning to use some off-the-shelf scaffolding to create the framework through which fabric will be stretched across to create the main dining areas.

You can check out the other winners here, and should you be in Winnipeg in January, construction on these winter shelters will begin in January!