Kris Li - Looking out week 15

This is a series of skating shelters in a city called Winnipeg,  the coldest city of its size outside of Siberia in Canada. Responding to the severe weather that drops below negative 30 Celsius, Patkau architect created a cluster of intimate shelters, each accommodating only a few people at a time. They are grouped in a small ‘village’ (or ‘herd’, or ‘school’, or ’flock’, or ‘flotilla’) to form a collective ... of ‘something’ ... irreducible to a single interpretation.
Each shelter is formed of thin, flexible plywood which is given both structure and spatial character through bending/deformation. Skins, made of 2 layers of 3/16th inch thick flexible plywood, are cut in patterns and attached to a timber armature which consists of a triangular base, and wedge shaped spine and ridge members (the ridge is a line to negate the gravity loads of snow).