HOT BOX
Year2015
LocationToronto, Ontario, Canada
Commissioned byWinter Stations
Hot Box offers a warm respite from the waterfront’s winter cold—a minimalist exploration of perceptual space that focuses attention on the ordinary, often harsh, yet serenely beautiful conditions of frozen Lake Ontario.
The project was conceived and built for Winter Stations, a single-stage international design competition held annually in Toronto, in which Participants are tasked with designing temporary winter art installations which incorporate existing lifeguard towers spaced strategically across the city’s Kew and Woodbine beaches.
A matte black object standing in stark contrast to the blank white landscape, Hot Box is entered via an unassuming doorway facing the lake. A turn at the end of a corridor leads to a black space within: a fully lined acoustic chamber that absorbs ambient noise so as to heighten an isolated instance of sky, where snow falls silently from an oculus above.