Cool Gardens 2025 , Winnipeg / Kanada

 

Storefront Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

 

Presented by Storefront Manitoba, Cool Gardens is a design competition and curated public exhibition of contemporary garden installations that takes place in various locations across Manitoba, Canada. The 2025 exhibition will include sites across the City of Winnipeg, on Treaty 1 Territory and on the homeland of the Red River Métis.

 

For over 10 years, Cool Gardens has commissioned temporary installations by architects, landscape architects, designers, and artists that instigate curiosity and play, while promoting public engagement with designed landscapes. These temporary installations demonstrate how critical and poetic interventions in public space can meaningfully affect people’s experiences of urban environments.

 

From its inception, Cool Gardens set out to mirror The Forks’ internationally acclaimed Warming Huts: Arts + Architecture Competition on Ice, which sees winter warming huts installed along the frozen Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Cool Gardens considers the opposite for summer: exploring the concept of COOL-ing as its recurring theme.

 

January 28, 2025: Call for Proposals released

March 9, 2025: Deadline for submissions

March 24-30, 2025: Timeframe to contact winners

April 15, 2025: Detailed design documents submission + review

May 2025: Fabrication period

June 2025: Installation – Osborne Village (TBC exact dates)

June 2-4, 2025: Installation – Assiniboine Park

July 2-4, 2025: Installation – Graham Avenue

July 5, 2025: Media Event and Launch Party

September 8, 2025: Decommissioning The Leaf Indoor Garden site

October 2025: Closing and decommissioning