Inclusive Shelter
Winter Station Competition, Canada, 2020
The installation explores the meaning of shelter, enabling the user to experience the transition from fully outdoors to completely sheltered. The design establishes a dialogue with its surroundings, movable seats provide the users framed views of land, sky, water and passers-by. The user is confronted with their desire for privacy. As visitors walk between installations, they are unintended participators in the scene. The ability for others to enter one’s domain diminishes gradually; a sense of intimacy appears. Slivers of nature are captured by both intended and unintended views, the shelter becomes a place of refuge, of comfort and escape.
The inclusive shelter reacts to individual needs and desires. Upon entering, visual connectivity to the surrounding landscape declines gradually until the user is fully enclosed by the installation. Vividly colored strips, contrasting the wintery shores, transition into a dark drapery, leaving behind only a glimpse of what is out there.
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The inclusive shelter is created from two basic components, a steel scaffolding and a skin made of textile fabric. Both material have the potential to be fully re-used. The scaffolding structure can be dismantled and reapplied in other sites and the textile fabric can be recycled into furniture, wearables and other purposes.
