Inaugural Winter City Design Competition winners announced

Calgary designers have embraced winter in their efforts to make Stephen Avenue a more welcoming place during our coldest months and are seeing their ideas come to reality. It’s one way we’re investing in and reimagining Calgary’s downtown to support it as a place to visit and be year-round.

Today, The City of Calgary is excited to announce two winners of its inaugural Winter City Design Competition, who will receive funding to build and install their designs along Stephen Avenue:

“Infinito” – a lit tunnel that focuses on intimacy, connection and social interactions

Project team - Bosco Chik, Charlie Jiang, Christian Icuspit, William Zhuang, Karim Kandil

“Wowie” – an interactive, accessible experience to make winter feel warmer, designed with kids in mind

Project team - Seeton Naested, Julian Warring, Kelsi Hurlbut, Adam Ford, John Lawlor, Matt Labrie, Audrina Lim, Alison MacLachlan, John Rivera.

“Infinito” will be placed at Stephen Avenue and 2 Street S.W. “Wowie” will be constructed at Stephen Avenue and Centre Street S. Each winning project will receive $10,000 to construct and install their design along Stephen Avenue in February 2022.

“The two winning designs will each bring something new and exciting to liven up Stephen Avenue during our coldest months,” said Kate Zago, who is leading the Winter City Design Competition for The City. “We’re extremely delighted to bring these designs to life in February and create two new great public spaces for Calgarians to experience.”

To learn more about the three winning designs and to see all the submissions for the Winter City Design Competition, please visit Calgary.ca/wintercity.

The Winter City Design Competition is a partnership between The City and the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape to imagine the possibilities for eye-catching and interactive displays along Stephen Avenue. The goal of the competition is to explore and push beyond the boundaries of what public spaces look like in midst of a Calgary winter.

The competition is part of The City’s Future of Stephen Avenue Activate + Experiment project, to re-imagine Stephen Avenue from City Hall to Mewata Armoury. This project is testing out ideas and experiments and measuring impacts, to help inform the future of downtown’s iconic main street.