Sastrugi Sanctuary
Type: Pavilion
Medium: Midjourney
Material: Fabric Skin with Sprayed Water Ice Shell,
Steel Support Structure, Fibreglass Anchors,
Multi-Coloured Light Pedestal
Year: 2025
Medium: Midjourney
Material: Fabric Skin with Sprayed Water Ice Shell,
Steel Support Structure, Fibreglass Anchors,
Multi-Coloured Light Pedestal
Year: 2025
The Concept
On the prairie, wind is a sculptor. It carves sastrugi, rigid ridges and sharp edges that make winter hostile.
This pavilion inverts that violence into shelter.
The form captures windswept ice mid-drift, frozen at its most fluid. Walking between undulating walls,
visitors enter a space where prairie wind cannot reach. Here, ice performs its ancient paradox: frozen
water becomes insulation, just as in the igloo. No mechanical heat, yet the structure cradles warmth
through stillness alone.
Inside, shifting light activates the translucent shell. Colours migrate through frozen surfaces, amber
to violet to blue, visible from across the frozen river as a glowing beacon, intimate when experienced
within. Small groups gather in this unlikely refuge, faces lit by chromatic glow, discovering that warmth
is not always thermal.
The same elemental forces that create barriers on Winnipeg’s winter river become the very materials
of gathering and wonder. Hostility, reimagined as sanctuary.
The Computation
Translating fluid, wind-carved geometry into a buildable temporary pavilion requires advanced form-finding workflows. The primary enclosure utilizes a tensioned fabric skin sprayed with water to create a structural ice shell. Generating the exact flat cutting patterns for this doubly curved fabric requires dynamic relaxation algorithms in Grasshopper to simulate tension and minimize material wrinkling under freezing conditions. The internal steel support structure and fibreglass anchors are parametrically mapped directly to the fabric seams. This ensures the physical armature aligns perfectly with the organic shape.
During the conceptual phase, Midjourney was utilized for rapid atmospheric visualization. This allowed us to test how multi-coloured light pedestals would interact with the translucency of the ice shell before committing to rigorous 3D modelling. This hybrid approach pairs high-speed generative ideation with precise computational geometry to prove that temporary winter structures can be both radically shaped and safely executed.
On the prairie, wind is a sculptor. It carves sastrugi, rigid ridges and sharp edges that make winter hostile.
This pavilion inverts that violence into shelter.
The form captures windswept ice mid-drift, frozen at its most fluid. Walking between undulating walls,
visitors enter a space where prairie wind cannot reach. Here, ice performs its ancient paradox: frozen
water becomes insulation, just as in the igloo. No mechanical heat, yet the structure cradles warmth
through stillness alone.
Inside, shifting light activates the translucent shell. Colours migrate through frozen surfaces, amber
to violet to blue, visible from across the frozen river as a glowing beacon, intimate when experienced
within. Small groups gather in this unlikely refuge, faces lit by chromatic glow, discovering that warmth
is not always thermal.
The same elemental forces that create barriers on Winnipeg’s winter river become the very materials
of gathering and wonder. Hostility, reimagined as sanctuary.
The Computation
Translating fluid, wind-carved geometry into a buildable temporary pavilion requires advanced form-finding workflows. The primary enclosure utilizes a tensioned fabric skin sprayed with water to create a structural ice shell. Generating the exact flat cutting patterns for this doubly curved fabric requires dynamic relaxation algorithms in Grasshopper to simulate tension and minimize material wrinkling under freezing conditions. The internal steel support structure and fibreglass anchors are parametrically mapped directly to the fabric seams. This ensures the physical armature aligns perfectly with the organic shape.
During the conceptual phase, Midjourney was utilized for rapid atmospheric visualization. This allowed us to test how multi-coloured light pedestals would interact with the translucency of the ice shell before committing to rigorous 3D modelling. This hybrid approach pairs high-speed generative ideation with precise computational geometry to prove that temporary winter structures can be both radically shaped and safely executed.
