Cool Gardens
Storefront Manitoba’s annual Cool Gardens Design Competition fuses art and architecture into the public realm, driving the art of place-making within the City of Winnipeg through “cool” public exhibitions.
Cool Gardens showcases contemporary garden and art installations throughout Downtown Winnipeg that emphasize “cooling” to combat the summer heat. In 2019, Storefront chose ft3’s “Keep Your Cool” (from 50 local, national, and international entries) as the winning submission.
“Keep Your Cool” takes inspiration from the essential summertime activity of cloud gazing. Cloud glazing’s passive nature—finding a patch of grass, laying down, and watching the sky—is restorative and revitalizing to people’s mental wellness. As clouds slowly move and melt into one another, people’s imaginations create infinite possibilities of shapes, ideas, thoughts, and narratives.
The design concept connects the familiar symbols of a cloud and thought bubble, the latter of which holds so much weight and unease (think the typing awareness indicator). The design’s intention aims to redefine that association from probable anxiety to limitless creative potential.
“Keep Your Cool” features large-scale blue curve stitching weaved into layers, emulating cloud formations. The cloud formations arrange a canopy of ethereal shade above the grass, creating a welcoming and dedicated refuge for Winnipeggers and visitors to watch the passing clouds.
Storefront and The Forks established Cool Gardens as a central Canadian counterpart to Quebec’s Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens' concept that celebrates the connection between nature, art, architecture, urbanism, and design.
