A group of Grade 10 students from Exchange Met school have begun work on their contest-winning warming hut design, “The Present,” which will soon be found at The Forks.
Once finished, trail-goers at The Forks will be invited to warm up inside The Present, a purple gift box wrapped in blue ribbon. The Present has been designed to be a cozy gathering place where visitors can decorate a Christmas tree, and enjoy a small collection of books to read, take, swap, and donate to.
The Present will be complete by Jan. 22, on The Forks grounds for the launch day on Jan. 24, and in use on the Nestaweya River Trail from Jan. 25 until the trail closes.
Competing against 6 other student-designed warming hut concepts, The Present won the Manitoba-wide school warming hut contest held by The Forks, which is now in its third year.

The Exchange Met students started workshopping ideas in Grade 9 and collaborated with architecture firm Grey & Ivy to gain a better understanding of the design process.
“They looked at essentially three categories of what a warming hut could be,” said Jon McPhail, teacher at Exchange Met school. “Are you building your warming hut for physical warmth, emotional warmth, or for audience engagement?”
Based on that criteria, the students came up with several ideas and presented them all to Grey & Ivy, who gave them professional guidance in narrowing it down to three top concepts.
At the beginning of their Grade 10 school year, the group collaborated on their three submissions, splitting up tasks such as writing, storytelling, illustration, modeling, and completing the submission packets.
“We submitted all three, and we got really lucky that one of them crossed the line,” said McPhail. The students started construction of The Present on Jan. 7. While the deadline is Jan. 22, they can only work on it twice a week, leaving them just five days to build and finish it in time for its debut on the Nestaweya River Trail on Jan. 25.
