Toronto's Chilly Winter Sling Swing

Aiming to provide uniquely informal social space and entertainment during Canada's Winter months, British based AWB Studio's idea to reinstate colour and sociality back onto the Toronto's Kew and Balmy beaches when they're under snow has certainly proved very popular.

Inspired by the hundreds of sun deckchairs that inhabit Toronto's famed beaches during the warmer seasons, the highly appropriately termed 'Sling Swing' adds a new contextual function to the otherwise snow-barren landscape. With elements of the traditional deckchair that we all love, the frame and its slung canvas are reconfigured in a seemingly common-sensical manner to provide people with a temporary shelter away from the cool and harsh winds, and create a fun, friendly and comfortable meeting place upon the snow (or icy sand, if we're to be more accurate). The frame for such an intervention is the re-usage of the beach's lifeguard stations, and each slung canvas is clustered closely together to create pockets of warm air between people's bodies for warmth and comfort. As a place to keep warm, this minimalist intervention wonderfully reinstates beach nostalgia amidst the coolest of temperatures.

With twenty one individual slings upon the temporary steel frame, it is unlikely that at any one point all seats are taken, whereby all of the non-used canvases wonderfully animate themselves with the breeze, adding movement and dynamism beyond the people that are present. With the colours of the canvasses being bright orange, the intervention needs no advertising of its presence as it sits as a contrasting beacon upon the otherwise frozen landscape.

As an ingenious solution to providing visitor and residential seating during seasons when such would be hard to find, the 'Sling Swing' epitomises the case that more often than not, the simplest of interventions are the most appreciated. Breathing new life into the cold air, SATORI & SCOUT reckons you could have hours of fun socialising, chilling and admiring the view - we wouldn't recommend bringing your sand castle kit and spade though! Discover more about the British based studio at WMBStudio.co.uk. 

Photography credit : WMBStudio.co.uk