Installations inspired by the sun, a kaleidoscope and noodles have won Toronto's sixth annual Winter Stations design competition, via which the city's lifeguard stations are transformed into thought-provoking pieces of pop-up art. Winter Stations was conceived by RAW Design, Ferris + Associates and Curio as a way to encourage Toronto residents and visitors to visit the city's beaches during the winter, to experience artworks and to make new connections with

Lighting design studio Cactus has partnered with cardio climbing gym operator Rise Nation to create two new studios that use programmable lighting embedded in the ceiling to help motivate individuals as they workout. Located in the Cherry Creek and Highlands suburbs of Denver, US, the gyms are fitted with modular LED units that can be combined together as large digital canvases to create immersive, multicolour lighting experiences. In this way,

UPDATE: Studio Gang's interactive installation for the National Building Museum’s 2017 Summer Block Series opened to the public yesterday (6 July) in Washington D.C. The intricate structure, called Hive, is formed entirely by 2,700 wound interlocking paper tubes of different sizes – from several inches to 10ft high. They feature a reflective silver exterior and vivid magenta interior, “creating a spectacular visual contrast with the museum’s historic nineteenth-century interior and

Toronto's urban waterfront has been transformed with the temporary addition of five mysterious installations in the parks, bridges and squares along Queens Quay. The large works of public art, dubbed ‘Ice Breakers,’ have been added to animate the city’s public areas during the cold winter months. The initiative is a collaboration between community group Waterfront BIA and the annual Winter Stations competition – which creates installations in the lifeguard posts

The windswept beaches of Toronto, Canada are set to once again host a seasonal design spectacle, with the eight winners of the third annual Winter Stations Design Competition revealed today (10 January). Entrants were tasked with designing “playful” temporary installations – based around the beaches’ lifeguard stations – that can draw people to brave the chilly outdoors and interact with the icy environment. The theme of the contest this time

The Hettema Group (THG) recently introduced the first in a series of pop-up installations to Los Angeles’ Union Station, with various events to run at the station through the summer months. The interactive media installation, Union Station 360º, ran from 15 July to 24 July and was the first in a series of free art events and concerts aiming to transform the transit hub into a public destination. The experience

The International Garden Festival has begun in Quebec’s Redford Gardens, with five award-winning garden installations open to the public for the first time. They are being displayed alongside 22 other creations designed for the festival by landscape architects in Canada and around the world. The prize-winning studios – who hail from Canada, the United States, France and Switzerland – won the right to build their gardens following an international competition

The Rothschild Foundation has backed an international design competition to create a £20m (US$29.2m, €25.7m) light installation on the 17 central London bridges crossing the River Thames. Chaired by Lord Rothschild, The Rothschild Foundation gives grants to a variety of charitable initiatives, also supporting artistic and cultural ventures across the UK. With the foundation’s backing, the Illuminated River contest is searching for ‘elegant and charismatic’ proposals to transform the Thames

Beijing-based innovators MAD Architects have designed a flowing, translucent installation for the 2016 Milan Design Week in the famous courtyard of the city’s university. The sculptural piece, called Invisible Border, forms a rippling canopy descending across the Cortile d’Onore courtyard from a loggia to the ground, establishing a shelter for people to gather, socialise and contemplate their surroundings. “Architects usually create borders by defining spaces – what is inside and