An Olds university student is the brains behind an international architectural design competition submission in Winnipeg that he says beat everybody in its category -- including instructors and architectural firms.Ryan Lewis, 23, is going into his fourth year of architecture this fall at the University of Winnipeg.Earlier this year he and two students from Manitoba designed and built a warming hut called the SKYBOX, which could accommodate six to eight people as they toured The Forks, a historic area in Winnipeg.The black stylized cedar box features big walls cut off at an angle. It has a big hole cut in the side of it so people can enter and exit. Inside is a giant mirror set at a 45-degree angle. As a result, people sitting in the box appear to be set against the sky. They're encouraged to take selfies and upload them to social media such as Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #skybox.“It just messes with perception,” Lewis says. “It puts your body in a background that it's not normally situated in. It was a surprise, also a big hit. They hadn't seen anything like this before.”“We beat out master's students, we beat out peers, we beat out even instructors that were proposing their own work,” he says. “It was definitely worth it.”They created a website, www.skyboxwpg.ca, encouraging people to upload photos of themselves in the hut.“We wanted to see if we could tag where these people were coming from so The Forks in downtown Winnipeg would get almost like a chart of where their visitors were coming throughout the winter,” Lewis says.“The big thing was we designed a hut that could also attract the social media spectrum, which hasn't been done before.”There was another aspect to the design as well.“We had a contrast of light and dark. We had the exterior of it completely charred, so it's completely black; and then when you step into it, it's all lit up and it changes the way you view it,” Lewis says.Lewis says he had the idea for angling the big mirror to reflect the sky. His two friends helped design and create it.The SKYBOX was one of many so-called warming huts set up along the Red River Trail in Winnipeg for about a month, starting in late January.Ironically, although it was supposedly a warming hut, it didn't contain anything to enable people to warm themselves, except maybe a chance to briefly get in out of the wind – no fires or heaters of any kind. Lewis says virtually none of the other entries had any warming facilities either, and as far as he knows, that's usually been the case.The SKYBOX has been such a sensation that after the competition was over, it was moved to the entrance of the Winnipeg Art Gallery for the summer. Lewis says to his knowledge, this is the first time a warming hut from the competition has been located there. While at that summer location, it has continued to attract visitors who are still taking selfies and uploading them to the group's website.Lewis convocates from environmental design (architecture) at the U of M next spring. After that, he plans to get his master's in architecture, likely at the University of Calgary.“I'm kind of looking at coming back to Calgary -- to come home,” he says. “I've heard good things about it and the economy here is pretty strong, so I definitely know it wouldn't be a bad place just to start out. We'll see what happens. If something comes up that's more appealing, I could also go do that.”Lewis says he's been fascinated with architecture as far back as high school.“I guess it's pretty much because you work within your own parameters. There are no rules,” Lewis says.“You're the one who creates it, you're the one who's in charge of it and you're the one who has to take ownership of it. And if you're creative, that's the best way to express yourself, I guess. I always liked doing things on my own and trying different techniques with things, whether it be building or whatnot.”When he's finally completed all his schooling, Lewis says he'd ideally like to design big commercial buildings.“I've always been more interested in commercial building. I like the larger scale. I think it would be interesting to be part of something that large,” he says.He says he'd like to start out in a big firm, but eventually set up his own business.
"We beat out master's students, we beat out peers, we beat out even instructors that were proposing their own work,"
