Presented by Storefront Manitoba, Cool Gardens is a design competition and curated public exhibition of contemporary garden installations that takes place in various locations across Manitoba, Canada. The 2025 exhibition will include sites across the City of Winnipeg, on Treaty 1 Territory and on the homeland of the Red River Métis.

For over 10 years, Cool Gardens has commissioned temporary installations by architects, landscape architects, designers, and artists that instigate curiosity and play, while promoting public engagement with designed landscapes. These temporary installations demonstrate how critical and poetic interventions in public space can meaningfully affect people’s experiences of urban environments. 

From its inception, Cool Gardens set out to mirror The Forks’ internationally acclaimed Warming Huts: Arts + Architecture Competition on Ice, which sees winter warming huts installed along the frozen Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Cool Gardens considers the opposite for summer: exploring the concept of COOL-ing as its recurring theme.

 
Cool Gardens 2025 will officially run from July 5th to September 28th. Up to five new competition winning garden installations will be selected and mounted along with several invited and returning installations. New partnerships with the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, the City of Winnipeg, and the Osborne Village Biz will enable Cool Gardens to expand its reach with a range of new competition sites for 2025 in addition to some old favourites.