Rethinking snow

But another winter will come, and perhaps the next time nature dumps this much, we could try a different approach: use the overabundance of snow to create something beautiful. We’re used to seeing small-scale bursts of creativity in the snowmen and forts that people craft in parks and backyards. Yet when faced with so much excess, why not apply those impulses on a grander scale? Around the world, innovative artists, architects, and planners in cold climates have used snow as a design material, transforming it into giant pieces of public art, architecture, and landscaping. These projects draw on the unique aesthetic properties of snow, turning a burden into a thing of beauty.

Snowscape Sergio López-Piñeiro, an architect and faculty member at the University of Buffalo, spent time observing and photographing the snow accumulating in that city’s parking lots, interested in the contrast between the beauty and serenity of snow and the aggressive way we attack it with snow blowers, salt, and plows. López-Piñeiro says these observations inspired him to initiate a project this year that “transforms a parking lot into a snow landscape.” With support from the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, the New York State Council of the Arts, and a team of snowplows, he has created a pattern of 11 large mounds in a parking lot of Buffalo’s Front Park, which overlooks the Niagara River and Lake Erie, turning the flat expanse into an eye-catching landscape. The hillocks, each about 6 to 8 feet high and 30 feet wide, are laid out in a regular pattern, and the plows maintain the design by following a choreographed path through the lot. The haphazardly plowed snow pile we’re used to seeing is transformed into a deliberately crafted form. Over time, the mounds are shaped by the wind, and they grow and ebb as snow falls and freezes. López-Piñeiro says that the empty lot now draws foot traffic from the park and he has spotted children sledding on the hills.