Project, Ice Hotel Hotel Entrance, Sweden, Jukkasjärvi

Designer, Studio Lucy Sanderson

Materials, Ice

The Ice Hotel is a mixture of permanent and seasonal ice structures. 1km from both 18th century Jukkasjärvi Homestead and the Nutti Sámi Siida cultural reindeer park. For 27 years the Ice Hotel has been created while Torne River freezes and melts come spring. 

The Ice Hotel residency was a seven-day intense workshop in Kiruna, Sweden to investigate the materiality of ice and understand how the form could be manipulated to design and produce a prototype for next years ice hotel. 

The ice sculpture functions as an entrance to one of the rooms, the blocks of ice were placed closely together to form an opening that means guests have to brush against the ice to gain access, over time the opening evolves organically and melts to establish a new fluid structure to greet each visitor.