Juvet Landscape Hotel

Architects: Jensen & Skodvin Arkitektkontor
Location: Gudbrandsjuvet, Norway
Design Period: 2004-2007
Construction period: 2007-2008
Client: Knut Slinning
Project Architects: Jan Olav Jensen (pl), Børre Skodvin, Torunn Golberg Helge Lunder, Torstein Koch; Thomas Knigge




One of the local residents at Gudbrandsjuvet, Knut Slinning, is building a landscape hotel. The idea emerged at another site, Aurland, but was not realized there.



Basically each room is a detached small independent house with one, or sometimes two of the walls constructed in glass. The landscape in which these rooms are placed is by most people considered spectacularly beautiful and varied and the topography allows a layout where no room looks at another. In this way every room gets its own surprising view of a dramatic piece of landscape, always changing with the weather and the time of the day and the season.

Flooding

If ocean and air temperatures increase, polar ice will continue to melt causing sea levels to rise further. Low lying areas in the UK will be at risk from flooding, particularly coastal areas in Norfolk and Suffolk and cities including London, Hull and Portsmouth. It is out control, what we should do?



Rising sea levels are already forcing people to leave their homes. By 2050, as a result of rising sea levels, Friends of the Earth expect permanent flooding and shortages of food and fresh water to force the relocation of more than 150 million people. In Bangladesh, where half the population lives less than five metres above sea level, a 1% increase in global average temperatures will trigger a loss of 10% of all land area – and create a further 30 to 40 million refugees.





With higher average temperatures and long periods of drought the risk of wildfires or bushfires as they are called in Australia, increases significantly. As well as the risk of human fatality they also destroy agriculture and ultimately the ability of people to live in some areas. Although the most recent bushfires in Australia were blamed on arsonists, temperatures of around 117F (47C), the drought-ridden land and high winds contributed to the rapid spread of the fires across the three states in the country.

avent gardeners

- In Vitro Montreal 2001
This was Nip Paysage's first collaborative project, for the Jardins de Metis festival. It is about the forest, culturally-what it means now (a source of timber) and what it was, Langevin says. It is about conservation and the genetic code of the pine cone. This genetic code is buried in the color sequence of the jars. A statement from Nip Paysage reads:' Fundamentally, the forest fulfils three roles: cultural reference, industrial resource and leisure space. Questioning the aesthetics and mythological
aspects of forestry, the garden exhibits, in the foreground, a nomadic spruce facade growing out of blue barrels. A linear wood floor runs through the site and is crossed by blue plastic woodchip veins, on which are installed metal structures. Each steel frame is lined with enigmatic jars. The numerous transparent jars are filled with "spruce gum" and "pin cone jam",
simultaneously provoking aesthetic pleasure and question: has not the contemporary forest transformed itself into a laboratory, a factory, a supermarket, a museum or a leisure centre? Finally, the ground plane
recalls the drama of deforestation and burning of woody matter. Metaphorically, the carbonized zone is transformed into
playground, scattered with giant transonic blueberries used for sitting and bouncing around.'











This intriguing installation was sited adjacent to and partly the University Hospital's blood donation and laboratory wing
- hence the color of the armchairs, some of which were made of polyester and some of fibreglass. Lit up at night (and the winter nights are long this far north), there is something of a Magritte quality about the piece, with the glowing chairs ranged around two grassy areas planted with birches, pine and alder flanking the glass passageway that links the new blood-
testing department to the main hospital. Several small, paved terraces allow patients to survey the landscape areas.