GREEN & TONIC gives Mother Nature a real long cuddle.

Edit 1: WILD THING

This cute, remote line-up of our places under the rubric of Wild Thing, conjures Mother Nature into a neat little edit of 6 boltholes, some far afield, other close to home, each a topographical mirror of their terrain and sitting oh so snug to the landscapes, you could easily miss them.

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Explore The Norwegian National Tourist Route with Juvet Landskapshotell

Dalsnibba, National Tourist Route Geiranger-Trollstigen © Steinar Skaar

When you think of Norway beyond Oslo, you’re probably thinking about the dramatic landscapes of the fjords, and with good reason — there’s nowhere on Earth quite like them! There’s a lot more to Norway’s breathtaking beauty, though, and in 1997 Parliament decided on a way to help you get to it: The National Tourist Routes. After the municipalities nominated a total of 52 roads covering 8,000 kilometers, in 2004 18 were selected to receive the distinction. You’ll find White Line Hotels Edit  Juvet Landskapshotell off Norwegian County Road 63, otherwise known as National Tourist Route Geiranger – Trollstigen.

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Artscape Nordland – a 40,000 square kilometre art gallery, Norway

While endless innovative projects continue to pour out of Denmark and Sweden, oftentimes their smaller but no less creative Scandinavian sister, Norway, is overlooked. Introducing Artscape Nordland, a permanent exhibition of 33 spectacular sculptures adorning 32 Norwegian municipalities.

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Cabinet Home: Not Your Average Mobile Home

Rintala Eggertsson Architects have created a transportable home that was installed close the MAXXI museum in Rome during 2010.

The house is composed of three units, an ensemble of large ascending steps, each one of which the size of a shipping container that could be potentially transported anywhere. Cabinet Home is a wooden construction with a 10 m2 garden that collects rain water and sun, inspired by the idea of building an ecological one-room house. The aesthetic is minimal, and it opposes the clear exterior that reflects the sun and blends with the surroundings against the dark and shadowy interior that offers shelter for the sometimes-excessive Mediterranean light.

On the ground floor there is a kitchen and a dining room, which open to the garden. On the first level, a living room (or library) with a small terrace overlooks the garden. Finally, on the second level there is a bedroom, with access to the rooftop and a view to the sky.

Sami Rintala and Dagur Eggertsson conceive contemporary architecture as “the theatre of our primeval social and private behavior, fulfillment of our biological true needs, whether we realize, accept and implement this fact or not. Cabinet Home is based on a simple idea of combining three nature elements that are freely there to be used for no one’s loss and everybody’s gain: trees that grow by themselves, rain and sunshine that come rain or shine.”

With this project, the Finnish-Norwegian office is encouraging the use of solar energy and is proposing a model for a discrete use of space and resources in Western culture; with it they consider it relevant to promote the idea that quality of life can be achieved through excellent design and simple materials, and not necessarily through more square meters.

The project was jointly supported by the Norwegian and Finnish embassies in Rome. Whatever it is about the country they come from, Norwegian architects are taking pioneering leaps in blending inside and outside, sometimes nearly erasing the line completely. If you like the look of Cabinet Home, you’ll definitely need to go see White Line Hotels edit Juvet Landskapshotell.

Project data:
location: Maxxi Museum, Via Guido Reni 4, Roma
size: 28, 5 square meter interior + 10 square meter garden
materials: wood; sawn timber structure, board exterior façade, plywood interiors
construction time:16.-26.5.2010
construction team: Sami Rintala, Rintala Eggertsson Arch., Rinchard Barriteau, U2 Arkitekter, Jani Rintala, Tuomalan Tekniikka Ltd, Tony Karlsson, Tuomalan Tekniikka Ltd.Politecnico di Milano: professors: Paolo Mestriner, Massimiliano Spadoni, Giuseppe Cusatelli students: Chiara Cabrini,Clara Ferrari,Veronica Grazioli, Marta Bartolini, Emanuela Baldissera, Alessandro Parise, Giacomo Grazioli, Edoardo Giancola, Federico Zarattini
sponsors: ONYX Solar, Spain – Tuomalan Tekniikka, Finland – Iguzzini, Italy – ACER, Italy – Finnair Cargo, Finland
support:Norwegian Embassy in Rome – Finnish Embassy in Rome

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Contributing Writer: Gabriela Galati

Images: Rintala-Eggertsson Architects

Juvet Landscape Hotel Joins White Line Hotels

The setting alone will blow you away – this is total submersion into nature pure with a carpet of green lushness that tames the harshness of the magnificent wilderness beyond – Here sat amongst this vista, camouflaged wooden structures with their vertical timbers sit conform with the trunks of Birch, Aspen + Pine.

Neither a beach hut nor a tree hut – these are landscape huts for the modern dweller – simplicity reigns inside framing the theatre of Mother Nature. The weathered pods provide elementary shelter – deliberately void of distractions – they hover on the land without impact like an observatory outpost

The darkened interiors provide seamless widescreen viewing of Norwegian nature, all seamless  – sit back and contemplate.

The scene is cleverly balanced by the solid, robustness of the aged original farmhouse and former cowshed providing communal focal points for all meals – heavy + deeply rooted into the hardships of the locals of times past – this contrast is sublime.  The place is topped by a small subterranean wet spa + sun decks

Activity junkies as well as those who like to just take it all in are well catered for here – especially getting tips for the maverick owner, Knut (a sort of Norwegian Indiana Jones) who guides guests into the solitude of the fjords or shares his favourite ski coordinates.