Architecture firm Waterstudio and developers Dutch Docklands have been given the go-ahead to construct a floating luxury hotel near Tromsø, Norway. Situated within the optimal Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights) viewing zone, the Krystall hotel will feature a glass roof so guests can enjoy one of nature's finest spectacles from their beds.
Finer details on the five-star hotel's structure are yet to be revealed (as is the budget), but early renders depict a snowflake-like structure that floats but remains in a stationary position.
It will include 86 guest rooms, conference rooms, a spa and wellness facilities, and will be accessible only by boat. Its shape and size will offer some degree of stability on the water, but a stabilizing system of dampers, springs, and cables will also be used to offer guests the feeling of standing on dry land.
Waterstudio founder and architect Koen Olthuis told Gizmag that an environmental study will be carried out before a final decision is made on any sustainable technology to be used in the build, but that some level of solar power will definitely be utilized in a bid to make the hotel as self-sufficient as possible.
The hotel will be prefabricated in several large sections in dry docks before being transported by boat to the final location – still to be decided, but around the Tromsø area – and assembled.
Construction is expected to start in mid-2015 and those behind the project hope to finish the hotel by December 2016.
Sources: Dutch Docklands, Waterstudio
Location is almost viable to grab onto an actual iceberg, instead and offer a true Ice Hotel, not a wannabe explorer with all the comforts of home, and money to burn.
To witness the wonders of nature, with respect to the host, pitch a tent anywhere north of the 50th parallel.