Norway

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has received a major a new deposit of seeds from several hundred plant species. The addition of seeds from 35 gene banks spread over seven continents brings the total number of seed samples to over a million.

Dorte Mandrup has been chosen to create a new visitors center in northern Norway. Named The Whale, the building will rise out of the landscape like a small hill and offer visitors a choice spot to watch migrating whales pass by.

A trio of aluminum-clad cabins bring a distinctive shine to Manshausen Island, a private resort located within the Arctic Circle.

​Norway has famously adopted electric cars at a staggering rate – some 60 percent of all cars sold there this March were battery-powered, for example. And now a startup has poked its head above the ramparts, hoping to deliver a 186 mph (300 km/h), hard-charging electric super-sedan built in Norway.

Visitors to Norway can now dine both on and with fish in an impressive new restaurant by Snøhetta. Appropriately named Under, the building is part-sunk into the sea and is encased in a concrete shell designed to withstand the harsh conditions on the seabed of Norway's rugged southern coast.

Constraint often proves fertile ground for inspiration and this indeed proved the case for Arkitektværelset AS. The Norwegian firm overcame a remote location and tricky terrain, as well as strict planning regulations while designing the unusually angular Hooded Cabin.

Getting caught in bad weather while commuting is annoying, but doing so while exploring north of the arctic circle is serious. To offer hikers in Norway a safe refuge and a destination to enjoy the view, Spinn Arkitekter and Format Engineers created a hiker's hut that can withstand nature's worst.

This elevated take on a cabin in the woods was influenced by such disparate sources as children's book regulars the Moomins, A-frame lodges, and electricity towers. Located in a forest in Norway, it's currently available for rent.

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), working with local firm A_Lab, has won an architecture competition to design two stations for a new metro line planned for Oslo, Norway. Construction on the line is due to begin in 2020 and the stations are expected to be completed by 2025.

​For years, scientists have seen silicon as a hugely promising material in the world of lithium-ion batteries. Scientists at Norway’s Institute for Energy Technology are now claiming to have overcome some of its limitations with a new material it calls SiliconX.

We initially covered Snøhetta's ambitious design for Europe's first underwater restaurant back in late 2017. The high-profile firm has now revealed that the appropriately-named Under is, well, under construction in Norway's southernmost tip.

Tucked away in a chilly forest north of Oslo, Norway, lies a large solar observatory named Solobservatoriet (aka Harestua Solar Observatory). The observatory has been in use since the 1950s and is now getting a stunning upgrade courtesy of Snøhetta.