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World’s First Iceberg-Inspired Resort Cottage, on the Baltic

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In the first example of any architecture, anywhere, to be inspired by icebergs – 9/10ths of which remain below the water’s surface – an architect imagines a completely new kind of floating summer cottage that is mostly underwater.

Architect Daniel Andersson envisioned this as a sort of cave underwater for a summer resort on the glacial Baltic Sea. He was commissioned by Scandinavian resort giant Alands Hotell & Restaurangskola to come up with a tourist draw. I think he has succeeded.

For the region’s extremely hardy vacationers, a sauna is right down stairs that you scamper up so that you can jump right into the freezing Baltic. Once you realize that that’s not a good idea, it is easy to get a grip on the edge of the “iceberg” at the railing and clamber aboard once more, because parts of it are close to the water’s level.

Only a small part of this charming architectural folly on the cold Northern Baltic Sea would appear above water, but that would be enough to funnel the clear Northern light down into the interior and to bounce it around inside.

The novelty of being in this spacious, white, brilliantly daylit room right in the water would be quite an interesting feeling, almost like hiding out in a melt pocket in the interior of a giant iceberg.

Source: Arch Daily