SPINN Arkitekter’s Unique Huts will Keep You Warm for 100,000 EUR

Back in 2015, the Norwegian Trekking Association wanted to add two warming huts to it’s trails in Hammerfest. The huts would help promote hiking in the local area and beyond.

They contacted the architecture Norwegian firm, SPINN Arkitekter. Given the association’s brief, SPINN went on to produce two huts that were tailored to the landscape.

The project was simply titled Hammerfest Hiking Huts and was completed in 2018. Each hut amounts to 161.46-square-feet (15-square-meters), and acts as a refuge from the weather outside.

When SPINN took up the challenge, it was a simple sketch that lead to the unusual finished structure of today. They took the basic elements required of a cabin and fused it with a striking exterior.

Working alongside FORMAT Engineers, they were able to produce the shell structure – the architects refer to it as a rock, as it’s meant to resemble something that’s grown out of the landscape itself.

Shifting and assembling the huts to their chosen sites involved a group of volunteers. But even with the free help these huts don’t come cheap – each one cost in the region of 100,000 Euro.

Large amounts of money had to be spent on the design and prototyping of the structure to ensure it was capable to resisting whatever the local weather might throw at it. After that there’s the actual manufacturing of the hut.

Its complex geometry means there are no straightforward processes to its construction, which ultimately lead to their substantial hefty cost. Such is the price of ingenuity.

If you’re planning a visit, the huts are kitted out with a large window that overlooks the landscape, a cool textured dome, a few benches and desks, and a wood-burning stove.

Photos © Tor Even Mathisen