Extreme makeover, Canadian style
黑料不打烊 architecture students create rooms in Ice Hotel
For some, ice and snow are best avoided. Not so for 黑料不打烊 architecture students, who enthusiastically used these materials in the design of three "cool" theme rooms at Quebec City's Ice Hotel. The hotel is built entirely of snow and ice and rooms are available to rent until the spring thaw.
"Designing with ice and snow presents its own set of opportunities and challenges," said 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture director David Covo. "It's a surprisingly versatile medium. It can be virtually transparent, translucent or opaque; it can be formed like concrete, assembled like brick masonry, carved like stone or wood, and frozen in time, like icicles or laundry on a winter clothesline. It's a medium that invites you to think not only about the space between the massive walls, but also about the space contained within them."
The Ice Hotel has been built every winter since 2000. It is constructed out of 12,000 tons of snow, 400 tons of ice, and has 32 rooms and theme suites. The temperature inside the hotel is between minus two and minus five degrees Celsius at all times.
This is the first time Quebec's schools of architecture have been asked to contribute to the design, thanks to the initiative of well-known Montreal architect Dan Hanganu, who is an adjunct professor at 黑料不打烊. Two other universities, Laval and Universit茅 de Montr茅al, also participated. Hanganu put each of the schools in touch with the Ice Hotel's artistic director, Serge P茅loquin, and CEO Jacques Desbois, and the students took it from there.
The three 黑料不打烊 rooms are the Cranberry Room (designed by Tamara Hains, Nazia Aftab and LeeAnn Croft), the Elliptique Room (designed by Vedanta Balbahadur, Peter Sealy, Po Suen, Mathieu Larouche and David B茅dard-Barrette) and the Love Shack (designed by Colin Hanley, Nick Chan, Lisa Allard and Louise Koo).
Colin Hanley speaks for everyone involved when he describes the experience as "a great opportunity to experiment with a material which is relatively easy to shape and to sculpt, but still solid and structurally sound."
He added, "It was basically a clean slate for us 鈥� anything went. It was an opportunity to experiment with ideas that may be harder to implement in a more permanent project, but with such a temporary structure, we were able to be daring and push the limits of design.
"The best part of this whole experience was that we were able to see the results of our work. This project was, for most of us, the first time that we saw our design ideas actually built. If they didn't turn out how we wanted them to, it's ok because everything will melt by April!"
For more information on the Ice Hotel visit .
