Investigating ice as a building material, a team of Eindhoven University of Technology students has built a 1:5 scale ice replica of Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia in Juuka, Finland. The structure is made of “pykrete,” a mix of regular frozen water and wood fiber reinforcement that makes the material three times stronger than, say, the ice that threatens the roads and sidewalks of the Northeast once again. The frozen homage was meant to be the highest ice dome in the world at 98 ft but it was incomplete at the January 24th opening, much like the actual basilica in Barcelona.
To build the lower part of this icy Sagrada, Ropes were attached to the ground with anchors and strung over inflatable molds. The mixture of snow and water was applied with wood fibers placed in between creating the mix. For the upper part, plain ice was used, while the nave was made with suspended ropes and textile molds that were then sprayed with water.
IceCastles are made with a similar technique. Like the snowy spires of the Gaudí, these large, temporary ice structures are built up from nothing, using a substrate to support the ice that is slowly built up. In this case, it is a large network of pipe that act as sprinklers (like when ice climbers attach a hose to a ladder in their backyard). IceCastles also have an atmospheric effect since they are embedded with colored lights, giving the textures on their walls an eerie glow.
Image by Ben Nilsson/Big Ben Productions
Artists: Åke Larsson, Mats Nilsson and Jens Thoms Ivarsson. Image by Ben Nilsson/photobigben.com.
The Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden is remade every year, and is the gold standard of ice structures. The 65-room hotel includes 15 “art rooms,” designed by invited artists. In November, a 14,000-square-foot patch of ice is marked off and then cleared of snow with a plow so that the ice forms into clear, glass-like sheets that are the trademark of the hotel. It is harvested in the spring when the river begins to thaw, usually in 20-foot squares that are about 3-feet thick. Hauling the 5,000 tons of ice out via forklift in these extreme conditions can be daunting, and the team never works alone.
Artists: Karl-Johan Ekeroth & Christian Strömqvist. Photo by Paulina Holmgren.
Seth Apper, aXcess Travel.
The clearest glass is used for the rooms and for the glasses in the bar, and three other ice bars in London, Oslo, and Stockholm. To make the hotel, a steel support wall is made from vaults, and it is then covered in “snice,” a combination of snow and ice that is blown on with a snow cannon. Sections of this snice wall are positioned to make the internal walls of the hotel. Visiting artists then come in with chisels and chain saws to make the rooms that are designated “art rooms.”
Of course, as we saw in this oldie-but-goodie instructional video, the ultimate ice and snow builders are still the hardy denizens to the north, who can build a near perfect dome with snow blocks cut from the ground underneath the igloo.