Juvet Landscape Hotel by Jensen & Skodvin

— Camping is great if you love to be immersed in the outdoors, but if you crave the amenities of the city, nature can be quite... intrusive. This hotel is the best of both worlds, making the forest a private exhibition.

Located in Valldal, a town in north-western Norway, architects Jensen & Skodvin constructed this minimalist hotel in order to take advantage of breathtaking views, while not intruding on the land due to conservation concerns. A hotel in this particular section of Norway, would be imposing on the environment, with guest rooms and foundations of the building fundamentally altering the landscape around it. Instead, the architects built individual houses littered across the forest.

Each house has at least two glass walls, allowing the resident to observe nature as it is, almost like looking at lions through the glass at MGM, without the captive stance of such an exhibit. In addition, none of the rooms look out at one another, a strategy that gives the resident a feeling of privacy sans the absence of curtains.

When you think of architecture, one usually thinks of a clean slate and building the structure from the ground up. But here, Jensen & Skodvin display the beauty that can be found when tackling a problem, and how restrictions on your creative ideas forces you to push the boundaries of what you can do, and how you can execute it beautifully in order to meet your own high standards.