A restaurant serves skiers built by locally available materials.
image: Åke E:son Lindman | © all rights reserved
image: Åke E:son Lindman | © all rights reserved
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It lies between the lifts in Ramundberget ski resort. On a small hill where the tree line meets the mountain.
The building finds its place between slow growing birch trees, brooks and rocks. A location that emphasises the buildings relation to the nature, summer and winter. From this site you have a wide view over well-known mountains in Sweden. You see no other buildings from the site.
The Facade material is given by the surrounding nature, birch logs stands like a huge protecting screen towards the Nordic icy winds. The same material is applied for the restaurant both in exterior as well as the interior. The round shape is natural in the in exposed situation. And it lets the snow stay on the façade. It lets the cold winds pass and it offers maximal view contact from the inside It open its embrace forming a protected outdoors space where you can sit in the sun towards the white mountains.
Tusen is the Swedish word for thousand that is the altitude for the restaurant in meter above the sea level. The location Ramundberget is a well established, genuine, small ski resort with a strong brand. Since 1936 an increasing number of people have visited Ramundberget to experience the nature, hike or ski in the tracks in the mountains nearby.
After some alternative locations, the design team chose a site with a nice view - an easy accessible plot for skiers in all weather types and where the low standing sunbeams could reach this spot in February/March. The first sketches showed a protecting leaning fence integrated with the building. A structure that could let the winds pass with an opening towards the sun in the middle of the day.
Due to the site's inaccessibility, prefabricated elements were chosen to enable a relatively quick building process. The foundation is made of concrete-filled steel piles to do the least damage to the environment.
There were many challenges due to this not-easy-accessible location. The first was to build a temporary structure to come up with building materials, later in the winter, all the material has been run up with a converted piste machine.
The restaurant has its own system for wastewater treatment, and it gets its own water from a source in the ground nearby. The same contractor was responsible for geothermal, drilling for water and drilling for the foundation of the building.
The building is warmed up by ground heating and heat exchangers take care of the warmth from the air and water. To top up during really cold days electrical heating is used. In the summer when it is closed for skiers everything is turned off.
