STATUS
IDEA
CLIENT
Kassiopeia Finland Oy
TYPOLOGY
Hospitality, Sports
SIZE M2/FT2
56,000 / 602,780
SHARE
The Koutalaki Ski Village is conceived as a gentle extension of the summit – extending the existing cluster of buildings to create a new village square at the heart of the resort.
Four buildings wrap around the central square to form a public pocket sheltered from the wind yet open and inviting to the surrounding landscape. The majestic views from the summit are contrasted by the intimate atmosphere of the spaces between the buildings.
Instead of creating design solutions that aims at dealing with snow by shoveling or moving it, BIG created a village that utilizes the full potential of snow. When it is caught on the façade the window frames become a living part of the landscape, adapting to changes in the weather. The light granite façade enhances the intimate relation with the nature.
The gentle curves of the undulating roofs create a careful continuity of the natural landscape while lending the whole village the unique character of an architecture of ski slopes – an inhabited mountain top.
The Koutalaki Ski Village is a gentle as well as dramatic extension of both the summit and the resort. Grown from the natural topography rather than dropped from the sky – the architecture extends the organic forms of natural landscape creating an inhabitable as well as skiable manmade mountain.
Bjarke Ingels Finn Nørkjær Jakob Lange Frederik Lyng Hanna Ida Johansson Lucian Mihail Racovitan João Albuquerque David Tao Erik de Haan Hans Willehader Jeffrey Mark Mikolajewski Jeppe Ecklon Jesper Henriksen Maren Allen Rui Huang Taylor McNally-Anderson
