Ice Hotel Room Scheme in Full – A Rich Seam

ICEHOTEL Sweden #28 is now open for the 2017-18 season, and, if you’ve followed the making series on Chalk & Moss, you’ll have seen how it’s all been carved from snow and ice. Now’s the time to reveal the full ice hotel room scheme by British design duo Hugh and Howard Miller!

A Rich Seam – an Ice Hotel room design by Hugh and Howard Miller

A prospector is magnetised North.
He starts digging.
Soon there is a cavern.
Is he mad? He buries the thought.

The earth is split.
A half light exposed in the half light.
Is there more? He thinks so.
He follows the rich seam.

The concept behind Ice Hotel room design “A Rich Seam” comes from the ICEHOTEL phenomenon itself. Brothers Hugh and Howard Miller explain: People are inexplicably drawn to the North. Their discovery of its beauty is like unearthing a rare stone; they fear reporting the find in case someone takes it from them. The ICEHOTEL community are a rich seam of artistic thought and experiment; a mine of material and ideas. The snow and ice of the River Tarne are enchanted materials. They have the otherworldly power to contain and extend the light of Jukkasjarvi.

The idea behind their ice hotel room design is like digging down into a mine. This reveals a seam of ice,  and one continues digging further through the snow and ice.

Upon entering the rounded room, your eye draws towards a faint glow in the ice. Touch it, and realise the glow is emanating from a seam that follows the iced perimeter of the cavernous room, drawing you further inside. This ice hotel room consists of several connected rounded spaces carved out of snow, like spheres that have collided.

The Ice Hotel Room Design

The room has an open-ended arch with snow blocks around the edges. These blocks were laboriously carved with a chainsaw. The Miller brothers installed a seam over the snow using a heat plate technique that allows light to pass through, to which feature lighting was  added. They filled the arch with snow and buried the seam. The seam was then carefully shaped into diamond like forms that glow through the snow.

You can read more about the room’s concept and build in the previous blog posts in the ICEHOTEL build diary, from early phase to final touches.

Photos by Hugh and Howard Miller, unless specified.

The seam follows the room, leading you further into the snow mine.

The cavern is like spheres of volume that have collided.

An open-ended arch with snow blocks around the edges. They installed a seam on top of the snow blocks to allow light to pass through. They filled the arch with snow and buried the seam. The cavern was dug out and the seam carved into jewel shapes.

The seam leads you to the bed in the last cavern of this ice hotel room.

They carved the ceiling of the cavern to resemble the roof of a cave. You can read more about this technique in the ICEHOTEL in the making post.

Brothers Hugh Miller and Howard Miller in their room “A Rich Seam” at the ICEHOTEL, Sweden.

“A Rich Seam”, by Hugh and Howard Miller (UK). This ice hotel room design explores the idea of digging through snow in a mine to find a seam in the ice, then continuing digging to make new discoveries. Photo by Asaf Kliger.