Snøhetta has unveiled its design for "Svart," a hotel for sustainable tourism company Arctic Adventure of Norway. Located within the Arctic Circle, on the edge of Norway's Holandsfjorden fjord at the base of the Svartisen glacier, the building is designed to the "Powerhouse" building standard, a system developed by Snøhetta and a group of collaborators for creating energy-positive sustainable buildings. Designed in a distinctive ring shape that allows visitors to feel in touch with the surroundings, the structure of the building was inspired by traditional Norwegian fishing structures: the “fiskehjell,” an A-shaped wooden structure for drying fish, and the “rorbue,” a type of seasonal house used by fishermen. These two references contributed to the building's supporting structure of poles that support the building above the water while making minimal contact with the ecosystem. These supports also enable a walkway around the ring of the hotel that visitors will be able to enjoy in the summer. The Powerhouse standard used for the design was developed by Snøhetta alongside Entra, Skanska, the ZERO Emission Resource Organization and Asplan Viak. The standard outlines a requirement for the building to not only be energy-positive, but to generate more renewable energy over a 60-year period than the total amount of energy that would be required to both sustain daily operations and to build, produce materials, and demolish the building. In order to achieve this level of sustainability on the design of Svart, Snøhetta conducted an extensive survey of the solar conditions at the site throughout the year, eventually settling on the ring shape in order to place rooms, restaurants, and terraces in locations that make the most of the available solar energy. Meanwhile solar panels on the roof while harvest energy, producing more energy than buildings slightly further south due to the 24-hour daylight conditions over the summer, and geothermal wells will harness the energy from the ground below for heating purposes.

Architecture firm Snøhetta has revealed plans to build a restaurant in southern Norway that will be partly submerged in the sea to give diners a glimpse below the waves, reported The Dezeen. Described by the Oslo- and New York-based firm as "Europe's first underwater restaurant", the building will comprise a rugged concrete box with half of its body on the coastline, and the other half sunken underwater. Its primary use will be as a restaurant for up to 100 people, but it will also function as a marine research center and as an artificial mussel reef. Once inside, visitors will be able to look through a huge panoramic window to observe sea life at first hand. The building will be called Under – a word that the architects say is very similar to "wonder", when translated into Norwegian. It will be built near the village of Båly in Norway's Lindesnes region, on the country's southernmost tip. The building's concrete walls will be a meter thick, helping to withstand its inhospitable environment. Externally, this concrete will have a coarse texture, to encourage mussels to attach themselves to the structure. Meanwhile, the marine research center inside will facilitate studies into fish behavior – specifically whether it is possible to train wild fish with sound signals, and also whether fish act differently in different seasons. A huge frame-like oak wall will provide the building's entrance, which will lead through to a wood-lined restaurant space. The dining room will be painted in deep blue and green hues "inspired by the seabed, seaweed and rough sea". There will also be a champagne bar, featuring more subdued tones, intended to evoke shells, rocks and sand. The large panoramic window, measuring 11 meters wide, spans the entire end wall of the space.

Koen Olthuis and Dutch Docklands have announced a new project: a five-star floating hotel off the coast of Norway named the Krystall. Reminiscent of their Maldives development the Greenstar, this cold-climate sister project will take the form of a six-pointed ice crystal. As with Dutch Docklands' other floating structures the development will be low-impact, and it's designed to "blend in with the "winter environment" between the most beautiful fjords." The Krystall will float offshore from the northern city of Tromso, located within the Arctic Circle. Designed to be completely self-supporting and self-sustainable, the hotel will have a diameter of 120 meters, and facilities will include 86 guest rooms, conference rooms, and spa and wellness facilities. It's also billed as a perfect spot for viewing the Northern Lights due to its glass roof. The five-star luxury and spectacular nature of the project is aimed at attracting wealthy visitors from Japan, Russia and Europe. As Olthuis told CNN, "In the hotel, you'll float through hallways lined with cool, futuristic blue shapes, recline by a fireplace faced in transparent bricks resembling ice blocks and sleep in rooms tricked out in minimalist, winter-themed designs." But true to Olthuis's green principles, the design is not just about the aesthetics. To be built in dry dock and then positioned in place, the hotel will not leave a lasting footprint on its location. "That's the only way to bring a hotel to such a precious and beautiful marine environment," he says. Floating structures are a pragmatic design concern for the development company, as they ameliorate the risks to coastal properties associated with rising sea levels. As Olthuis explains, "We live in a dynamic world where static buildings do not bring us the needed flexibility. Building on water brings us new space for expansion, safety against floods and flexibility to adjust developments without demolition whenever needed." The hotel is set to open in December 2016.

The Norwegian Government has revealed plans for the construction of the world's first ship tunnel through a mountain to help ships navigate a dangerous section of the country's south-western coast. The government has agreed to provide US$ 274 million for the Stad Ship Tunnel, which will be built to a height of 45 meters, width of 36 meters and will span a length of 1.7 kilometers. The proposed tunnel, which is being planned by Nordfjord Vekst, would bypass the Stadlandet (Stad) peninsula in Selje, Norway linking two fjords near the towns of Teigen and Berstad. Peaking at 645 meters, the Stad peninsula is a mountainous divide between the Norwegian Sea to the north and the North Sea to the south. The project is being proposed to reduce navigation on the existing shipping route, which exposes vessels to some of Norway's most dangerous waters, where currents and waves come from different directions, which has contributed to 46 accidents and near-accidents since 1945. The Stad Ship Tunnel would be the world's first shipping tunnel capable of accommodating large cargo and passenger vessels of up to 16 thousand tons. Royal Academy of Engineering associate Robert Benaim told the BBC that the project would include the construction of a cofferdam at either end of the tunnel to keep the water out until excavation is complete. Nordfjod Vekst project director Randi Homborstad said: "As the sea is the backbone of transport along the west coast of Norway, public transport could be upgraded with improved regularity in cargo services and a new year-round high-speed passenger ferry service between the coastal cities of Bergen and Alesund." Construction of the new tunnel is expected to commence in 2018 and would take around four years to complete.

Buried deep underneath the mountains near Stavanger, Norway, the Green Mountain Data Center is quite possibly the greenest data center in the world. Powered by renewable energy from nearby sources and cooled with water from the adjacent fjord, the cavernous data center is all about energy efficiency. The center dramatically reduces its cooling costs and energy use by tapping into the 8 degree Celsius water from the fjord. As reported by Inhabitat.com, Green Mountain Data Center has about 21,000 sq meters of floor space inside the mountain and it is the collaboration of three Norway companies - Smedvig, Lyse Energy and Ergo Group. This includes facilities for administration, warehousing, a quay, and 9 halls to house data servers. As servers pump out of a lot of heat while storing and processing digital data, a powerful cooling system is needed to keep them from overheating. A number of data centers around the world are working towards more energy efficient systems, but the Green Mountain Data Center may have hit upon a jackpot. First, the center is buried underground, which means it uses the earth and the surrounding rock as moderators. Then it uses water from the neighboring fjord in a closed loop ground water heat exchanger and the cold efficiently cools the underground space. The center also sources all of its power from a number of very close renewable energy providers, which makes it totally carbon neutral. Combined with energy efficient design inside, the center is promoting itself as an environmentally friendly server farm. With a variety of close power sources nearby with a high level of redundancy, the farm is also promising a 99.9997% availability. Most of the data center's business will come locally from Norway, but they may also attract clients from Europe and the US because of their eco-friendly offerings. Development of the mountain halls and server rooms is going on now and they expect to be up and running sometime in late 2012. A fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs with thousand meters high, created in a valley carved by glacial activity. The length of fjord is in ten times bigger than the width. There are 4 most famous fjord areas in the world located on the west coast of Norway, Chile, New Zealand and North America.