12x bird hides and nature shelters in Varanger by Biotope (with google map site links)

12 x architecture, general intro: 

The main goal of all the projects has been to make nature and nature experiences more accessible to as many people as possible. The structures are open and inviting, and in many ways reflect the principle of the right to roam and the idea of nature as a common space that everyone should be able to experience. In short. 

In Varanger, it has also been important to us that these structures support business development in the form of nature-based tourism, and in this way contribute to more viable local communities.

This brief journey of 12 selected projects starts in Varangerbotn and ends in Hamningberg. There are more to explore, but this is an intro...

1, The school shelter in Varangerbotn:

By the Sami museum. It is often used by local kindergartens and school classes as an outdoor classroom. It is an open for all shelter with a nice fireplace

Site: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3Axtmy6k4kRvW53V7

2, Vestre Jakobselv River Delta shelter: 

A basic wooden shelter with a view of the river delta. Sheltered bench spaces on 3 sides, main view towards delta.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/s3kEQfkdhdGJWxsZ6

3, Vadsø breakwater shelter: 

Bird hide/wind shelter made of concrete at the far end of the pier in Vadsø industrial/fishing harbour. The building is currently missing its windows (to be fixed asap), but it is still a popular stop for birdwatchers visiting Varanger and a nice local stroll destination for the residents.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/crxCoe9avCD5Ys1i6

4, Kiberg Seaside Shelter:

Large shelter with a view of the sea and beach in Kiberg. The building is open towards the sea, with walls and angles that amplify the sound of the sea when sitting inside the viewing room.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/D9SoQyGqsoH6RfUA6

5, Kiberg Kittiwake Hotel: 

A simple but effective bird hotel designed by Biotope and built in collaboration with the dedicated village team in Kiberg. The goal was to repurpose old buildings and at the same time provide more and better nesting sites for a threatened bird species. A large number of kittiwakes moved in during the first season.

The hotel is complete with a pink neon sign, just for good fun (lets just say Kiberg needed to beef up its sex appeal in order to increase its number of inhabitants. It worked )

https://maps.app.goo.gl/2debyNs4NcfQhpCn6

6, Kiberg, Varanger Peninsula National Park Exhibition:

Designed and built by Biotope almost 10 years ago, in the old school in Kiberg. Unsure about opening hours these days. The main feature of the exhibition is an over 40m² large and super detailed floor map of the entire Varanger Peninsula. It's great for getting a good overview of the region (and you can walk across the Varanger Peninsula – albeit in scale).

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ewPyq51GMehnhrM28

7, Vardø: Domen Viewpoint:

Designed by Biotope for the National Scenic Routes. The building offers shelter at a spectacular vantage point, with fantastic views of Vardøya and the entrance to the Varanger Fjord. Biotope has been the main architect for the National Tourist Routes' initiative on nature facilities along the Varanger Fjord, with birds as the main theme. 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/RENWSAqqQ9iLBwww8

8, Vardø: Oksevann day-trip cabin 

is one of around 20 day-trip cabins built in Finnmark for Finnmark Outdoor Council. The cabins are quite basic, with sheltered seating outside and a cozy room inside with a wood stove. The floor merges with the terrain, made of gravel and stone, so you don't need to remove your hiking boots when inside the cabin. It's about an hour's hike to the cabin.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/QAfSqjayWRKdwCBy9

9, Vardø island: Steilnes wind shelter 

offers good wind protection with a view towards the sea south of Vardøya. During winter, this is a place with unique gatherings of arctic sea ducks (often up to 15-25,000 birds). This was the first shelter built (2012) as part of the National Scenic Routes' in Varanger. The shelter is a small detour on the hiking trail that also takes you past Vardøhus Fortress and the Witches' Monument in Vardø.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/M7XoMTmuJC4L9YG36

10, Vardø island: Hasselnes shelter

offers great views of the famous bird cliff Hornøya, as well as the seaside entrance to the town of Vardø. It is an area that always hosts large numbers of birds. It's a nice local hotspot, just a short walk from the town center.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ke4yBJYGvC8BpZGm8

11, Vardø island: Vardø Hotel

 – not designed by Biotope – but no list of attractions in Varanger is complete without a visit to Vardø Hotel. The restaurant is exceptional and offers the best seafood you can find in Norway (Cod is Great!). Biotope has long collaborated with the hotel on the development of Varanger as a birdwatching destination (and Biotope has contributed large-format photos and maps as part of the hotel's decorations / interiors). The hotel is currently undergoing a major new initiative, where Biotope’s 'Birding Varanger' concept is an important part of the effort, particularly aimed at birdwatchers and nature photographers (more info at www.varanger.net).

In photo (lower left corner): Find Vardø Hotel strategically placed in Vardø harbour.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/j9KLzEXhL9J32aMg7

12 Hamningberg Viewpoint / seawatch

is a wind shelter / seabird viewing hide at the end of the road in Varanger. From here, you can sit in shelter and enjoy the serenity or drama of the open sea (depending on the weather). Hamningberg is known for the incredible bird migration with huge numbers of seabirds passing by during both spring and autumn migrations, often surprisingly close to the coast. The shelter is optimally placed to get as close as possible, yet in a safe distance from the stormy seas.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/s3h9wXxjova9YdwUA

Enjoy 

Tormod Amundsen / www.biotope.no

The "Fold it paper birds" by Biotope

The Steller´s Eider, King Eider and Harlequin Duck paper ´fold-it´ birds have spread their wings far and wide! We have given away hundreds of sheets at birding / outdoors festivals, as well as selling them to people visiting us at our office. We have also sent them to people around the world who have asked us for them. Now we want to give them away for free - as digital high resolution jpg-files. In the blogpost text below you will find links to the 3 different species we have made. So, if you want a do-it-yourself-challenge: Print the preferred bird species, preferably in A2 width (but A3 works as well, or just combine two A3´s) and fold away! The Steller´s Eider is the easiest to make (still. a challenge though! See video below), while the King Eider and Harlequin are tricky and very tricky! 

If you make a paper bird: feel free to share an image with us, through our social media! Thanks. 

Also: After years of leaving this website / blog non-active we're thinking of bringing some blog updates back to life. Some things are worth sharing, perhaps not in a website form, but just a small snippets of info, photos, videos etc, every once in a while. For the past years we have mostly posted news and views on our social media plattforms, but it just might be time to bring the blog back to life...

Steller´s Eider

Download link to the full resolution jpg-file for the Steller´s Eider paper bird

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17gvEAbQ2bwMTChl-WD_j1AGq9-H2RTq1/view?usp=sharing

(note: copy the link into the browser  - and voila!)

Steller´s Eider, Vardø, Varanger, Norway - photo; Tormod Amundsen

Biotope archives

Dear reader: 

This website (www.biotope.cloud) is no longer an active and updated website. This is the former www.biotope.no website which used to be our website / blog. The website features more then 100 articles or blogposts we have continously shared here since 2011. We have decided to keep it all online as a public archive. Many of the articles serve a lot of visitors to this website with all kinds of architecture and nature content. We have now moved on to make a new website on www.biotope.no 

Biotope is expanding our engagements, hence this re-organising of content. We hope you enjoy this website as the historical archive it now is. Feel free to connect with us on our new domain or on our various social media. Thank you!

Visiting Northwest Iceland - a June Biotope tour

Iceland have become a must visit country for anyone keen on seeing spectacular nature and dramatic light and scenaries. At times it seems like every second image on Instagram is from Iceland. Understandably so, as it is by far one on the most photogenic places in the world. However it is also a fact that most people go to the same places. A couple of select waterfalls and a certain plane wreck must be one of Icelands most photographed places. Most of these places are found in south Iceland. Since Biotope started working in Iceland a couple of years ago we have been privileged to travel around in north Iceland. The less explored Iceland. In many of the places we visit we find ourselves being the only ones there. Not for the lack of stunning scenaries or spectacular photo opportunities, it is simply less known. 


Puffin close up at Drangey bird cliff

Needless to say we were very excited when the northwestern regions destination companies invited your truly and my two Biotope colleagues Monica and Raymond to visit the northwest this June! The aim of our trip was to explore new places for bird hides, nature shelters and to further collect material for a potential birding destination guide book. In other words: a dream job! 

Join the Biotope team

UPDATE: The positions are filled 

(We are currently not in search for the below mentioned collegues. However: If you have awesome architect / technical design skills, and is very keen to work with us... let us know)

Biotope is an architecture office dedicated to nature. Through architecture we aim to bring people and nature closer together. We typically work with a wide range of small scale architecture projects, fascilitating for nature experiences. We specialise in outdoors living, birdwatching, nature photography, nature conservation and ecotourism projects. We are not your generalist architecture office working with everything from urbanism, housing to cultural buildings, etc. We love nature and we aim to work with organisations, companies and people that are passionate about nature. As such most of our work happens within the nature conservation and ecotourism scene. Through our work we aim to promote wildlife and nature, but we also see our work as being a great opportunity to positively contribute in rural communities such as Vardø where our office is based. In many ways we think of ourselves as destination designers and developers rather then architects for small scale buildings. We are a niche office, but that does not mean being narrowly focused in our work. In fact we work with everything from architecture to designing books, developing tourism concepts, branding, marketing, video productions, digital strategy, writing books and much more. We do not only provide architectural solutions for our clients we also help contextualise and promote both sigle architecture projects and onwards to destinations development projects. In many cases we do not wait for commisions to appear, but we initiate projects where we see possibilities. 

Vardø town and the Biotope office (currently under construction).

Biotope philosophy & origin story - the AD interview

Biotope just won the Architectural Digest Design Award 2017 in the category architecture. 2017 have been a year where our work is getting quite a bit of recognition and momentum. We are both humbled and thankfull for everyone who have and continue to support our work. We have been fortunate to work with great clients from both the nature conservation scene, ecotourism businesses and onwards to local communities. We have since we started Biotope stayed true to our niche of architecture dedicated to nature experiences. 

As a part of the AD award Tormod was interviewed by the Architectural Digest. Below follows the interview, hopefully with some thoughts and insights you will find valuable. Thanks to AD for the award and a big thanks to everyone following our work as pro nature architects! 

The Kongsfjord cliff wind shelter / bivouac by polar night

Biotope online resources

Nature-based architecture projects and destination development.

As our projects diversify, both by countries and by themes, we wanted to give you an overview of some key onlince resources and places you can connect with us. This website is to a large extent a blog form history of our projects since 2011. More then 100 blogposts have been written, and should it be printed it would make a couple of books. While we keep posting longer form articles on this website, much of our content production have moved to social media, like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram during the past couple of years. We have also started producing weekly video blogs posted on both Facebook and Youtube. 

SNOW LEOPARDS - the Tibetan Plateau expedition

     
            

China, the Tibetan plateau, April 2017 

Snow Leopards are among the most rare and least seen mammals in the world. For nature enthusiasts it is probably the most desired mammal to see. Needless to say I was incredibly excited when I was invited by Terry Townshend of Birding Beijing to be a part of a Snow Leopard pilot tour to a newly discovered area for this amazing species. The vast Chinese Tibetan Plateau probably holds many undiscovered secrets, and among them is an area that seems to be heavily favoured by the Snow Leopards. This following brief blogpost is based on a 14 day visit in China, where 5 days was spent at an undisclosed location between 4000 and 5000 meters above sea level.

On birdwatching and architecture

An essay on flare versus function

The world of birding is a bit of a paradox. Birdwatching or birding is a wildly popular hobby that attracts millions of people worldwide, while at the same time birdwatching is considered to be very niche and it is, despite its massive popularity, not well known by the general public. Birdwatching has long roots, and in some basic ways it can be considered a modern version of of the hunter-gatherer mentality we see reflected in other hobbies like hunting or fishing, which is no longer done for survival purposes but rather for recreational purposes. Birdwatching however have evolved beyond the hunter-gatherer mind set. Birdwatching is in fact an expression of the modern naturalist science based culture. The desire to understand nature in all of its complexity is a key to understanding birdwatching. Birdwatching is a natural progression from Charles Darwins evolution theory to modern day popular naturalist icons like David Attenborough. Birdwatching is in many ways science for the masses. It is, alongside astronomy, the largest knowledge and science based hobby in the world where the boundaries to its field is pushed forward by a large base of very keen enthusiasts rather than a small base of specialist professionals. Today birdwatching is a global culture with millions of birdwatchers contributing to an ever growing knowledge base of everything related to birds. The plattforms on which birdwatchers communicate are numerous. There are endless magazines, online forums, websites, organisations, companies, etc, catering to every need and want in the birdwatching community. What they all share is a deep passion for birds and nature, wether it is for hard core science purposes like research into bird species taxanomy or the pure artistic exploration of bird art and bird photography. 

BIRDING NORTH ICELAND - Nature destination development

Biotope recently made another visit to northern Iceland. For the past two years we have made repeated trips to this amazing birding destination, as a part of a nature destination development project we are working on. In collaboration with local nature based businesses we are exploring the region with the aim of designing and building a series of bird hides, photo hides and wind shelters.