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

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

The Birding Varanger guide book - Arctic Norway sites & birds

"Varanger is the world´s most easily accessible Arctic birding destination. In Varanger, Arctic Norway,  you can experience the northern taiga, tundra and the Arctic coastline within a dya´s drive. Birders, birdwatchers and nature enthusiasts can enjoy an amazingly rich birdlife in a sutnning landscsape. Varanger is particularily famous for its wintering population of Steller´s Eiders. However the wide variety of unique bird species have made Varanger one of the top birding destinations of the world."

>>> get the Varanger guide book <<<

Øvre Pasvik - birding the arctic taiga - Gullfest pt.2

Hawk Owl about to strike

In the Pasvik taiga forest the arctic bird festival Gullfest turned into an Owlfest! The Pasvik section of Gullfest was an epilogue of Gullfest where we aimed to show our invited guests some of the finest birding in the arctic. The taiga forest of Pasvik is the northernmost coniferous forest in the world. The taiga forest stretches from Pasvik and all the way to the Pacific coast in the far east. The birding here is spectacular, when you where to look, that is. To maximise the niceness and chances of great experiences we teamed up with our Pasvik friends Ben Arne Sotkajærvi aka Mr.Pasvik and the good folks at Øvre Pasvik Camping.

Vardø, Arctic Norway - Gullfest part 1

King Eiders in Vardø harbour during Gullfest, March 2016

Gullfest 2016 was another successfull arctic birding festival. This year we celebrated the epic Vardø harbour. In town birding in Vardø is probanly some of the coolest in the world! Where else can you enjoy great fish food, a hot sauna followed by a swim with King Eiders?!

We are currently into our video blogging, and we hope you enjoy our vlog version of Gullfest. A few photos follow below as well. There will also be another blogpost coming up soon from the Pasvik section of Gullfest 2016. Stay tuned :)

GULLFEST 2016 - the movie

           

Steller´s Eiders & snow caves - living the Arctic life

Incoming Steller´s Eiders in Kiberg harbour. Photographed from water level, dressed in a drysuit, swimming in the harbour. The Steller´s Eider photos and the video was shot, yesterday, Saturday the 6th of February. The weather was just too nice not to go for a swim in the harbour. 

Kiberg harbour in outer Varanger Fjord is one of the best places in the world to get close to this iconic arctic seaduck. We are currently working on a Steller´s Eider photo hide so some research needs to be done. We like everything about our jobs, but this kind of fieldwork is on top of the ´love it´ list. So without further ado: here are a few Steller´s Eider photos and a 2 minute video of the experience. We hope you enjoy (click on any image for full screen view, for desktop)

              
A day in Kiberg, swimming with Steller´s Eiders.

Hasselnes Wind Shelter - Watching Auroras in Varanger

Aurora-watching from the new Hasselnes bird hide and wind shelter. To left in the distance is Hornøya bird cliff.

  

Hornøya bird cliff is one of the key attractions in Varanger. We are currently working on a project aiming at improving the fascilities on Hornøya, and to connect Hornøya more with Vardø island. At Hasselnes, northeasternmost Vardø island, you have great views of Hornøya bird cliff. Hasselnes used to be the town dump. With the new bird hide and windshelter we aim to make Hasselnes an attractive place to visit. It is already a key place for birders and all visitors to Vardø, but fasilities and information have been absent. During our recent bird festival Gullfest 2015 we opened the Hasselnes wind shelter.

Gullfest 2015 - Arctic Art & Architecture in progress

Gyrfalcon by Lars Jonsson ©, Gullfest 2015 artist, talking at Unni´s Kafé in Vardø on Friday at 19.00hrs. Surely the birding talk of the year in Varanger.

Gullfest 2015 is just about to start. We have a lot happening at the same time these days: 
- A new Varanger Peninsula National Park Exhibitions opened yesterday, designed by Biotope in collaboration with Varanger Museum. 
- We have a new bird hide / wind shelter being built, to be ready for opening on Saturday on the Gullfest base camp. 
- The base camp itself is being set up ready for this weekend. 
- Our invited artists Lars Jonsson, James McCallum and Jonnie Fisk are already in the field creating their magic take on the Varanger birdlife!

The Dark Knights

Arctic chillout

Purple Sandpipers are some of the toughest birds on the planet. Too often these birds go by unnoticed, and they are rarely on any ´top birds list´. In fact in Varanger we often make that mistake too. The striklingly beautiful King Eiders and Steller´s Eider grab our attention. It is about time we make a tribute to the toughest of birds. These guys are found in Varanger all year, and somehow they manage survive the arctic winter.

Golden birding in Båtsfjord - the King Eider hide

  Here we go again - The arctic sea ducks are back in Varanger, and Ørjan Hansens floating King Eider photo hide in Båtsfjord is already in place. It is carefully placed in the harbour where many of the eiders prefer to stay, close to the fish factory and the incoming fishing vessels. The February light is absolutely amazing, so this past Friday I simply had to take a trip to the northern part of the Varanger Peninsula

Birdfair 2013 - the worlds greatest gathering of birders

We just came back to Varanger, Arctic Norway, after a weekend visit to England and the amazing Rutland Birdfair. Birds migrate worldwide to wherever there is suitable habitat. It seems birders migrate too, and Rutland is the birder site of choice. Some 25 000 birders and nature enthusiasts from all over the world have been recorded in this little village two hours north of London. It should be included in a list of wonders of the wild world, as a migration phenomenon not to be missed. Birders are preferably found behind a pair of binoculars at some nature reserve or some other wild place. At Birdfair you will find birders admiring fine optics, possible adventures, great birding destinations or exciting conservation projects. In addition it is situated next to a spectacular nature reserve, the Rutland Water, so you may see a bird or two as well. The Rutland BirdFair is an amazing blend of bird and nature conservation and business. Whenever I meet people in Varanger or elsewhere that doubt the size and impact of the birding world, I tell them about Birdfair. It is grand!

Pushing the Boundaries RELOADED - talking at the Rutland Birdfair 2013!

In January and February 2013 me and Martin Garner went on a tour around UK, giving talks at 10 bird clubs in 14 days. What a road trip! In our different ways we both hoped to promote birding and talk about some projects that proved that birding is quite possibly the coolest enterprise ever. In all modesty. We were both amazed by all the great people we met on the road. In day time we birded nature reserves and other hotspots with old and new friends, in the evenings we where met by welcoming people at the bird clubs. I think we must have met something close to a 1000 birders on our tour! 

Since my early years as a young birder, in the 1990s, I have basically been raised on British birding litterature. One of my favourite books was the ´Rare Birds´ guide, illustrated by Ian Lewington. On the Pushing the Boundaries Tour I got the chance to see a lot of cool places, but the people we met is what really stands out! And that Brown-bellied Dipper I had to chase unexpectedly hard to find, and of course that 111-species-in-day bird race in Norfolk. Great birding, great people!

Now the RSPB (The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) have asked me and Martin to give our Pushing the Boundaries Talks on the Rutland Birdfair, at the RSPB Birders Lecture. Friday evening, first day of Birdfair. In the Events marquee. 550 seats. That is a pretty big wow! Now we hope to fill the marquee with birders, and we promise to upgrade and fine tune our talks with even better birder niceness for this event! 

From Rutland Birdfair 2012: an amazing event celebrating birds and nature. How cool it is to see so many people enjoying it. Its like the birding world migrated to the same little hotspot, for information, for inspiration and to connect. Close to 25 000 bird and nature enthusiasts visit Rutland Birdfair!

Me and Martin on tour in february 2013. Birding and bird clubbing. Check out Martins Pushing the Boundaries Reloaded intro.

Pushing the Boundaries Talk: So what is it about?!

Birds, of course. 

Some of the coolest birds on the planet actually. 

As it is for both Martin and me, birds and birding is a source of endless inspiration! For me birding has become a full time enterprise. With a twist. For four years I have now run what I think is the only bird focused architectural practise in the world. I have not heard of any other architects working full time with bird projects yet (but I hope this will improve). My Pushing the Boundaries Talk is about how me and my wife, against much "good" advice moved north to the fishing town Vardø in arctic Norway, to set up an architectural practise that worked with pro bird and nature proejcts only.

Varanger is a well known birding destination and for the past few years we have made it even more known, both internationally and locally. It has been and continues to be a great adventure being birding archtiects based in Varanger. 

Arctic birding. A small family business with a plan to make a difference.

Being a birding architect is much more then just designing buildings, it is about enganging with people! Making new things happen is a great reward. The world of birding have such a wide range of amazing people and things happening. The Birdfair itself is proof of a community of both magnitude and variety. We have bird art, bird festivals, bird sound recordists, bird science, bird identification specialists, bird tour companies, bird conservation, and so much more. We wanted to contribute to the world of birding by means of architecture. To do so we had to prove our value, by engaging with both the international birding community and by making a  solid difference where we live. Join the Pushing the Boundaries Talk and hear about this story.

Birding architecture in progress, from stealth type bird photo hides, to wind shelters to combined bird towers and outdoor amphi-theaters. We design, protoype, build and make it happen.

A lot of people see Che Guevera as a change maker worthy of iconic status, and of course mass spreading on T-shirts. We aim to make the über cool Steller´s Eider the Che Guevara of Varanger. Pro nature revolution by birding!

Bird street art: For that little arctic birding revolution we needed more birders, and being impatient, we just started making them. 

Pushing the Boundaries: Isles of Scilly & Becoming birder architects

So how do you go about becoming a birder architect? Well you start by convincing your architect girlfriend that birding really is very normal and even a very cool thing. In 2006, having just met Elin at the architect school, we just had to go somewhere exiting, to prove that not only was birding a big thing but also worth our focus as architects. Remembering how the Isles of Scilly seemed to feature in almost every page of the 1990s classic ´Rare Birds´ guide book, I figured there could be not better place to go! We spent 3 weeks in October 2007 on Scilly. A superb experience, and this is where we hatched our plans to become birder architects! 

Scilly birding: We spent a lot of time birding, and we where both amazed by the number of birders around. Like phylloscopus warblers they popped out behind every bush on the island. Walkie talkies was sparkling all over the place and the ´huit´ calls was always the latest bird info passing around. 

We even found ourselves a very cool Blackpoll Warbler, and we were both a little overwhelmed by the scenes of heavy local birder migration the following hour at the Lower Moors on Scilly. Check out the short video clip we took of birders rushing in to see ´our´ Blackpoll Warbler (a low res video, but pretty cool still). I think about 300+ people arrived within 20 minutes.  

A long story short: The Isles of Scilly proved to be a potent experience. We met a lot of great people, saw some very cool birds and places and we both agreed that we should pursue a career as birder architects. Sorted. 

We hope to see you at the Birdfair

With that brief intro I am very glad to be able to invite all birders coming to the Birdfair to join mine and Martins talks at the Events marquee on Friday at 16.15 o´clock. We promise Martins inspirational stories from the frontiers in bird id and birding and my story of how birding can change a place. It will be some cool stories of birds and people aiming to make a difference. 

From the Arctic I will present some architecture dedeicated to birders

the scenaries

the inspirational people who make things happen

and of course some very cool birds!

Grand thanks to all the good birders & bird clubs that hosted our talks in January and February, and thanks to the keen birders at RSPB for making this happen. Hope to see you all, and meet new friends, at the Birdfair this August! to be continued..

Best wishes 

Tormod A. / architect & birder, based in Varanger / Arctic Norway