A Family of Skiers Find Winter Bliss in a Cozy Cabin in Norway

Stellar views, local pine, and a Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired design combine in a compact cabin perched high in the Kvitfjell Mountains.

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Lucy Wang

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After years of working at Oslo- and San Francisco–based Mork Ulnes Architects, Norwegian architect Erling Berg recently launched his own practice—and his first project is a cozy cabin with a minimalist Scandinavian aesthetic and a thoughtful eco-sensitive design.

Cross-country skiing tracks are located along the south-facing elevation of Kvitfjell Cabin. They connect to the downhill slopes of the surrounding Kvitfjell ski resort.

The cabin is clad in untreated, locally sourced pine that will develop a silvery-gray patina over time.

Named after its location, the Kvitfjell Cabin sits on an elevated site that the clients—a family with a passion for skiing—carefully selected for its world-class ski slopes and phenomenal views of Jotunheimen National Park’s dramatic mountain range.

The light-filled living area is oriented toward the southwest for optimal landscape views.

Oiled white pine makes the vaulted rooms feel light and bright even during long, dark winters.

In addition to landscape views, the design brief called for a relatively compact build. "A big goal for this project was to reduce the size of the cabin’s footprint as much as possible to keep the construction costs down, while meeting programmatic needs for four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a sauna, and a spacious and open living/dining room connected to a kitchen," explains Berg.

"Hallways are often seen as dead space, but this one serves a purpose and function," explains Berg. "It almost pushes you through to the main spaces."

The cozy living area features a refurbished Børge Mogensen chair and a Recover sofa from Bolia. The coffee table was sourced from Jotex.

To achieve a spacious feel in the open-plan living and dining room, Berg drew design inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright’s use of the "gallery," a low-ceilinged entrance corridor that leads to a vaulted room, which feels taller and more open due to the architectural principle of compression and release.

The dining area is furnished with refurbished Danish chairs from the 1970s, an oak table purchased from a local store called Jysk, and a Muuto Fluid pendant lamp.

Pictured is one of the children’s bedrooms with a glazed door that opens up to the landscape.

Berg also looked to traditional boat design while planning the layout of the 1,560-square-foot home. "I stretched out the ‘ship’ of the main volume, letting the private rooms follow the gallery space—much like the lower deck layout of old sailboats—before stepping down to the shared living/dining/kitchen area that follows the sloped terrain," says Berg.

The primary bedroom located on the north side of the house is flanked by a large west-facing window that captures sunset views, and a smaller window to the east.

A peek inside the bathroom, which features Light Khaki mosaic tiles from Vitra.

The architect fit the bulk of the cabin’s program inside a narrow rectangular volume that stretches 85 feet from east to west. "The ensuite follows the same strategy, stretching north, but with windows facing east for the sunrise and west for the sunset," he says.

A look inside the sauna, which is made of pine.

"Instead of just placing the vertical slats in front of parts of the windows, I wanted to incorporate the slats to be a part of the exterior on all walls. This created a sense of harmony and play in the otherwise plain and clean elevations," explains Berg.

Although large, insulated windows were instrumental to creating the cabin’s airy feel and framing views, their size would initially fail to comply with local permitting rules, which restrict window sizes to reduce bird deaths from glass collisions.Rather than dividing all the windows into smaller openings, Berg solved the issue by installing vertical wooden slats in front of the windows. These slats continue along the walls to create a cohesive appearance.

Although Kvitfjell Cabin was created for year-round use, the holiday home was primarily designed for winter vacations and handling heavy snow loads.

To engineer the relatively thin roof overhang for heavy snowfall, Berg tripled the number of extruded slats in the roof structure.

"The cabin is larger than a traditional Norwegian mountain cabin, with taller ceilings and larger windows and doors, but it still feels very cozy and intimate from the inside—this was important to maintain, and I am happy to say it worked," says Berg.