From early December the sun stays below the horizon in Lofoten for about six weeks. What remains is a blue glow at midday and, on clear nights, the northern lights. When we designed a group of cabins there, we asked a simple question: what should a house feel like in the dark?

Designing for the light that is left

In the polar night, there is still light — just very little, very low and very blue. We kept windows low and wide to catch the horizon glow, rather than tall windows that frame an empty black sky for half the year.

Pale inside, dark outside

The cabins are clad in tarred black timber, which disappears into the landscape in winter and glows warm against the snow. Inside, every surface is pale pine, so the little daylight there is bounces around the room instead of being swallowed.

Windows that don’t become mirrors

A big window at night turns into a black mirror. We avoid that with deep reveals, low lamps and dimmable warm light below eye level, so you can still see the snow and the sky from the sofa instead of your own reflection.

Warmth you can see

Every cabin has a wood stove at its centre, visible from every room. In the dark months, the fire becomes the clock of the house. We placed seating around it like an old Norwegian stue, with the best seat facing the window.

Building in winter

Most of the construction happened in the dark, so the cabins were prefabricated in panels in a workshop in Bodø and assembled on site in nine days. The carpenters worked under floodlights, and the roofs were closed before the first big storm.

Energy in the dark

With no solar gain for weeks, insulation does the heavy lifting: 300 mm of wood fibre in the walls and 400 mm in the roof. A small air-source heat pump and the stove keep the cabins warm on around a third of the energy of a typical holiday cabin.

What the guests say

The cabins are let all year. To our surprise, the dark months book out first. Guests come for the northern lights and stay for the quiet, the stove and the strange, beautiful blue hour at noon.

What we learned

Designing for darkness made us better at designing for light. We now test every project, wherever it is, on the shortest day of the year as well as the longest.

If you would like to stay in one of the cabins, they are let through the local tourist office in Svolvær. Bring warm socks, a good book and patience: the northern lights come when they want to.