building with snow and ice: ephemeral art and architecture for sub-zero temperatures

When Winter Becomes a Canvas for Design

Each winter, ice and snow become building materials. From vernacular structures such as igloos and temporary snow shelters to snowmen shaped by hand, frozen water has long been used to form space, mark presence, and test the limits of climate and material. In contemporary practice, architects and artists work against time and temperature, shaping environments that last only as long as the cold allows. In Sweden, the ICEHOTEL has been rebuilt every year since 1989 using ice cut from the Torne River, combining architectural construction with immersive, artist-designed rooms. In Quebec, Canada, Hôtel de Glace, North America’s only seasonal full-scale ice hotel, rises each winter from thousands of tonnes of snow and carved ice, following a new theme each season. In China, the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival uses ice and snow to create walls, vaults, and large-scale structures, often illuminated with LED lighting to form an extensive winter environment.

Beyond hotels and festivals, smaller-scale works show how frozen materials can operate between architecture and art. Finland’s Snow Show in 2004 brought together architects and artists including Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, and Morphosis to create spatial works made entirely from snow and ice. In Stockholm, Ulf Mejergren Architects built a temporary ‘primitive hut’ from 4,000 snowballs, while Japanese floral artist Azuma Makoto has explored cold as a creative condition, freezing floral arrangements in ice and staging large pine tree installations within snowy landscapes.

In this deep dive, designboom looks at how designers build with cold, from large-scale ice hotels to experimental installations and sculptural works, and how ice and snow shape spaces that exist only briefly, before melting back into the environment.

structures in the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival | image by Joy Ru via Unsplash (head image by Miguel Baixauli via Unsplash)

ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

Each winter, when the Torne River freezes, creators from around the world gather in Jukkasjärvi to build the ICEHOTEL. Ever since 1989, the hotel has been reconstructed annually, taking on entirely new forms each season. What began as a single ice gallery by founder Yngve Bergqvist has grown into a globally recognized Arctic destination, where architecture and art are shaped directly by the elements.

The hotel is built almost entirely from ice harvested from the Torne River, one of Sweden’s last untouched waterways. Massive ice blocks are cut in spring, stored through summer, and combined with ‘snice’, a durable mix of snow and ice, to construct walls, floors, and ceilings. Molds shape the ice into stable arches and corridors, allowing artists to create intricate designs safely. The construction process takes about six weeks, after which artists transform each room into a unique work of art. When spring arrives, the hotel and its artworks melt back into the river, continuing a cycle of creation and return. Each year, ICEHOTEL invites artists from around the world to submit proposals. About 15 are selected from roughly 150 applications. Lighting is carefully integrated into each suite, highlighting textures and enhancing the sculptural qualities of the ice.

the exterior of ICEHOTEL | image courtesy of ICEHOTEL

the Art Suite 365 interior | image courtesy of ICEHOTEL

Hôtel de Glace in Valcartier Vacation Village, Canada

Hôtel de Glace, North America’s only full-scale seasonal ice hotel, opens each year from January to mid-March. Constructed entirely from snow and ice, the hotel is rebuilt annually, introducing new spatial compositions and design elements each season. The complex includes a Grand Hall, Ice Chapel, ice slide, and themed suites, as well as the Ice Bar, where drinks are served in glasses made of ice. The suites feature beds and furniture carved from ice, set on insulated wooden platforms and paired with high-performance Arctic sleeping bags designed for temperatures between -3°C and -5°C. Throughout the hotel, carved surfaces and sculptural details demonstrate the technical precision required to work with frozen materials at an architectural scale. Each edition is organized around a guiding theme that brings together art, light, and atmosphere. Lighting plays a central role, shifting the perception of space between day and night and animating the ice after dark.  Designed to be experienced both during the day and overnight, Hôtel de Glace exists as a temporary architectural environment that explores how ice and snow can shape space, structure, and sensory experience within a limited timeframe.

the suites feature beds and furniture carved from ice | image courtesy of Hôtel de Glace

carved surfaces and sculptural details can be found throughout the rooms | image courtesy of Hôtel de Glace

Harbin Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin, China

Held from late December to mid-February, the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival is the largest ice and snow festival in the world. Taking place in Harbin, northeastern China, the event transforms the city into a vast landscape of temporary architecture and sculpture built entirely from ice and snow harvested from the frozen Songhua River. The festival includes two main exhibition areas. On Sun Island, enormous snow sculptures form a large-scale outdoor exhibition. Ice and Snow World, the festival’s most prominent site, features full-scale buildings and urban ensembles constructed from thick blocks of ice, many illuminated with multicolored lighting and open to visitors from afternoon into the night. Rebuilt every year with new designs, the site has reached up to 800,000 square meters in recent editions, making it one of the largest temporary architectural environments in the world.

Construction relies on industrial-scale ice harvesting and carving techniques, using saws, chisels, and molds to create walls, vaults, towers, and bridges. Deionized water is often used to produce ice with high transparency, enhancing the visual effect of light and color after dark. The resulting structures reference a wide range of architectural typologies, from monumental landmarks to abstract and fantastical forms.

Ice and Snow World features full-scale buildings constructed from thick blocks of ice, illuminated with multicolored lighting | image via @ctl888

Snow show (2004) in Finland 

In 2004, Finland’s Snow Show brought together leading international architects and artists to create temporary structures made almost entirely from snow and ice. Curated by Lance Fung, the project paired creatives in collaborative groups to explore how ephemeral materials could shape space, form, and sensory experience under Arctic conditions. Conceived as a testing ground rather than a conventional exhibition, the Snow Show examined the shared origins and methods of art and architecture through direct collaboration.

The exhibition took place in Kemi and Rovaniemi, towns near the Arctic Circle, where sub-zero temperatures enabled the construction of works up to eight meters high and 80 square meters in surface area. Around 30 structures were realized using compressed snow and ice, often combined with pigments, lighting, sound, or minimal supporting materials. By replacing familiar, permanent building materials with fragile and unfamiliar ones, the project encouraged designers to rethink structural logic, authorship, and the relationship between concept and construction. Notable works included Zaha Hadid and Cai Guo-Qiang’s monumental, ocean-liner-inspired structure composed of curving terraces and translucent ice, which was dramatically activated during the opening through the ignition of vodka poured into carved channels. Tadao Ando and Tatsuo Miyajima’s Iced Time Tunnel formed a parabolic passage of ice blocks, using curvature and transparency to create a luminous spatial experience. Carsten Höller’s Meeting Slides introduced an interactive element, with visitors moving through channels carved into compacted snow. Morphosis, working with Do-Ho Suh, created Fluid Fossils, using pigmented ice and molded plastic sheeting to allow frozen material to harden into unexpected forms guided by its own physical behavior.

Displayed until the spring thaw, the Snow Show emphasized impermanence as a productive design condition. More than a collection of sculptural works, it functioned as a laboratory for collaboration, demonstrating how artists and architects can work together to challenge disciplinary boundaries and explore new possibilities for spatial design using ice and snow.

Tadao Ando and Tatsuo Miyajima’s Iced Time Tunnel | image © Fung Collaboratives

Zaha Hadid and Cai Guo-Qiang’s monumental, ocean-liner-inspired structure

Ulf Mejergren Architects’ Snowball Hut in Stockholm, Sweden 

During a cold winter in Stockholm, Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) constructed a temporary structure using a single, readily available material: snow. Titled Snowball Hut, the project marked the first installment in the studio’s Primitive Huts series, an ongoing initiative focused on creating simple architectural forms using one material, preferably sourced directly from nature.

The hut was built entirely from 4,000 hand-formed snowballs stacked into a small, enclosed structure. According to the architects, optimal conditions for construction occur at temperatures of around 2–3°C, when snow holds together without freezing too rigidly or melting. During construction, slight warming caused the snowballs to fuse naturally, softening the structure and making the internal hollows more pronounced. Openings and the entrance were shaped by selectively removing snowballs as the material settled.

Rather than relying on formal construction techniques, Snowball Hut explores how environmental conditions, material behavior, and manual assembly can define architectural form. The project demonstrates how snow can function as both structure and surface, resulting in a modest yet thoughtful experiment in ephemeral, site-responsive design.

the hut was built entirely from hand-formed snowballs | image courtesy of Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA)

4,000 snowballs were needed to complete the ephemeral structure | image courtesy of Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) 

Azuma Makoto’s Frozen Flowers and Trees in snowy janapese landscapes

Japanese floral artist Azuma Makoto uses extreme environments to examine the life cycle, materiality, and perception of plants. In his Frozen Flowers installations (2021 and 2023), Makoto encased vivid floral arrangements in ice, using sub-zero outdoor conditions to suspend the flowers between preservation and decay. Created in Hokkaido, the works allow color and structure to remain visible through the ice while the surrounding snowfield emphasizes their fragility and impermanence. Ice functions not as a structural element, but as a transparent medium that alters time and perception as the sculptures slowly transform and dissolve.

Makoto has also explored scale and suspension in Shiki Tou (Winter Tower), a monumental installation realized in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. The work consists of a large pine tree suspended from a five-meter cubic steel frame, elevated above a snow-covered field. Carefully bound with rope and wire, the tree’s exposed root system becomes a central visual element, hovering just above the ground from which it was removed. Over time, snowfall partially conceals the structure, causing the sculpture to appear and disappear within the landscape.

Across both bodies of work, Makoto treats cold, gravity, and time as active design conditions. Whether freezing flowers or suspending entire trees, his installations frame botanical life within temporary states, allowing natural transformation to complete the work.

Frozen Flowers (2023) | image courtesy of Azuma Makoto

Architecture and Art That Accept Their Own End

Across these projects, snow and ice are not treated as novelties, but as serious design materials with their own structural logic, limits, and possibilities. Working with cold demands an acceptance of change, collapse, and disappearance, shifting attention from permanence to process. Whether at the scale of hotels, festivals, installations, or intimate shelters, these works demonstrate how architecture and art can emerge from climate itself, shaped by time, temperature, and environment, and completed not by endurance, but by return.

Shiki Tou (2017) | image courtesy of Azuma Makoto

Shiki Tou (2017) | image courtesy of Azuma Makoto

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