High in Slovenia’s Kamnik Alps, below the 2,532-metre peak of Skuta, a sharp-edged little shelter clings to the rocks. Completed in 2015, the Alpine Shelter Skuta was designed by Harvard Graduate School of Design students with Ljubljana practice OFIS Architects, and flown up the mountain in three pieces by helicopter.
Photo: Janez Martincic via ArchDaily
Skuta and the Kamnik–Savinja Alps
Skuta is the third-highest peak of the Kamnik–Savinja Alps, the limestone range that runs along Slovenia’s northern border with Austria. Below the summit lies the Skuta Glacier, the easternmost glacier in the Alps. The area is serious climbing and high-mountain hiking terrain; the shelter’s project address is the village of Zgornje Jezersko.
The new shelter replaced a bivouac that had stood on the site for about 50 years. Like its predecessor, it is an unstaffed emergency and overnight refuge for mountaineers, looked after by the PD Ljubljana Matica mountaineering society, the project’s client.
A Harvard design studio for an extreme environment
The design came out of the “Habitation in Extreme Environment” studio at the Harvard GSD in autumn 2014, taught by OFIS founders Rok Oman and Špela Videčnik. Students Frederick Kim, Katie MacDonald and Erin Pellegrino developed the winning scheme, which OFIS then turned into a buildable shelter with London structural engineers AKT II and local engineers Projecta.
Three modules, one day, one helicopter lift
The shelter was prefabricated off-site as three modules. Splitting it up made it light enough to fly, and each module has its own job:
- Entrance module: arrival and storage for boots, ropes and gear.
- Middle module: the shared living space.
- End module: sleeping platforms facing the big window.
Helicopters of the Slovenian Armed Forces, with the Mountain Rescue Association of Slovenia (GRZS), lifted the modules into place, and transport and installation took a single day. The modules sit on small fixed anchor points, keeping the footprint on the rock minimal.
Inside: 12 square metres for eight climbers
The finished shelter covers just 12 square metres and sleeps up to eight mountaineers. The outer shell is clad in thin glass-fibre concrete panels (Rieder öko skin), with stone-wool insulation and triple-glazed windows. Inside, a timber lining wraps benches and sleeping surfaces, and the large end window frames the view down the valley.
At night the window works the other way round: lit from within, the end of the shelter glows against the dark rock, a beacon for climbers coming down from the ridges.
Visiting Skuta and more of the Slovenian Alps
Reaching the shelter means a long, steep ascent in high-alpine terrain. Go in summer and early autumn, with climbing experience or a local mountain guide, and remember that a bivouac is a refuge for mountaineers: arrive self-sufficient with food, a sleeping bag and water.
For more on how the shelter was installed, read our introduction to the shelter below Skuta. For a very different northern home, see Norway’s NatureHouse under a glass dome. Gentler Slovenian landscapes include:
- Lake Bohinj: Water, Villages and the Julian Alps
- The Changing Faces of Lake Bohinj, Slovenia
- Lake Bled, Slovenia: Island, Castle and Lakeside Views
- Marko Korošec’s Ice-Covered Trees and Tower on Mount Javornik
- Slovenia’s February 2014 Ice Storm: Frozen Landscapes and Storm Damage
- Vintgar Gorge near Bled: The Radovna River, Walkways and Waterfalls
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