The entrance to the Icehotel 365, Jukkasjärvi – Credits: Ph. Asaf Kliger

Icehotel – the first ice hotel that started back in 1991 – also the largest in the world, is now offering rooms all year round.

Here, in Jukkasjärvi, a village in northern Sweden in the heart of Lapland, about 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, mercury is always below freezing. You sleep at minus 5 degrees in a sleeping bag atop a wrapped mattresses on ice (covered in reindeer skin of course).

Designed to accommodate even the harshest winds 365 days a year, Icehotel 365 is a new construction of over 2100 square meters. Critical to the operation and energy needs of the hotel, the photovoltaic panels installed on the structure translate solar power into electricity producing approximately 75 kW between the months of April and September.

The rooms of Icehotel 365 have been from designs of more than 40 creatives from all over the world including the architectural firm Atmost Studio, German artist Marjolein Vonk and Italian designer Maurizio Perron.