Looks like Igloo hotels are becoming more and more popular these days. A few weeks ago we wrote about the Igloo Village in Finland, and now we introduce you to Iglu-Dorf, a concept hotel that offers igloo villages in seven locations in Andorra, Switzerland and Austria. What’s different about these igloos is the fact that they are rebuilt every year, using 3,000 tons of snow from the Pyrenees and the Alps.

The history of Iglu-Dorf began with one extreme skateboarder’s crazy idea to spend the night in an igloo so he could be the first on the slopes the next day. Apparently being first is a matter of great pride for skateboarders, so he decided to build himself an igloo to make sure no one beat him to that first ride down the mountain. The next day he looked like the happiest person alive, and when someone asked him why he had a big smile on his face, he just pointed at the mountain and said “You see that line over there? That was me.” More and more people followed his example and asked to sleep in his igloo. The next season he built two igloos, then three, and that’s how the Iglu-Dorf igloo villages were born. Now the company builds 12 of them every year, in different locations around Europe.

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German artist Ralf Schmerberg has created a bizarre-looking igloo, in the middle of Hamburg, to send a message about the country’s uncontrolled waste of energy.

Entitled “Wastefulness is the biggest source of Energy”, Schemerberg’s igloo aims to raise awareness to the amount of energy people are wasting nowadays. A huge electrical meter set up outside the igloo shows passers-by how much electrical energy the 322 old fridges would consume, and is meant to inspire them to think carefully about how much energy they are wasting every day. According to recent studies, Germany could save up to 40% of its energy, if everyday people would use electricity more efficiently.

The refrigerator igloo was sponsored by a German energy provider and will be exhibited in Hamburg’s Gänsemarkt until November 9th. The bizarre installation is 5.6 meters high and 11 meters in diameter, and was built using 322 old refrigerators and 1,718 meters of wire. On the inside, visitors can admire a funny electrical installations made up of colorful blinking lights.

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Three friends from Bellevue, Green Bay, managed to build Bigloo, the world’s biggest igloo, in just three months of work.

Paul Steckart and his friends were standing in his backyard, after a snowstorm, and one of them said “Why don’t we build an igloo?”. So they did some online research, employed the concept of the spiral, and managed to build a pretty sturdy igloo. That was last year. This year the Bellevue gang set off to build the biggest igloo in the world.

To complete Bigloo, Paul Steckart used all the snow in his backyard and started bringing in more building material, from his neighbors’ yards. He says it’s a fun way to spend time with friends, but building a monster igloo is more than just fun. It requires a lot of math and patience. The snow is mixed with water and thrown into a snowblower, before it’s stuck into plastic containers. Each Bigoo block weighs between 60 and 100 pounds, depending on the amount of water used.

The 17-feet 4-inch tall and 27 feet in diameter Bigloo is the largest igloo ever built, surpassing the previous record of 13 feet 8 inches tall and 25 feet 9 inches wide, dating from 2008, in Canada. All it needs now is official confirmation from a representative of the Guinness Book of Records.

Photos by Evan Siegle via GreenBayPressGazette

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