Cold as ice...

It's not even out yet, but Disney's forthcoming sci-fi movie Tron: Legacy is already hotly tipped and seemingly ubiquitous. Designers are jumping on the bandwagon and Tron-inspired projects abound: there are Adidas trainers, a chair by designer Dror Benshetrit and goodness knows what else. One of the more interesting, though, comes to us courtesy of Shanghai-based architect Ian Douglas-Jones. Fresh back from building an artists suite for the famous Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, he braved the jet-lag to chat with Creative Hunt about the challenges of working at -32°C, snow cannons and the subtle variations of ice.

A little background, first of all, for those not familiar with what will surely have earned the moniker 'blockbuster' within moments of its imminent release on 17 December. The film is a sequel to the 1982 film, Tron, which saw Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) as a young and gifted software engineer who gets shot at by an evil, digitizing laser-wielding Master Control Panel mainframe. Flynn gets sucked into the computer, from whence characters with names like Tron, Yori and Sark battle it out in a fight of good vs. evil.

In the 2010 movie, Kevin's son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) gets suddenly transported to the world of The Grid where digital warrior Quorra and Tron help reunite the young adventurer with his father and send them both home.

The story isn't really important – what matters is that this is the most expensive Disney movie EVER with a budget in excess of USD 300 million and that it looks really, really cool. Characters in skin-tight black jumpsuits and with eerily glowing silver contours and futuristic-looking helmets occupy an angular world, bathed in an industrial, fluorescent glow. In what was perhaps a match made in Disney heaven, Daft Punk did the soundtrack.

But does it translate into ice? And more to the point, why?



Design duo Ian Douglas Jones and Ben Rousseau met last summer when they created 'Wasted', an installation at the UK's V&A Museum for 2009's London Design Festival. Ian explains "I was approached by a company called Arts Co who wanted to use the festival to launch a range of luxury products made from recycled stuff. They had lots of tea sacks – when tea arrives in Britain it comes in 25 kg bags made of four layers of paper and one of aluminum but because the two are fused together it's hard to recycle, or at least very costly, so what they do is squish it into big blocks and put it into landfill". Arts Co suggested Ian make contact with Ben who at the time was building an Ice Bar on London's Regent Street – "It was the height of summer and he came out, this 6.5foot guy wielding an ice chisel!" He needn't have worried: the pair became friends and the spent the next three weeks creating an immersive and jewel-like environment, littered with customized chairs made of re-claimed fire-hose.

Based on that installation, the pair were invited to contribute one of the 19 artists' suites at the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Swedish Lapland. Now in its 20th year, the hotel has expanded from a simple art exhibition in an igloo to famous tourist destination it is today, comprising artist suites, snow and ice rooms, an ice bar and even church – during Ian and Ben's build the resort hosted its very first gay wedding. Generally working in pairs, around 30 – 35 artists get to experience arctic art each year: "There's an international competition and the hotel choose from the submissions based on their previous works and the merits of their submitted design. What they try to do is bring in 50% new people and 50% people who have been there before – it's good, the new people can learn so much from those who already have experience with ice. It means there's a really good sense of camaraderie – there's almost a weird family thing going on there!"



The pair had been fortunate enough to see a half hour preview of the Tron movie and a particular nightclub scene sparked their creative inspiration and proved the catalyst for the build. "A Tron inspired ice suite just struck a chord with Ben and me – we both ride motorbikes, we were both born in the late 70s/ early 80s and so knew of the original 1982 Tron – it was the first movie to use computer graphics, pretty basic back then, but still cool. The remake is set to look really good, plus Daft Punk is one of my favorite bands…"

"We decided we wanted to do it, we knew it would cost us a bit of money in terms of bringing out lights and stuff like that. Anyway we approached Disney but didn't really hear anything concrete from them. We got support from Oakley – they gave us loads of clothes and stuff – and then at the last minute Disney said sure, let's do it – we'll cover lighting costs and run a competition for people to win a stay in the room"

A quick Google of the project will give just some idea of how popular it's become – Ian recalls "I got on a plane from Stockholm on Friday and by the time I'd landed in Shanghai we'd had 150,000 hits – it's crazy!"

The lifespan of the suites is short – finished just last week it will last until April or so before melting back into the River Torne. Still, during that time the hotel can expect around 24,000 guests and some 60,000 visitors, making the endeavor one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions.

"The lovely thing about working on the project is that they harvest the ice every March from the Torne river, then store it in special cold storage and then use it for projects like this and then of course it just melts back into the river… it's kind of poetic."

Poetic yes, but surely a challenge too – artists are given just 17 days to complete their build, although Ian and Ben finished in an impressive 13. "When we first got there it was -32°C which meant that the ice was really brittle so it kept breaking. The snow was very, very dry because there was just no water; it meant that it was too powdery to work with. When that happens they use snow cannons, the same that you see on a ski slope. They put a huge fan further down the river and it blows snow with the right moisture content"

Working in such a cold environment posed other challenges too: "The room itself was a fairly consistent -10°C so not too bad, but still it can be quite draining, physically. We ordered 60sqm of ice, and each block weighed about 100kg, so 6 tons of ice in total. Lifting them was hard – it was slippery and cold so quite scary sometimes… working together in that environment for 13 days was of course sometimes difficult – Ben and I get along very well but still, when you're in a small room, it can be difficult"





As we all know, even the best laid plans can go wrong, and building an ice suite is apparently no exception, calling for some quick creative thinking on Ben and Ian's part.

"We broke quite a lot of the slabs – the walls were to be black, reminiscent of that scene in the nightclub. To do that we had to clad them with black felt so we'd put the slab in place, then dip the felt in near-freezing water and then drape it over the slab so that it would quickly freeze. The problem was though because it was so cold as soon as you put the cloth over it after maybe 2 or 3 minutes it would just shatter. So we lost quite a lot of blocks that way – it's annoying because there were so many other artists there that if you need more ice you'd have to go to the ice production unit, this sort of factory that can cut ice to any shape or size you want – it's amazing actually, it's quite forgiving and very versatile as a medium".

The lighting, too, proved a challenge. The pair decided on electroluminescent wire, which uses organic phosphorus and is very low in energy consumption. "It's a weird technology, it's been around for quite a few years, but it's just not used that much - because it uses an organic phosphor it degrades over time, so after a year or so it's just not quite as bright, but for our purposes and the duration of the project it was perfect." Or else it would have been were it not super sensitive to water. The solution was to drill channels into the ice into which the lighting encased in a clear tube would sit, but then how to clad it in ice? "We worked out that a mixture of near freezing water and powdered snow sort of acts like glue, onto which we could put another ice slab"

An ice hotel is all well and good, but many will be critical of the adverse effects increased tourism must surely have on this remote area's fragile environment. Sighing, Ian explains, "I know - it's the age old problem of things we shouldn't be doing because it consumes energy. Of course people shouldn't be traveling… but you know, Socrates said the 'unexamined life is not worth living' and whilst I think it's important to be aware of what we're consuming in terms of energy and our carbon footprints, at the end of the day, we each have to live a happy life and that may entail traveling to some of these places."

Of course the environmental impact such endeavors may have on the arctic remain to be seen. However, Ian is adamant that the project and local developments have boosted the region's sustainability enormously: "When you talk about sustainability is not just environmental; it has to encompass social and economic elements too". Economically, the region is set for a windfall. The nearest large town, Kiruna, is famed for its iron ore mines – the world's largest – and, in 2004, it was decided that the present town centre would have to be relocated to accommodate the still expanding industry. The town has already gradually started to move northwest to the foot of the Luossavaara Mountain.

What's more, the European Space Agency have a hub in Kiruna, and in 2007 it was announced that town would be the first European port for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic passenger space program, presumably for its remote location and low level of air traffic.



And, of course, every winter there's the Ice Hotel. Says Ian, "Socially, the hotel does impact people's lives – it's an amazing place and so many creative people – film directors, illustrators, artists, sculptors – have all stayed there. You can feel the energy that they're trying to create – it's something really special and it's great that visitors can share that. It's enriching, plus it creates opportunities and jobs. Talking to people there [around Kiruna], there's so much energy – there's the mines, the ice hotel, the northern lights, the space port… I don't know - it's interesting times."

The young Welshman has only recently arrived in China, joining the Shanghai office of internationally acclaimed practice, Broadway Malyana. His career to date is enviable and impressive – after graduating in Architecture from Birmingham University, he was nominated for a Royal Institute of British Architects prize which no doubt helped him to some extent earn a place at London's prestigious Royal College of Art where he graduated as Master of Architecture, his dissertation winning him yet another nominations for a RIBA medal. Stints followed at Woods Bagot in Europe, Fearon Hay in New Zealand, and now, of course, Shanghai.

Whilst the city may be lacking in acres of ice, or the uncompromisingly spectacular coastal environs in which Fearon Hay specialize, one thing's for sure: Ian will surely leave his mark, one way or the other, and the results will doubtless thrill even the most jaded of Shanghai design-spotters.

Check out more of Ian's work on his website