I went on a field study to Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the world, to figure out what makes a home in a place like this. How does one live with the midnight sun and the absent sun, the solitude, the fjords, the slowly melting permafrost underfoot? The answer was surprising: for most Svalbard locals, home is everything outside their physical home. Home are the mountains, the light, the sound of the glaciers.

 

Led by Christiane Ritter’s diary, LPO Arkitekter’s cultural historic analysis of the town and conversations with locals, I documented the buildings and their colours, following Grete Smedal’s grand colour scheme for the city.