DATUM
cliff · Kalsoy, Faroe Islands

Kalsoy Cliff House

62.2931° N 6.7368° W · +212 m

The building+212 m
A long dark weathered-steel building cantilevered past the edge of a grass-topped sea cliff, the North Atlantic far below in mist.
A long dark weathered-steel building cantilevered past the edge of a grass-topped sea cliff, the North Atlantic far below in mist.
Site
Kalsoy, Faroe Islands
Coordinates
62.2931° N 6.7368° W
Elevation
+212 m above sea level
Programme
Hotel with 14 rooms, cantilevered from a sea cliff.
Year
2025 · complete
Seed
1542041351
Field notes± 0.00 m

The rooms hang eleven metres past the cliff edge, held by a steel spine anchored into basalt. Guests arrive through the hill, not over it: a 60-metre tunnel opens straight into the long room, and the first thing anyone sees is the sea.

The site

Kalsoy is a single ridge of basalt rising out of the North Atlantic. The grass on top grows right to the edge, and the edge is a 212-metre drop. We surveyed it on foot and by drone over two winters, mapping where the rock was sound enough to take an anchor.

The skin

The north face wears a perforated weathering-steel screen grown from the same seed as the contours. It opens where the cliff below is lowest and closes where the ground rises behind, so the building breathes towards the sea.

Plates2 views
  1. A long narrow room with a dark steel frame and pale larch floor and walls, ending in a glass wall that looks out into sea mist above the cliff.
    01The long room: larch on a steel frame. The glazed end wall looks out from the cantilever.
  2. Close view of a rusted steel screen cut with rounded cell-shaped openings, larger on one side, in front of a dark glazed wall, with the sea far below.
    02North screen, 6 mm weathering steel. The openings widen towards the sea.
Building skin260 cells

A screen grown from the ground.

Face
North face
Material
Weathering steel, 6 mm
Cells
260
Opening
12% to 72% of each cell
Open overall
40%
Seed
1542041351

All four skins in the Material Library

Materials6 items

What it is made from.

  • Weathering steel, 6 mm

    North screen and cantilever cladding

    Rolled in Sweden, cut and perforated in Tórshavn

  • Basalt anchors, 32 mm

    48 rock anchors, 9 m deep, holding the steel spine

    Stainless bar from a northern European mill, grouted on site

  • Local basalt aggregate

    Tunnel lining and anchor gallery floor

    Spoil from the 60 m tunnel, crushed 400 m from the portal

  • Larch, untreated

    Room linings and long-room floor

    Slow-grown stands in southern Norway

  • Low-iron glass, triple glazed

    Sea-facing walls of all 14 rooms

    Float line in Denmark, laminated in Reykjavik

  • Turf roof, 120 mm

    Roof, matched to the cliff-top grass

    Cut from the building footprint and stored for 14 months
Section4 levels

Cut through the ground.

Section through Kalsoy Cliff House+4.20Roof+0.00Rooms−6.40Anchor gallery−212.00Cliff foot
Field journal7 entries

From survey to site.

  1. First drone survey in 35 knots of wind. Sixty-one passes, 38 usable, enough to map the edge to 20 mm.

  2. Cores taken at nine points along the ridge. Six hit sound basalt below 4 m; three found a clay seam and were dropped.

  3. Cantilever fixed at 11 m after testing 9 m and 13 m. At 13 m the spine needs a second anchor row, which the rock will not take.

  4. Tunnel breakthrough at 60.2 m, 14 mm off line. The portal stays where we drew it.

  5. First steel lifted onto the anchors in a four-hour wind window. Spine seated within 3 mm of the survey line.

  6. Screen panels hung on the north face, 260 cells. The weathering steel is already orange at the cut edges.

  7. Handover. Fourteen rooms, one tunnel, and the sea as the first thing in view from the door.

Next site+31 m

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