A CABIN ON THE WHITE MOUNTAIN

An architect’s home can afford to be a laboratory for ideas. Architect couple Casper and Lexie Mork-Ulnes allowed themselves to push the boundaries and experiment with design and material strategies that clients might not have the appetite to test

- Seema Sreedharan

DURING winters, one can putdown hill skis and reach the local market in Fåvang to go grocery shopping, returning home to this cabin using lifts. On cross country skis, one can connect to hundreds of kilometers of trails, reaching country lodges to rest and warm up. In the summer, it’s possible to hike from the cabin to the top of Kvitfjell (which means white mountain in Norwegian) in about 20 minutes, or reach one of the many streams and lakes for swimming and fishing! Sounds a lot like a luxury ski retreat, doesn’t it? But for architects Casper and Lexie Mork-Ulnes, this is just their home!

Casper and Lexie met 20 years ago on a ski trip, and have always shared a love for the mountains, snow and skiing. They lived in San Francisco and relocated to Oslo in 2011, where they converted a former billiards room in a castle into their residence. With two kids, Lucia and Finn, and their dog Lupo, they built themselves a cabin in the mountains where they can fully embrace their love for the outdoors.