Demonstration adaptation project : Develop a prototype lightweight and sustainable tourist hut.

Location: Sisimiut, Greenland

Many of the tourists visiting the Arctic to-day are well aware of the fragile environment and the changes of the global climate. If their desire to experience the on-going changes at close range is fulfilled in a sustainable manner the result could be a growing tourism business as well as an increased awareness of living sustainable beyond visiting the Arctic. 

However, being a visitor in the Arctic is normally rather difficult as the infrastructure is often in a bad shape and is hard to maintain. This means that transporting tourists to sites of interest, as well as fulfilling basic needs for energy, water and sanitary facilities, is very costly and technically extremely challenging. In addition, given the effects of the on-going climate changes, sites that currently attract tourists may become much less interesting in a matter of a few years. Examples of such places may be found near the margin of the Inland Ice at Kangerlussuaq. Therefore  the  tourist hut  should  be  constructed  in a way so that it can be moved to another more  interesting area.

The purpose of this demonstration project is to design and construct a lightweight and sustainable tourist hut, which will address all of the above issues. The lightweight hut will be designed in a way so that it can easily be transported, e.g. to accommodate for new places of interest to tourists.

In terms of energy, the hut will be designed to reduce the loss of thermal heat, and electricity and heat will be provided by solar energy. Water supply and the handling of waste and waste water  will be done in sustainable ways.

Existing or new build more traditional tourist huts and other houses in the three municipalities will be used to test the systems for energy- and water supply and for waste water treatment.

The output of the project will be a full-scale lightweight hut created as an independent, stand-alone unit with functions for supplying energy and heat and waste handling that are fully operational. By nature, this unit will be portable and may be readily used for demonstration purposes elsewhere. In addition, the output of the project will be publications in technical and scientific literature as well as training of university students and local craftsmen.

The hut will be demonstrated in the three municipalities participating in the project and possibly at other localities in Greenland. Parts of the technical installations ( energy  supply, water supply waste ,and wastewater treatment ) can be  distributed to other huts  if “customers” are willing to pay for this.