Bielke&Yang designs Ytri, an island hotel 60km off Norway’s coast

Ytri is a 38-room island retreat located on Træna, 60km off Norway’s Helgeland coast, built by community developer Træna 365. Ahead of its opening in the Spring of 2026, Bielke&Yang was commissioned to create its brand – covering strategy, naming, identity, design system, website and signage. Throughout the project, the Oslo-based agency worked closely with residents, owners, architects and other specialists to understand what sets the islands of Træna apart, and the team’s time on the island was decisive. “Bielke&Yang understood it early – in pictures, in text and in the name,” explains Træna 365's Chairman & Development Director, Mikael Forselius. “We’re not building a hotel. We’re showing havfolket – the way of life on Træna.” Havfolket is the Norwegian term for the sea people who have lived off and with the sea in the region for more than 9,000 years. Bielke&Yang pushed hardest on the calm that the island produces, and on the sense of time slowing down. “It’s what we felt on the first visit, and almost everyone we met there described the same thing,” notes Designer Martine Ludvigsen. “The brand platform puts it plainly – you don’t follow time; time follows you. Træna is 33 nautical miles from the mainland, so you’re separated from the rest of the world physically and mentally at the same time.”