Competition: Icelandic Volcano Museum
Organisation: Bee Breeders
Involvement: Group Project
The Icelandic landscape is a rugged terrain of unbounded beauty and complexity. Lost in Landscape seeks to immerse us in the wild through a subterranean journey. Visitors enter the site from the road, journeying down the path that works and winds to transition between the urban nature of the road and the isolated emotions of nature.
As the path sinks, the walls rise and the view and knowledge of orientation is lost, the user is now part of the terrain. Following the trail, down stairs and ramps, around corners and under overhangs, the nature of the structure begins to expose itself. As you a stumble upon the entrance to the museum embedded in the path the sensation of a cave is pressed upon you, delving deep into the earth to lose all context of the surface.
The interior journey begins following an increasingly undulating and complex path that takes the user further down before ejecting them into the cavernous space of the Northern Lights Viewing Room. For the first time they are able to see Hverfjall with new eyes.
As the path sinks, the walls rise and the view and knowledge of orientation is lost, the user is now part of the terrain. Following the trail, down stairs and ramps, around corners and under overhangs, the nature of the structure begins to expose itself. As you a stumble upon the entrance to the museum embedded in the path the sensation of a cave is pressed upon you, delving deep into the earth to lose all context of the surface.
The interior journey begins following an increasingly undulating and complex path that takes the user further down before ejecting them into the cavernous space of the Northern Lights Viewing Room. For the first time they are able to see Hverfjall with new eyes.
The competition sought to create an architecture that was both respectful of the natural landscape while simultaneously possessing the potential to become an iconic tourist attraction in its own right. The site was sat in the triangle of the Hverfjall Volcano, Myvatn Nature Baths and Myvatn Lake. A six hour drive from the capital city Reykjavík, the existing site contained little more than a dirt path.
