Bee Breeders have announced the winners of the Iceland Northern Lights Rooms competition, where entrants were tasked with designing a series of guest houses that framed the beauty of the surrounding context. In response to the delicate landscape, Mývatn Lake in Iceland, the brief outlined a number of restrictions. These included no permanent construction within 200m from the lake, and that all guest houses were to be movable. Shared themes throughout all the successful proposals were specific material experimentation, “distinct interaction with the site and sky,” scalable design, irand cost-conscious solutions.
First Place: In-Visible
Participants: Kamila Szatanowska, Paulina Rogalska
The first placed design ‘In-Visible’ creates “a series of mirror-clad guest houses of varying sizes, movable and distributed about the site”. The main building is covered in peat, a traditional Icelandic construction technique, merging seamlessly into the landscape. Beautifully illustrated, the submission highlights the “design’s care to minimize site disturbance,” while its buildability, innovation, and how it was “well-suited to its location” all impressed the jury.
Second Place: Bleikur
Participants: Francois Bodlet
‘Bleikur’ uses Icelandic corrugated metal cladding in a set of convincing drawings. The submission “adapts this regional cladding type and proposes a series of sail-shaped buildings made of metal and plywood”. Reacting to the weather patterns and color of the sky, the cladding sits comfortably within the context, and the curved forms emphasize the lateral and vertical views of the landscape.
Third Place: Northern Lights
Participants: Catarina Oom de Sousa, Carla Romagosa Girós, Eftalia Proios Torras
Receiving third place, ‘Northern Lights’ “contain(s) an optimized central nucleus where the facilities and private spaces are enclosed, allowing the circulation spaces to open towards the landscape”. The unique lightweight proposal utilized the several advantages of ETFE, the same material used within the Eden Project, to create an extremely sensitive and responsible scheme.
Student Prize: Marimo
Participants: Magdalena Pająk (POLITECHNIKA ŚLĄSKA)
The student winner is influenced by the Marimo - a unique plant that floats toward the surface of the lake in order to capture sunlight. Treating the houses similarly to a hot air balloon, the speculative proposal surrounds the guest house in an inflatable structure and has no solid foundations, mimicking the movements of the local plant.
BB Green Award: Of Crater and Hearth
Participants: Chang Yuan Max Hsu, Hadeel Ayed Mohammad
Winner of the BB Green Award, ‘Of Crater and Hearth’ is set within the landscape to create minimal disruption within the context. The scheme being “conceived from the synthesis between pseudocraters and the traditional Viking longhouse”.
News via: Bee Breeders
