I am collaborating with Arnhildur Pálmadóttir and her team at SAP Architects for the exhibition of the Icelandic Pavillion in the Venice Biennale of Architecture. This is the first time Iceland has a special pavilion. Lavaforming is a speculative project, visioning Iceland in 2150 where floating lava is harnessed as a building material.
“In our story, placed in 2150, we have harnessed the lava flow, just as we did with geothermal energy 200 years earlier in Iceland. The main goal of Lavaforming is to show that architecture can be the force that rethinks and shapes a new future with sustainability, innovation, and creative thinking. A lava flow can contain enough building material for the foundations of an entire city to rise in a matter of weeks without harmful mining and non-renewable energy generation. Lavaforming is exploring a building material that has never been used before. The theme is both a proposal and a metaphor – architecture is in a paradigm shift, many of our current methods have been deemed obsolete or harmful in the long term. In our current predicament – we need to be bold, think in new ways, look at challenges and find the right resources.”
Arnhildur Pálmadóttir, curator, architect, founder and creative director of Lavaforming
My role is to join the team in world building, the script and arch of a short film made by Arnar Skarphéðinsson, doing research, imagining futures, taking “interviews” with the first inhabitants of the city, the activists that squatted the first spaces and the scientists that developed the technology.
Our hall is just outside the Arsenale – so we have an excellent location.
