We all now have a deeper understanding that we need time in green space, whether that’s an urban park or somewhere more wild and remote. That need is fundamental, hard-wired, flowing along neural pathways. We also know that our ache for blue space is just as powerful and water’s capacity to restore and invigorate is just as profound. And few places offer raw green and blue space, nature not managed or manicured, like Iceland.
‘Water is everything for Iceland,’ says local architect Palmar Kristmundsson, founder of PK Arkitektar. ‘It’s in our culture and it underlines the landscape. It’s surrounded by water. It’s filled with ice, rivers, waterfalls and glaciers and thermally heated water is carried from the centre of the Earth to the surface for us to make sensible use of it.’ Building in that environment carries a deep responsibility, a duty of care and attention not lost on Kristmundsson. One of his latest projects is Arborg House, set on the banks of the river Hvita, two hours east…
