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This page contains a lot of information. This proposal received an honorable mention by the City of Reykjavik. © copyright Grafarholt hill was in 1996 scheduled for a to-build design competition by the city of Reykjavik. The barren hill has for some time been the site for large geothermal water tanks, used for heating the surrounding city suburbs.
The master plan by Thordarson, shown below aimed at ignoring the recent and current urban design parameters of the city, where satellite suburbs have for decades been sprawled across the landscapes of the expanding Reykjavik perimeter. Receiving an honorable mention, the proposal outlines the making of a somewhat independent but coherent town. This town would have its own downtown and its own suburbs. It is a highly interconnected urban web, where buildings, walking paths, common gardens and ecologically oriented streets create a tightly knit human environment.
Below is a diagram of the system of gardens and open areas formed by the various site- and urban typology conditions. Yellow shows a mostly glazed in downtown area, while the green shows urban courts and open planted-in areas. These are all connected by walking paths and small scaled streets.
Diagram showing the main walking/bicycling paths, weaving Grafarholt into a community and garden network, allowing for an ease of outdoor activities and flow within the town. Bus path is shown in yellow.
Diagram of the traffic on Grafarholt hill, showing various the main streets, speed limits and smaller ecologically oriented streets. Main on-ground parking areas are shown hatched.
1996 design drawing of the "suburb" in the shape of a tree, where building regulations would be less restricted. Buildings are individually situated within a large plot of land filled with trees. (Grafarholt was covered with trees and shrubbery prior to the soil erosions caused by centuries of grazing sheep.) A new lake is formed where rainwater tends to sit on a flat area, and a main road connects the town towards the south.
Close up of the heavily wooded "suburb" in the shape of a tree branch. Towards the bottom is a part of the newly created lake w/seasonal stream
Master plan detail, showing various urban typologies, each suited for various conditions in Iceland. Towards the top left of the image is a mixed residential and commercial. The middle of the image has the urban prototype first proposed by Thordarson in the Alftanes competition in 1991, while the bottom shows a more conventional urban scheme in Iceland. Note towards the left top, how a geological fault line cuts the city fabric and is filled in with trees and plants as a recreational area
Close up of a watercolor drawing showing one urban area, where parking is under the buildings and courts, sheltered from the winds, allow for playgrounds greenery and walking paths.
Close up image of a mixed residential and commercial area. Here one can live in the same building as one conducts his business. A sense of urbanity is combined with walking paths that weave the urban fabric within and outwards.
Close up sketch of the downtown square, where a large clocktower sits in a true urban setting. The surrounding buildings are of a type where offices, residences and commercial spaces all mix. Roads go underneath some buildings, towards other urban areas of various types. The view point is on top of the glazed-in downtown structure covering the hot-water pipes.
Master plan detail of the downton area, showing how the road snakes up the hill. Glazed-in areas provide for a sheltered path from the proposed hot water tank glass house (formed like a glacier) on top of the hill, to a pedestrian bridge over the nearby highway. The glass structure cascading down the hillside would be very useful in the wintertime. During the summer, sidewalks along the winding street provide for easy access to the commercial spaces.
Sketch inside the downtown glass structure. The central elements are the hot water pipes that presently run down the hill. From here, one would access the stores, restaurants and other commercial facilities of the downtown area.
Partial section through the cascading glass structures.
All design work and drawings created by Olafur Thordarson.
© copyright
Olafur Thordarson / Dingaling Studio, Inc. 1998-2001. All rights
reserved. No information can be copied
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