katla mariudottir // ba architectural portfolio 2012

B.A Architecture

Portfolio 2012

katla

mar

íudó

ttir

3

I’ve been called a romantic. Well I admit that I’m a nature-devotee. My senses would have to be very numb if I wasn’t, since I grew up in some of Icelands’s most beautiful and harsh landscapes, as well as some of the most important historical places. Only when I moved recently to Reykjaavík City, have I learned to live and appreciate the urban scapes.

I love experiencing – through all my senses. Watching how rough textured concrete devours the sun rays, the smooth warm feeling of touching a worn wooden doorknob, the creaking stairs, the waving autumn colored leafes through the glass, the safe feeling of listening to the pounding rain hitting the roof, the games the light and the shadow play on the white ceiling, etc.

katla

mar

íudó

ttir

In my BA thesis I looked at our Icelandic building-heritage: the turf houses - through a lense of the phenomenology. The turf houses were bubbles under the ground, they were a fine example of bleeding architecture with their blurred bounderies between inside and outside. They were a modest part of the landscape. The urban development here in Iceland however bears little resemblence of this marrying of manmade and natural surroundings. And with the modernist way of seperation and organization, the last elements of the turf- houses disappeared, namely: intimacy.

I am always on a lookout for seeds af a modern way of living beautifully, and building on our heritage, with the nature that gave birth to us and has fed us, a way that doesn’t harm our childrens possibility of a future.

I believe in life-centered design rather than human-centered design. I believe that when designing one should aim for expanding the ego to the infinite, so that like cookies too tight on a plate: our egos merge to form a system or a body of thinking.

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About Me 3

Final Project 6 “Accepting the old / letting go of dreams”

Context and Weather 6 Installation: “Intro: for Lilith” “Womb”

Houses in an Urban Setting 26 “Survey on Leisure time” “Not so Distant Utopia -Recycling as Common Ground “Living Together”

Stairs 36 “Machine for Sensing”

Building a City 45 “Split Hotel”

Various Other Projects 51 “Research: Authors and Their Work, Lava House” “Urban Infilll” “Digital design techniques” “Silver jewellery” “Rocking chair” “Thread” photography collaboration

Proj

ects

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Year: 2010

Name of course: Lokaverkefni arkitektúr, BYG0626H Final Project: Museum of Contemporary Arts

Teachers:Steinþór Kári Kárason Sigrún Birgisdóttir Steven Christer

Tags:aging of materials // deigning with other buildings // urban // contemporary art // museum

final

pro

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Project: <final project>

aging of materials // deigning with other buildings // urban // contemporary art // museum

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Pro

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: <ac

cept

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the

old

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Like people, buildings age with time and they show their story on their skin. Buildings are often designed to not to grow with time, but rather to resist it.

Icelanders have, up to now been very keen on demolishing buildings, to build new ones. It seems as though building history is not something to respect or learn from. But the economic depression has forced us to think again. Does our already built environment not store wisdom from older generations? And if not, we must learn to read its language in order to build better. The underlying theme in the project is to make use of the existing building on site and not merely to extend to them, but build the new part and allow the old and the new to settle with respect. That calls for a good understanding of the closest environment.

acce

ptin

g th

e ol

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lett

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go o

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eam

sThe Art Center is a collage of the existing building on the plot; the former modernist Industrial Bank and the new part that will contain the exhibition spaces. The bank serves as a sceleton for the building and it houses the service: the art library, offices, café, the stairs and lifts. The new part is then freed to contain only the gallery spaces. The new part seems to lever on the bank , with one side holding onto the ground and the other is lifted. A way through the backyard therefore opens up while framing the view from the café to the pond.

Lækjargata Art Center is a hub for education and discussion about contemporary art. The art is a part and parcel of the culture and as a reminder the new part of the building is made to fill up the existing gaps in the street facade.

“Nowhere are ‘permanent’ formal principles less likely to survive intact, than in the crowded, solid city. ... The past, the present, and the future... overlap in a messy configuration. Architects can never get and keep control of all the factors in a city which exists in the dimensions of a patched-up, expendable and developing forms.”(Lawrence Alloway)

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Project: <accepting the old / letting go of dreams >

PASSAGEWAY AND PAUSE

Austurvöllur

Tjörnin

Tree garden, visible from street

Private garden for inhabitants

Existing trees

Outdoor extension to the café- and happening area

Lækjargata

Lækjargata

Lækjargata


Elevation Vonarstræti

Elevation Lækjargata

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DetailNN

GroundfloorLækjargata

Section a

Sect

ion

b

Sect

ion

b

Section a

Vonarstræti

First floor

Second floor

View from the backyard

Section a

Section b

View from Lækjargata street

View from Vonarstræti street

Third floor

Fourth floor


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The former bank opens up to all directions like a lighthouse, with its formal modernist facade and exposed structure. The gallery spaces on the other hand protect and envelope the art and provide shelter as to allow for a more introvert experience and allow the visitor to distance himself from the busy street.

The difference can also be sensed through the different materials. The bank’s white painted smooth concrete contrasts the more tactile rough concrete that is gradually coloured by moss and the rusty corten-steel.The different parts of the house are underlined with with their different materials and different behaviour form a collage, that respects the old

but still embraces the new. The gallery spaces have different textures and different lighting to be able to exhibit art pieces from various media. Spaces with different ceiling height embraces art in various scale.

On the outside, the former bank is sleek bright white in stark

contrast with the newer, rougher part: concrete and rusted corten

steel. Concrete is extremely susceptible to weathering. It

gradually darkens, and its outer finer layer washes off leaving

the coarser material making the surface porous. Moss and other vegetation then easily roots in the pores gradually causing a

greenish hue. With time, the firy rusted corten steel paints onto

the concrete


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Year: 2008

Name of course: Context and Weather

TeachersOlga Guðrún Sigfúsdóttir Jóhann Sigurðsson

Sigrún Birgisdóttir Sigurður Harðarson Þráinn Hauksson Örn Þór Halldórsson

Tags:designing with nature // weather studies // bathingco

ntex

t an

d w

eath

er

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// tags

Project: <context and weather>

Project: <Context and Weather>

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designing with nature // weather studies // bathing

It is truly sad to think about the fact that here in Iceland, where gender equality is considered great we still have not reached the state of mutual respect and cooperation between the genders. Why is this so?

Lilith has been forgotten – or the memory of her has changed. A story tells that in the beginning of times God created Adam and Lilith. Lilith was a confident woman who insisted on equality between woman and man. Adam was frustrated because of this and demanded a new wife, and so Lilith was cast into the underworld where she became a ruler of the shadows. God created Eve from Adams rib-bone since the curve in the bone would make the woman more manageable.

In the memory Lilith became dangerous: dark and mystical.

The woman has not played a big role in the church – the epitome of patriarchy.

The church has also always put itself above the nature, not in connection to it, opposite of Icelanders old beliefs that had everything to do with the nature. The modern times cleared the mystique from the nature that could now be measured and scarred with striation. The elves are gone, the ghosts have hidden themselves, and the man lacks its connection with the nature he is derived from.

for

Lilit

h

The picture shows a sculpture I made for Lilith, for the woman. The sculpture´s form is a archtype for the church – except the tower turns downwards or inwards since the lines are directed towards the middle – downwards towards the nature, and even further down to the underworlds. It is completely open and embraces the nature. The sculpture is situated on a black sanded beach, between the lines that the tides form. The tides are a rhythm adjecent to the rhythm of the womans’ world ....

This was an installation before digging into a design project, a bathing place, here in Iceland.

Pro

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: <Co

ntex

t and

Wea

ther

>

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wom

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Women are raised to give. Our time, energy and creativity is sucked out to our surroundings, without us being able to do anything about it. But how deep does our well reach? There is a limit of how much we can give without renewing our sorces.

Today we never have the opportunity of enjoying being alone. Our space is filled with the monotonous radio or TV, the humming traffic, the beeping facebook and mail.

We seldom allow us the time to halt and to dream, to sink into our own depths, down to our sorces.

Do we even know hot to enjoy a little time alone with ourselves? Do we even remember how to daydream?

The building takes its form from an unbroken egg, a womb, a skate egg, earth forms: a swollen form: the chaos before the cosmos: creation.

Away from the city, immerged in the nature the swollen forms provide shelter for women to cleanse and to bathe. This is a place of rebirth. The woman can safely visit and gives herself the time she needs to renew her energy sources – to feed the well within. The trip through the spa is a kind of pregnancy itself. The building is entirely made up of concrete and it has no openings to the surroundings, except the way in and the way out, thus it becomes a journey inwards into our nucleus.

1. A tunnel takes a turn into the swollen ‘belly’ where sounds of the waves - whether soft and gentle or loud and energetic - effect the stay there. This is where you take your everyday uniform off and put on a bathingsuit and a rope ...

2. Another tunnel leads downwards and inwards, to the hot steambath, into the red hot earthcore deep inside ...

3. After a while in the hot steam, a tunnel is followed out to the outside where the wind

welcomes the visitor. When out of the tunnel, a rusted steel pier cuts through the waves and draws the eye away towards the open sea – as to invert the ego to the exterior. Here, the pier is serves as the minds sword – the phallus. The pier brakes the wind creating a bit of a shelter for the small bathing pools and for splashing around in the sea. The pools have various temperatures and the cold sea refreshes and prepares one before going back home.

The whole process gives the body and mind a feeling of equilibrium, a sense of fulfillment, a sense of a relief.

I chose this location for the project because it faces the open sea the wind there is untiring and embracing and the waves are ever hungry. Also because of the simplicity of axes the place has: sky, see, sand and rocks, nothing more, nothing less. The landscape is simple: the horizon – what a relief for the urban dweller.

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Section a

Section b

Section b

Section b

Section c

Section a

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Pro

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: <Co

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Wea

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Designing with the weather in Iceland is crucial. In this course we learned how to use a wind-simulator with the wind roses of the area, and redesign parts of the building as needed according to the wind research.

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Year: 2009

Name of course: Houses in an Urban Setting

Teachers:Sigrún Birgisdóttir Hildigunnur Sverrisdóttir

Tags:antisprawl // sharing // new ways of living // public vs private

hous

es in

an

urba

n se

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Project: <surve y on leisure - how and w

here do we spend our tim

e ?>

surv

e y o

n le

isur

e -

how

and

whe

re

do w

e sp

end

our

time

?

Reykjavík is a relatively large city, it sprawls over a great amount of land. But it is very dispersed, and has very few clusters or cores that serve the neighborhood with services, food and recreation. Therefor habitants that live outside the city center have to travel a long way into the center for recreation.

In a survey with over a hundred participants, I found out that there is a great difference how we spend our free time in relation to where we live. I devided Reykjavík city into four zones, from the city center and all the way to the cities furthest edges, which is roughly a half an hours drive from the center.

The survey examines how people spend their freetime, that is the time when they are not working or at school.

In zone 1, the city center people read for more than an hour a day and watch television for around 44 min/day. This turns around further from the city center, in zone 4, where people read for 38 min/day and watch television for 89 min/day.

This fact hints the fact that where the city is denser people stay out of their homes for longer, cafés become an extension of the livingroom allowing for more interaction with other people.

Zone 1

Zone 2Zone 3

Zone 4

Project: < Houses in an Urban Setting >

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Pro

ject

: <Ho

uses

in a

n Ur

ban

Sett

ing>

Together, share, get to know each other, trust, ...

How do we define ourselves? Not by which family we belong to, like we used to do once. Rather, we are the sum of all the groups that we feel part of.

Reykjavík has never needed to think about densification like its neighboring cities. Up until now. So its sub-clusters may perform better as individual units, they have to become denser. But with increased density we have to be willing to share or even sacrifice. What are those things we are willing to share?

The individual stretches upwards where his shell is, on the second floor. The sharing spaces on the other hand are on groundlevel. They touch the earth that their rooted in, the society and the history.

antisprawl // sharing // new ways of living // public vs private

We are the sum of all the groups that we feel we are part of

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Project: <Houses in an Urban Setting>

Downtown Reykjavík seems to be the only sufficient city-core, if compared to the roughly seven cores in Reykjavík. Residents of the cores outside the Reykjavík downtown are are ready to drive great lengths for specific products or service in downtown Reykjavík (see more in the “Study of Leisure”.)

The gray circles represent centres in which are planned smaller and more sustainable centres. The black points represent elementary schools.

“not

so

dist

ant

utop

ia”

- rec

yclin

g as

com

mon

gro

und

urbanism // sustainable city centres // sharing the city //

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Pro

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: < H

ouse

s in

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Urba

n Se

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g >

urbanism // sustainable city centres // sharing the city

The centres are workshops, spread around the city, like seeds. They are spots where the threads connect, where neighbors meet, a backbone for the inhabitants. They help you root and connect to th network.

They are positioned in walking distance from your home, and they’re connected with the elementary schools.

Through educating our children about recycling, about scarce resources, and how to respect old things, we will help them building the world of tomorrow.

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// tags

Project: < - recycling as comm

on ground>

We went on a study trip to St. Petersburg and compared these two cities: Reykjavík and St. Petersburg. What I found most interesting was the

difference of the space between the public and the private

In Reykjavík we have a long fading from public to private, while St. Petersburg the difference is measured in centimetres. How? The stairway is a part of the street, so they´re not being cared for by anyone.

Also, the difference in scale in these two cities is surreal, monuments and public buildings are meant to make the person feel small - maybe to show the power, to tell the people that resistance is futile.


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// antisprawl // sharing // new ways of living // public vs private

Now is not the time to be shy on sharing. Increasing world population and scarce resources demand other ways of living. But how do we draw the boundaries in the new world of sharing? Which activities do we want to share, and which ones do we want to keep for ourselves?

The understanding and function of the modern family has changed, and therefor a calling has been made for a change in how we think about our dwellings.

Nowadays we don’t define ourselves from our families. Icelanders’ don’t even bear the family name.

We are the sum of the groups that we belong to.

So instead of creating homes with the standard centre: the fire (later the kitchen), a apartment cluster was formed, with several centers. The centers are divided after its function, fire (kitchen and sitting room), water (showers, hot-tubs and steam-baths), light/air (media center: library, computers, tv/film equipment) and finally the fifth element, æther (here: the city/culture element. An open space for concerts and large gatherings.

Above these centers the shells are situated. They are the shells of the inhabitants and they are more introvert than the gathering places.

livin

g to

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Pro

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Urba

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Year: 2008

Name of course: Stairs

Teachers:Hildigunnur SverrisdóttirSigrún Birgisdóttir Sigurður Gunnarsson

Tags:designing with nature // the smooth and the striated // rhythm // public space

stai

rs

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Project: <Stairs>

designing with nature // the smooth and the striated // rhythm // public space

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mac

hine

for

sen

sing

Experience is not only a here-and-now thing. It is a complex woven cobweb trembling in the wind. Glittering threads connect ojects: a led-colored stone, muskcolored branch, frosty shell. A feather from a bird that flew by is glued to the web along with the rosy glow from the evening sun.

A memory is intricately threaded into the pattern and it gives the place a different feeling from the last time you were there.

Architecture often forgets this, it has up til now often planned buildings for the split moment it’s being photographed. Now all kinds of 4d modeling are emerging.

The stair project dealt with one of making some kind of passage around one of

Icelands top tourist places, Öxarárfoss-waterfall in

Þingvellir (Thingvalla). My project is a worm-like object

that takes you around the area, and only gives you a

selected few windows to the environment. That way, in stead of experiencing the

place as a striated line,

... the experience becomes more of a matrix of smaller

experiences/segments ...

and in the end when given the hole view you have formed

almost a personal and more intimate relationship with

parts of the bigger picture.


Pro

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: <St

airs

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F

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BA

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NA - útlit langsum 1:200


Project: <Stairs>

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F

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NA - útlit langsum 1:200


Pro

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Project: <Stairs>

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Year: 2008

Name of course: Building a city

Collaboration: Baldur Helgi Snorrason

Teachers:Ásmundur Hrafn Sturluson Steinþór Kári KárasonStephen M Christer

Tags:hotel // shaping the city while being shaped by it

build

ing

a ci

ty

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// tags

Project: <split hotel>

split

hot

el

This was a collaboration between Baldur Helgi Snorrason and myself.

Project: <Building a City>

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Pro

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: <sp

lit h

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hotel // shaping the city while being shaped by it

Pro

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lit h

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roje

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Build

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a Ci

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rvk 101 blokkir

...............................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................................reitur

Skipulag Reykjavíkur einkennist af miklum hraða í uppbyggingu. Þetta veldur dreifðum byggðakjörnum (e. clusters) þar sem jaðarinn þenst út án þess að miðpunkturinn þéttist. í stað þess að hafa eina þétta miðju skiptist hún niður í þyrpingar sem eru háðar innbyrðis.

Miðbærinn, 101, er punkturinn sem borgin óx út frá. Hann virkar vel sem sjálfstæð eining fyrir einstaklinginn. Ólíkt hinum þyrpingunum hafa flestar byggingarnar fleiri en eina fúnksjón (t.d. þjónusta og íbúðarhúsnæði).

Skipulag Reykjavíkur miðast við byggingablokkir, frekar en að taka götur fyrir í heild. Göturnar einkennast því af því að vera ekki heilstæðar. Þær eru suðupottur af formum, skölum, stílbrigðum og efnisáferðum.

Byggingablokkir í miðbænum eru yfirleitt stórar og samsettar úr litlum húsum, inni í miðju þeirra myndast því mikið rými - sem getur virkað óreiðukennt og illa nýtt - “fjárhúsaarkitektúr”


Project: <Building a City>

0F Cellar 1F 2F

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Pro

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lit h

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>

rvk 101 blokkir

...............................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................................reitur

Skipulag Reykjavíkur einkennist af miklum hraða í uppbyggingu. Þetta veldur dreifðum byggðakjörnum (e. clusters) þar sem jaðarinn þenst út án þess að miðpunkturinn þéttist. í stað þess að hafa eina þétta miðju skiptist hún niður í þyrpingar sem eru háðar innbyrðis.

Miðbærinn, 101, er punkturinn sem borgin óx út frá. Hann virkar vel sem sjálfstæð eining fyrir einstaklinginn. Ólíkt hinum þyrpingunum hafa flestar byggingarnar fleiri en eina fúnksjón (t.d. þjónusta og íbúðarhúsnæði).

Skipulag Reykjavíkur miðast við byggingablokkir, frekar en að taka götur fyrir í heild. Göturnar einkennast því af því að vera ekki heilstæðar. Þær eru suðupottur af formum, skölum, stílbrigðum og efnisáferðum.

Byggingablokkir í miðbænum eru yfirleitt stórar og samsettar úr litlum húsum, inni í miðju þeirra myndast því mikið rými - sem getur virkað óreiðukennt og illa nýtt - “fjárhúsaarkitektúr”

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Pro

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3F 4F 5F Roof

Section bSection a

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Year: 2007-2012

Name of course: Various

Teachers:Various / None

Tags:Variousva

rious

pro

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s

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// tags

Project: <lava house>

lava

hou

se

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Pro

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: <Va

rious

Pro

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s>

recognising architectural styles // designing with nature // residential

One of the most important

characteristics of designers is their

ability to place themsleves in

another´s shoes. This course was to

be-not a regular research paper-but

rather a creative search for the

features in the works of architects

that have were influential on the

design landscape. We were to create work of design based on

those methods and ideology.

Year: 2007 Project: Research: Authors and their works Teacher: Pétur Hrafn Ármannsson

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Project: < Various Projects >

3d modelling // building with older buildings

urba

n in

fill

Year: 2008 Project: Urban Infill Collaboration: Guðrún Jóna Arinbjarnardóttir Teacher: Pétur Hrafn Ármannsson

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Pro

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digital techniques // 3d modelling

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interests // silver jewellery // own designs

Project: <Various Projects>

“Elv

e´s

cup”

silv

er r

ing

Off

ice

rock

ing

chai

r, go

od f

or

the

ones

with

a s

ore

back

Short course where we made a chair. My chair was a rocking chair. 90° curve between back and legs is not good on the back, especially not for long periods of time.

Silver ring in the making.

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// interests // silver jewellery // own designs

Pro

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: <Va

rious

Pro

ject

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“Ald

a” s

ilver

rin

gs

Photos of “Alda” by Saga Sig, photographer, www.sagasig.com.

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set design // photography // collaboration

“Threads” was my sisters final project for her B.A. degree in Photography. I helped her find locations here in Iceland according to her concept, and made some of the settings. These two pictures are a part of the series.

In the project Saga was working on the notion of the strong woman throughout the history of photography and fashion photography. Seldomly, the woman is pictured as a strong persononality, especially in fashion, and if she is strong, then she is often shown as the witch, the ugly trollwoman, the wrinkled old woman or the demon. Saga wanted to visualize another kind of a strong woman, a woman in touch with her mystique sides, with the nature she is born of, proud and intelligent.

Colla

bora

tion

- “T

hrea

ds“

Project: <Various Projects>

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set design // photography // collaboration

The bed in this photographic series, represents the ship, as the bed is the ship that we sail through the seas of our subconcience. As a guide through the smooth planes of the subconcious sea, and since the dream knows no boundaries I allowed myself an international merging of the Polynesic nomadic maps and the indian dreamcatcher.

I made the dream map out of the roots of lyme grass - the sturdy grass that grows by the sea.

Pro

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rious

Pro

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katla mariudottir // ba architectural portfolio 2012

Documents

urban setting

urban development

urban scapes

buildings age

demolishing buildings

turf houses

turf houses

aging of materials