Bifröst Business School is located in a large lava field in Borgarfjordur, a grand flat-bottomed valley rising from the head of Borgarfjord in western Iceland.The location is remote and virtually uninhabited; the nearest town is 40 km distant and the campus is 120 km from the capital, Reykjavik. The growth of the school has required the removal of some of the lava field.The lava was carefully removed and stored during construc - tion and then reinstalled on the roof so the moss can continue to grow peacefully.The special characteristics of the site have been used in the natural ventilation system and heating is provided by locally supplied geothermal power. Although electrical power is hydro-generated its use is minimised by precise fenestration and generous roof lighting.These simple devices hopefully reflect the clarity and precision of the school pedagogy that uses the state-of-the-art technology to teach modern management techniques in an idyllic setting. Studio Granda, March 2003
Bifröst School of Business: Nordurdalur, Iceland Studio Granda, Architects Petur H.Armannsson
‘Iceland is not scenic in the conventional European sense of the word — rather it is a landscape devoid of scenery. Its quality of hardness and permanence intercut with effervescent elements has a parallel in the work of Studio Granda.’ (Sheila O’Donnell and John Toumey. In the Nature of Things, Studio Granda. Exhibition Catalogue, Reykjavik Art Museum, 1995)
t he campus of the Bifröst School of Business is situated in Nor- durdalur Valley in west-Iceland, about 60 miles north of Reykjavik. Surrounded by mountains of various shapes and heights, the campus is located at the edge of a vast lava field covered by gray moss and birch scrub, with colourful volcanic craters in the background. Nearby is a salmon-fishing river with tourist-attracting waterfalls and the main road that connects northern Iceland with Reykjavik in the south. The original building at Bifröst was designed and built as a restaurant and roadway hotel to plans made in 1945 by architects Gísli Halldórsson and Sigvaldi Thordarson.The property had been bought by the Federa- tion of Icelandic Co-operatives (SIS) and the first phase of the hotel, the restaurant wing, was started in 1951. It functioned as a restaurant and SIS community centre until 1955, when the SIS business trade school was moved to Bifröst from Reykjavik. A two-story hotel wing was com- pleted that same year and used as a student dormitory in the winter. In 1958 apartments for teachers and a gymnasium were added. The Bifröst campus is a well-preserved example of 1950’s Icelandic architecture, traditional in overall form with influences from post-war modern architecture evident in plan and detail. An important feature of the original buildings are massive retaining walls covered with black lava stone, framing the entrance loggia and garden terrace and connect- ing the buildings to the surrounding landscape. In sharp contrast with
the dark color of the lava are the white and yellow exterior walls, roofs of corrugated steel painted in red, white window frames and panels of dark brown wood veneer. This combination of materials and colors has become the hallmark of the place and has been respected by more recent buildings on campus. In 1988, Bifröst became a specialized business school at the university level. In 2001 three architectural offices submitted proposals for an extension to the original school building to house a lecture hall, adminis- trative and faculty offices and reception, the first phase in a major rede - velopment of the campus. Studio Granda was chosen for its innovative solution which was compact in scale, economical and respectful of the original buildings. Studio Granda was founded 1987 by Margrét Hardardóttir and Steve Christer to realize their first-prize competition project for Reykjavik City Hall (1988-92). The encounter of the urban order of the city and the natural order of the lake, the building broke away from traditional symbolic and typological notions of a town hall. Instead, it draws inspira- tion from Icelandic nature in material and detail, seen in the entrance rock-wall covered with green moss with dripping water. Studio Granda has continued to work with elements of nature relocated to the city, from the lava-rock roof terrace at the Supreme Court of Iceland (1992) to the parking garage at Kringlan shopping center in Reykjavik (1998)
On Site review 11
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Spring 2004
Architecture of the Circumpolar Region
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