SP(R)INT STUDIO

The subject of the project is to valorize the ruins of one of the oldest and best known archaeological sites in Iceland, located in Stöng í Þjórsárdal and destroyed in a volcanic eruption from Hekla in 1104. The design includes a shelter for Viking Age longhouse remains, information areas, resting areas, footpaths and footbridge. The protective housing of the ruins plays the role of an interior and exterior observation deck, establishing an architectural connection between the vestiges and the landscape. Using the building as a filter between internal space and the nature, which can pierce, in the form of air, light and sound, through the perforations in the wood facade, the impression is to enter a temporal field: the space of (re)interpretation. Interpretation is conceived when the work considers the space in its entirety, without distinctions between intrinsic and extrinsic properties. It is perceived only to a spectator of the space that experiences its volumes, contributing to reinforce the relations between architecture and the observer himself, capable of a number of interpretations, none of which should be regarded as definitive.