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PK Arkitektar won the 2014 Jury Award for the Single Family Home 1,000-3,000 sq ft category with Árborg, a vacation house atop a moss-covered hill beside Iceland’s Hvítá River.
Your name: Pálmar Kristmundsson
Firm name: PK Arkitektar
Location: Reykjavik, Iceland
Education: Architecture, Arkitektskolen i Aarhus and University of Tokyo
When did you decide that you wanted to be an architect?
The idea of becoming a designer/architect slowly formed during my high school years. First as a construction designer of some sort, but gradually it became clear to me that it was architecture that probably had been an underlying force within me for all the time I spent growing up in a tiny fishing village of 350 people in the northernmost part of Iceland.
What was your first architecture/design job?
After finishing my masters in Denmark, I had never set foot inside an architectural office. From there, I went straight to Japan as a research fellow at Tokyo University and during that time I also worked in the office of Aida Takefumi in Tokyo as my first job experience as an architect.
Who is your design hero and/or what is your favorite building?
Katsura Imperial Palace in Kyoto is definitely my favorite building since my first visit to the compound in 1984. The complete concept of “inside out/outside in” had a great influence on my thinking and made me eager to pay a closer, deeper attention to the landscape of my home country.
Tell us something that people might not know about your winning entry:
Hidden behind the cracked surface concrete wall is the custom-made sauna room with its epic experience of geothermal steam.
Which juror(s) do you find most compelling and why?
It is both exiting and compelling to see Olafur Eliasson on board because he has the ability to see the spectacular in the ordinary, besides his origin as an Icelander.
Among your fellow A+Award winners, what is/are your favorite(s)?
Voronoi’s Corrals by deca architecture, Cabin at Norderhov by Atelier Oslo, and 930 Poydras Residential Tower by Eskew+Dumez+Ripple.
Voronoi’s Corrals by deca architecture
Outside of architecture, where do you look for inspiration?
My greatest inspiration is the sky and the landscape underneath. The ever-changing light of the sun and the moon has the magic to shape the landscape and change one’s experience of that landscape even though it is always the same landscape. One cannot help to wonder if it is really the same landscape.
What is the most important quality in an architect?
The one who reads, understands, and builds buildings to explain what he read.
Who would be your dream client, and why?
The one who has no clue what I am doing and still trusts me to shape his or her dream.
What do you find exciting about architecture and design right now?
On one hand, there is an urge to explore material as natural means and treat the rawness as the characteristic. Expressing it with real love for the material is a rare thing, but the few fine examples are really great. On the other hand, there is a fantastic movement to explore new expressions for materials known to be quite strict and classic in formations. The sustainable environmental issues seem to be changing the traditional notion of beauty and the question is where that might lead.