An ambitious vision of a city that was built from Lava

Lava from fiery volcanoes has been an uncontrollable force in the past, which destroys buildings and districts in the following. But what if this force could be redirected and used instead to create entire cities? An ambitious project by the Icelandic company S.AP Arkitectar, which will be presented at this year’s Biennale of the Venice Architecture (until November 23), suggests that.

While LAVA cools down in the landscape in a natural way to a volcanic stone like basalt, “laveforming” – the melted rock provides as a new form of building material – strategies for cooling in a controlled manner so that they are able to produce new settlements in walls, columns and other architectural elements. Together with employees, S.AP Arkitectar has pushed a film in which the year 2150 can imagine if such a building technology could become a reality and redesign the world.

S.ap Arkitectar was founded by Arnhildur Pálmadóttir and carried out with her son Arnar Skarphéðinsson and carried out research and carried out tests to examine how something that is primarily considered a threat can be converted into a renewable resource in order to create sustainable buildings. But how realistic is the future of the Lava cities?

Iceland is one of the most active volcanic regions in the world, which is located on a gap between two tectonic plates. The country is home to the fact that the country has an average outbreak every five years. During such an event – the outbreak of Holuhraun from 2014 – Pálmadóttir recognized that there was a “large amount of material from the ground”, she said about video calls from the capital Reykjavík. She thought: “Wow, we were able to build an entire city with it.”

The “lava forming” project began as a “thought experiment” a few years later, added Skarphéðinsson. The aim was also a criticism of the dependency of the construction industry in concrete and the carbon emissions resulting from its production. (It is estimated that due to lime and clay at high temperatures to create cement, an important component of concrete, the production of the material constitutes about 8% of global CO2 emissions, which contributes to global warming and climate mining.)

“We believe that Lava can compete with concrete but can be more sustainable,” said Pálmadóttir and added that Lava has “all materials that has concrete, depending on how it cools down.” When Lava cools down quickly, Pálmadóttir explained, she turns into a hard, glass-like material obsidian. When it slowly cools down, it tends to crystallize, which is well suited for creating columns and structural elements. If the lava quickly cools down and also gets air into it, a bims -like, heavily isolative material is now generated.

The carbon, which is broadcast from a volcano by hot lava, would be released into the atmosphere anyway, no matter how cooled and used – better to make the best of it and to avoid additional emissions from concrete production.

Form lava in structures

S.AP Arkitectar has brought three speculative methods for transforming lava into architecture.

In the first, carefully designed trench networks are excavated on the foot of active volcanoes so that lava melted is directed from eruptions, in which it can cool down to create structural walls or foundations for a city. Such trenches could also channel lava into a factory that form the lava into bricks that can be moved and used elsewhere. The hope is that the surrounding communities will be protected from the harmful power of the lava by the detour of the lava during an outbreak.

The second method uses the technology of 3D printing and introduces itself to future 3D printing robots, which after an eruption could cross a landscape of melted lava and use the lava to “print” elements of buildings. However, the technology for such robots does not yet exist.

The third technology is to use Magma under the ground and to lead Lava into new, specially constructed chambers, where it could cool down into pre -made, reproducible architectural elements. The team believes that access to such an underground magma would pursue a similar approach to that of geothermal energy generation – the heat from the earth’s core uses and is an important source of energy in Iceland. However, s.ap arkitectar does not yet know whether such a process would be geologically safe.

The architects admit that the practical aspects of “laveforming” are not yet fully developed and are based on further research and technological development, not to mention a broader buy-in. However, they believe that their proposal becomes more realistic if the project develops. Since the start of the project in 2022, S.AP Arkitectar has increasingly employed scientists who have worked on LAVA -Flow -forecast and visualized in 3D software, whereby lava -current simulations for eruptions in Iceland and carrying out “LAVA tests”, in which volcanic stone is heated to become melted again, And in controlled methods to cool to create electamicories.

If you rely on eruptions, the proposal is anchored in time and place, but S.ap is of the opinion that his idea could have a value in Vulkanically active Iceland, as well as in other places where there is “slowly flowing lava”, said Pálmadóttir and added that Hawaii “really” like in Iceland geologically, like the Canary Islands in Atlantic-Ozean is.

Futuristic vision for an old material

Vulkanestein is not a new building material – it was used over time like stone for structural elements such as walls. It can be found all over the world and is broken down as soon as stackable rocks, bricks, panels or gravel are crushed, which are used as an unit in concrete.

Basalt, the most common volcanic stone, was used to build structures, including the Qasr al-Azraq (“Blue Fortress”) in Jordan, Château d’Anjony in France, the goal of India (1924) (1924) (1924) in Mumbai and which was raised & de-meuron-Dessigned-Winzig (1997). Recently, Basalt was used in the Nashan Geological Museum (2021) in Yangzhou, China, Radisson Resort & Spa (2023) in Lonavala, India, and an impressive private house called Casa Basaltica (2023) in Querétaro, Mexico. Architects appreciate the material for its strength, durability, insulating properties, robust texture and often dark tones.

However, the way in which S.AP wants to use volcanic stone is very different – and is based on working in its melted condition. Practice wants to use LAVA as a “mono material” and “never happened before,” said Skarphéðinson-to achieve various material properties in a single form, from solid blocks to lurking isolative stone and glass glass leaves for windows.

Much of S.APS inspiration is based on nature, which, as Pálmadóttir said, “created Lava from the beginning of the time.” It refers to the caves that, after an outbreak on the island of Lanzarote (part of the Canary Islands), the architect César Manrique of the 20th century, as underground rooms for his own home in 1968, which was used in 1968 as underground rooms for his own home, formed by bladder in LAVA.

Whether we live in cities of Lava is based on complicated practical factors, from technology and security to funds and political appetite. But for the time being, the vision of S.AP is simply to make people think a little differently. “How can we change systems to react to the global (climate) emergency?” asked Pálmadóttir. “How do architecture and the built environment have to address differently? We hope that other places see this project as inspiration.”

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