Inspirational sustainability
An hour’s drive to the east of Iceland’s capital Reykjavik, you get to the community of Solheimar. Iceland’s first eco-village and home to the Center for Sustainable Development at Sesselja House.
All natural. Insulated with wool and paper, clad with driftwood and heated by geothermal. A truly sustainble center for sustainability. (Photo: Ask Arkitektar)
Solheimar, Icelandic for “home of the sun”, was founded in 1930 by Sesselja Hreindís Sigmundsdóttir as a place of cultivation of both people and the environment. It started out as a home for children with and without disabilities, emphasizing on organic horticulture, healthy food and artistic expression. Today it is no longer a children’s home, but a community where the goal is to give every individual an opportunity in a sustainable society.
A sustainable house
Many of the activities in Solheimar centers around the Sesselja House, a Center for Sustainable Development inaugerated in 2002 on what would have been Sigurdsdottir’s hundredth birthday. A building that commemorates the founder of Solheimar and houses an educational center on environmental issues, can of course not be like any ordinary building. Rather than talking about Sesselja House as en energy efficient building, or as en ecological building, the people of Solheimar prefer the term “sustainable building”. A sustainable building needs to meet certain demands, both in terms of building materials and the activities that takes place in it. It is not just a matter of energy conservation, but a holistic perspective based on the environment and ecology.
Sheep's wool and driftwood
The architects in ASK Arkitektar were given the task of constructing the Sesselja House, and the finished building show us that energy efficiency is not necessarily a matter of modern technology, just common sense and clever ideas. In construction of this 840 square meter building, great care was taken to choose only environmentally friendly building materials. The insulation of the walls and floors is made of natural sheep’s wool, while the roof is insulated with paper. And the outdoor cladding is made from driftwood originating in Siberia, carried to Iceland by the ocean’s currents! Interior surfaces consist of plywood, Icelandic lark, natural greystone, linoleum and recycled materials. The building has a natural air-ventilation system, where fresh air is channeled under the building by a flow induced by temperature differences between outside environs and the inside of the building. Air enters through ducts in the floor and leave through vents in the roof.
Sustainable resources
All energy used in the building originates from from sustainable resources. Electricity comes from solar and hydro power, as well as from a generator that produces electricity from the temperature difference between hot and cold water. Heating comes from geothermal hot water from their own borehole.
The government of Iceland financially supported the building of Sesselja House and now the activity in it.
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