Throughout Iceland, travelers will find little black “turf houses” with grassy roofs, which often extend all the way to the ground on either side to form one continuous green plane. These traditional farmsteads evolved from the longhouse, a tradition brought to Iceland by Nordic settlers in the ninth century. Turf is an economical way to insulate structures in cold climates, and it looks beautiful, to boot. Fewer houses are built this way today, but some architects are breathing new life into the tradition by adapting it for modernized homes.

That’s what architecture firm KRADS has achieved with its “Holiday home by Þingvallavatn,” which perches on a densely vegetated hilltop sloping in the direction of Lake Þingvallavatn. This lush, intensely green landscape, with views of viridian and black hills in the distance, informed the shape, appearance, and layout of a vacation home for a couple. The design consists of three staggered planes following the contours of the terrain, almost as if the home were a natural extension of the hill.
“An essential part of a good building is a good client, they say,” explain architects Kristján Örn Kjartansson and Kristján Eggertson of KRADS. “This general principle felt particularly present in the process surrounding Tina Dickow’s and Helgi Jónsson’s holiday home. As performing artists, they showed an unusual understanding around the creative ...