An ambitious vision of a city built from lava

The outbreak of fiery volcanoes, the lava was historically an irreplaceable force that destroyed the buildings and the neighborhoods in its wake. But what if it could be redirected and harnessed to create entire cities? An ambitious project from ICELANDIC S.AP Arkitektar, presented in the Venice Biennial for this year (continuing until November 23), suggests this.

While lava naturally cools on the landscape to become a volcanic rock like basalt, “volcanic lava” – which imagines molten rocks as a new form of building materials – put strategies to cool them in control ways that can be placed in the walls, columns and other architectural elements that can be produced to produce new settlements. Along with the collaborators, the S.AP Arkitektar made a movie that imagined in 2150, when this construction technology becomes a reality, reinstalling the world in this process.

Arnhildur Pámadótir has been founded and managed with her son Arnar Scarsenson, S.AP ARKITEKTAR performs research and conducts tests to explore how something can be converted as a threat in the first place into renewable resources capable of producing sustainable buildings. But how realistic the future of the cities of lava?

Iceland is one of the most active volcanic areas in the world, located on a rift between two tectonic plates. A home to about 30 volcanoes, the country, on average, suffers from an eruption every five years. “I realized that Pradadotter realized that during one of these events – Holwaron erupted for the year 2014 – I realized that Panhahotire was” a huge amount of materials coming from the ground. “I thought:” Wow, we could build an entire city in one week with that. “

Scarsenson added that the “Volcanic lava” project started seriously after a few years as a “intellectual experience”. It also aims to be a criticism of the adoption of the construction industry on concrete and carbon emissions resulting from its production. (Estimates indicate that due to the heating of lime and clay at high temperatures to create cement, which is a major component of concrete, material production represents about 8 % of global carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming and climate deterioration.)

“We believe that lava can compete with concrete, but it is more sustainable,” Pálmadótir said, adding that lava “has all concrete materials, depending on how it is cool.” If volcanic lava quickly cool, Pálmadótir explains, it turns into a solid-simplifying glass. If it cools slowly, it is more likely to crystallize, which can work well to create columns and structural elements. If the lava cools quickly and also in the air, at the same time, a pumice -like material is created, very insulating.

She said that the carbon emitted from the hot volcanic lava that is launched from a volcano will be released in the air anyway, regardless of how it is cooled and used – so it is better to achieve its maximum benefit and avoid additional emissions of concrete production.

Pour lava into structures

S.AP ARKITEKTAR provided three speculative ways to turn lava into architecture.

Initially, carefully designed trenches are drilled at the foot of the active volcanoes of the fascinated shot from the bangs to be directed, as it can cool to create walls or structural foundations for the city; These trenches can also direct volcanic lava to a factory that forms lava in the brick that can be transported and used elsewhere. Hope is that by redirect volcanic lava into trenches, surrounding societies will also be protected from the destructive force of volcanic lava during the explosion.

The second method is harnessing 3D printing technique, imagining the future 3D printing robots that can cross a scene of fascinated lava after the eruption and use volcanic lava to “print” building elements. Technology for such robots is not yet present.

The third technique includes benefiting from underground magma, directing lava to new rooms specially created as it can cool into pre -made and repetitive architectural elements. The team believes that access to such an underground magma will take an approach similar to regulating the production of earthly thermal energy – which harnesses heat from the Earth’s heart and is a great source of energy in Iceland. Nevertheless, the S.AP ARKITEKTAR is not yet known whether this process will be geological safe.

Architectural engineers admit that the practical aspects of “volcanic lava” have not yet succeeded and depended on more research and technological development, not to mention the broader purchase. But they feel that their proposal has become more realistic with the development of the project. Since the launch of the project in 2022, S.AP Arkitektar has increasingly involved with scientists, who have worked on the lava flow predictions and its perception in 3D programs, making the lava flow simulator for revolutions in Iceland and take over “lava tests” that are heated in volcanic rocks until they become rocks full of control.

Pálmadótir said that relying on explosions proves the proposal to time and space, but S.AP believes that its idea can have value in Iceland active in volumes, in addition to other sites where there is “slow lava flowing”, as it is in the Atlantic oceans.

A future vision of old materials

Volcanic rocks are not a new building material – it has been used all the time, such as stone, for structural elements such as walls. It can be found all over the world, and as soon as it is extracted, it is used as a stacking, brick, panels, or broken in the gravel for use as all in the concrete.

Basalt, the most common volcanic rocks, were used to build structures including the thirteenth century thefts (“Blue Castle”) in Jordan, Chito de Anguni in France, India Gate (1924) in Mumbai, and Herzog & De Meuron-Dominory (1997). Recently, basalt was used in the Nashan Geological Museum (2021) in Yangzhou, China, Radisson Resort & SPA (2023) in Lunavala, India, and an impressive private house called Casa Basaltica (2023) in Querétaro, Mexico. Architectural engineers estimate the material for its strength, durability, insulation properties, rugged texture and dark colors often.

However, the method that S.AP wants using volcanic rocks is completely different – and depends on working with it in its molten state. “The practice wants to harness the lava as” mono substance “, which it cools in controlled and varied ways-which has not been done before.”

Many S.AP inspiration stems from nature, which Pálmadótir said, “Forms and structures of lava have been created from the beginning of time.” It refers to the caves formed by bubbles in lava after the outbreak of the eighteenth century on the island of Lanzarut (part of the Canary Islands), which was used by the architect in the twentieth century Cisar Manrik as a underground room for his home in 1968.

Whether we end up living in cities made of volcanic lava that depends on complex practical factors, from technology and safety to financing and political appetite. But at the present time, seeing the S.AP is simply made people think a little differently. “How can we change systems to respond to global emergency (climate)?” Pálmadótir asked. “How do architectural engineering and the built environment need to address this matter differently? We hope that other places will consider this project as an inspiration.”

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