Abandoned Airport

Discourses on architecture have long reflected upon non-places: infrastructures which are always identical to themselves and unable to connect in any way with time and space.

In Iceland, it is different.

When a geometric and raven-black runway, almost resembling an artist’s sharp mark, extends on a green, jagged coast reaching its end on a black shore of fine, basaltic sand, even an airport, even a non-place, can take on a different meaning.

If, then, the airport is abandoned, and no vehicles fly on it, but rather flocks of birds which nest and find their home in the surrounding humid areas, a sort of magic occurs generating posthuman places and evoking an almost dystopic scenario, particularly loved by cinema and literature.
This is the case of Djúpavogsflugvöllur, an abandoned line of grey asphalt south of a colourful town of fishermen who place snow-white whale bones as decorative elements on the fences of their houses.

Today, the Djúpavogsflugvöllur runway is not trodden by passengers, but rather by birdwatching lovers and naturalists, who frequent this site for the variety of species inhabiting it.

It is to foster a discreet yet immersive contact with the Icelandic nature and fauna that Abandoned Airport was born, the new competition by YAC aimed at the design of observation points for wild animals near the Djúpavogsflugvöllur runway.

Located in the intersection between earth, water and sky, the new architectures will have to echo the harmony of the landscape, while respecting its visibility, rhythms, morphology and atmosphere. They will, however, also have to represent the nest where adults can become again, even if for a limited time, children who observe, marvel and learn, turning into the bonding thread between the elusive beauty of nature and the simplicity of the human dimension.

YAC thanks all the designers who will take on this challenge.