Making Better Places: Nine Lessons From Iceland

In his latest visually-focused Atlantic Cities piece, Wolfe describes urban and rural Iceland from the perspectives of visual inspiration, and as fodder for professional practice regarding settlements and cities. He explains how, "[i]n Icelandic landscapes, in small towns, and in the resurgent capital city of Reykjavik, are scenes and stories that transcend nature, culture and the built environment."

Wolfe provides a nine-point, image-oriented summary of lessons learned from Iceland’s interplay of the natural and built environments, "including human capacity to adapt to the opportunities and constraints of place".  Examples include clarity of the night sky, building minimalism that blends with surrounding nature, climate-sensitive use of building color and materials, as well as sensitive interaction of the built environment with water bodies, landscape and sky.

He concludes: