Lúdika's Biobuilding, a hempcrete demonstrator cabin in Grímsnes, Iceland

When Anna Karlsdóttir and Jan Dobrowolski moved from London to Iceland, they found a construction industry built on concrete and imports. By their count around 80 per cent of buildings are concrete and nearly all materials come from abroad. Industrial hemp had just been legalised, so their young studio, Lúdika, set out to see what building with it might look like.

The result is Biobuilding, a small hempcrete cabin on a family plot in a green corner of Grímsnes, made with hemp grown at Sandhóll. Growers, researchers, engineers and craftspeople joined in, and a group of German journeymen on their traditional travels helped put it up. Glulam beams, prefabricated footings, solid timber joinery, lime plaster, limewash and wool fill out the build, and textile designer Alberte Bojesen made window screens from Icelandic seaweed.

The architects took their cue from Japanese teahouses: small, humble and tied to the land. Views are framed rather than open, low towards moss and mountains on one side, up towards woodland on the other. They call it a sáluhús, a 'house for the soul'.

This is a test bed rather than somewhere to stay. Two years of monitoring fed a life cycle assessment and a report for Askur, Iceland's housing research fund, with pointed words about regulations holding such buildings back. Worth reading for anyone curious about turf-house thinking brought up to date.

Our summary of a story from Wallpaper*, published 1 November 2026. Read the original

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