A home in Iceland was designed to blend in perfectly with the surrounding landscape - take a closer look
Frank Olito
- A design firm built a camouflaged house in Iceland for a couple who wanted a vacation home.
- The house slopes with the surrounding terrain, and the roof is covered in grass and moss.
- There are three bedrooms, one bathroom, and a bathtub in the middle of the living room.
An architecture firm designed a vacation house in Iceland for a couple who lives in Reykjavík.
KRADS, an architectural design firm in Denmark, worked with musicians Tina Dickow and Helgi Jónsson to build them a holiday home near Lake Þingvallavatn, or Lake Thingvallavatn, in Iceland.
The result is a house that the design firm calls "Holiday home by Þingvallavatn."
According to the designers, the home's key feature is that it slopes with the terrain.
The house is surrounded by dense vegetation, so Dickow and Jónsson wanted their house to be built without disrupting or ruining the natural landscape.
"Icelandic nature is generally quite barren, therefore large trees and bushes are precious, and there was a lot on the site," Kristján Eggertsson, an architect at KRADS, told Insider. "By angling the house carefully we were able to leave most of the oldest pine trees untouched along with most of the lower vegetation that envelops the house."
The roof is even covered in grass and moss so that the house can blend in with the surroundings.
"Our clients wanted to make sure that their house would not be visually intrusive or obstruct the view towards the lake from the neighboring houses further up the hill," Eggertsson said. "This to a large degree guided the idea of the sloping roof. As seen from the houses above, the building almost becomes one with the landscape."
Inside, there is a sunken living room with plenty of seating.
The views of the lake act as art in the space.
To the right of the seating area in the living room, there's a bathtub.
When the bathtub is not in use, it is covered in cushions and acts as additional seating.
The kitchen has wood accents throughout.
The kitchen includes a large dining area and an island.
The home has three bedrooms, including a loft space that leads to the grassy roof.
The three bedrooms include a primary bedroom, a children's room, and a loft space. There's one bathroom that can be accessed via the main bedroom and the main living space.
The house also includes a terrace, which has unobstructed views of the mountains.
The south-facing terrace has views of the Jórutindur and Hátindur mountains that are nearby.
But the home's main draw is the views of the lake.
"Lake Þingvallavatn is one of the most beautiful places in Iceland," Eggertsson said.
This camouflaged house now acts as the perfect vacation home for the couple.
Dickow and Jónsson's vacation home has become their escape from city life in Reykjavík.
"They love [the home], and are staying there every chance they get," Eggertsson said.
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