Motivation
The trigger for this project was my personal fascination with pre-existing machinery within a Power Station on the site (in Reykjavík, Iceland) as well as curiosity for the intense relationship that exists between nature and the synthetic. In this case that study was relevant because the structure is located next to a great salmon river and in a beautiful recreational area that lies in the middle of the city.
From mid-forties to mid-eighties the structure acted as the host of generating electricity, a program that is no longer needed on this site. It accommodates two generations of power generating machines which now has resulted in architecture of lost time. As time has changed the site and the city, it is appropriate to add a new generation of machines (with a more humane program) within the structure to coexist and interact with the existing machines.

Concept
My proposal is about collapsing the nature and the synthetic within the existing structure that became redundant in mid-eighties and has since been left for time and nature to feast on. Cultivation (that until now has been held out of reach from this industrial wasteland) is invited in the mix through the new program which is a youth hostel and an unconventional “museum” where the users can experience the collapse of the redundant machines and nature.
The aqueducts that were installed when the structure was built and served the station when in use are now to let water into the structure as before but also to fill the whole ground floor with water with the help of the Power Stations old water pumps. Along with the water, fishes and eels are now welcomed into this sunken mechanical wonderland through the aqueducts where they can swim around along with divers and kayakers that can rent equipment there and explore this collapsed world of nature and old machinery.
Filling the ground floor with water is to serve as a symbol for how the machines have lost control to time and nature as they now stand indifferent in water, the very same water that before was a vital servant to them in order to generate electricity. Here the clash with nature is underlined by the coexistence of man, machines, water and fishes.

The Hostel Machine
The new Hostel Machine is yet another thing that helps the users experience the redundancy of the old power generating machines as it is a fully functional and an up-to-date machine. It is made up of 11 different machines that all have unique names that describe their function and each of these machines is built of specific components. The components of the power generating machines were designed for definite functions and they are very literal in their forms as well as unapologetic about their appearances. Here the Hostel Machines takes after their predecessors as their forms follow their functions quite literally.  For an example, the Shackine (shack+machine), which is a sleeping-machine, is built of a bed, closet, WC and a mini-lounge while the Acceptor is built of reception, lounge and WC. Some of the machines also have plug-in machines. For an example the Acceptor has a Sub-mixer (underwater lounge) and the Staff benifittor (staff spaces) as plug-ins. Each machine is color-coded on the inside according to function (the Acceptor is red, while the Equipper (equipment rent) is blue etc). However they are steel constructions like their predecessors though still stand out from the old as a new generation on the site since their exterior appearance is black shiny steel.

Sólveig Ragna Guðmundsdóttir
www.pokform.com/solveig/
solveigr@gmail.com