Volcano Visitor Center Exhibition by Haisheng Xu is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2026 Bronze A' Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Competition Category.
BronzeArchitecture· 2026
Volcano Visitor Center Exhibition
by Haisheng Xu
Client: Studio 0
Bronze A' Design Award Winner in Architecture Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #182286The Design
About Volcano Visitor Center Exhibition
Volcano Visitor Center is a visitor center in Iceland that presents geological, historical, and cultural information about Icelandic volcanoes. The building covers 7,300 square feet and is set into the volcanic terrain, joining subterranean spaces with a sculpted roofscape. The material palette is simple, consisting of concrete, metal, and glass, with a green roof designed to support local plants. Parametric design tools shaped the curved form while keeping a rational geometry. Circulation guides visitors to experience the horizon, the land, and nature.
The Recognition
About the Bronze A' Design Award
Volcano Visitor Center Exhibition is a Bronze A' Design Award winner, a highly prestigious recognition granted to outstanding designs distinguished by creativity, ingenuity, and astuteness. Bronze winners are amply skillful and strikingly creative artifacts that authenticate the vast experience, imagination, and resourcefulness of their designers. Volcano Visitor Center Exhibition is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished object that is notably professional and innovative. This Bronze A' Design Award-winning design incorporates best practices in art, science, design, and technology, and is excellent for its attention to detail. Volcano Visitor Center Exhibition splendidly satisfies needs, touches desires, charms feelings, and appeals to curiosity.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Embedded within the volcanic terrain, the project dissolves the boundary between building and landscape, offering a continuous journey of light, earth, and horizon. By uniting subterranean shelter with sculpted roofscape, it transforms architecture into an environmental mediator that preserves the site while intensifying experience, inviting visitors to inhabit nature not as observers, but as participants in its elemental presence.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 7,300 square feet.
- Tags
- Sustainability, Landscape Architecture, Mobius,Parametric, Curvilinear
- Production Technology
- The building is intended to use local materials and minimize its impact on the existing landscape. The material palette is kept simple, consisting of concrete, metal, and glass, with a green roof designed to support local plants. Parametric design tools were used to create a dynamic form responding to the organic landscape while maintaining rational geometry and production control. View and lighting analyses were also used to verify the design outcomes.
- Design Challenge
- The creative challenge was to create a manmade form that responds to the existing landscape and site language without simply mimicking nature. The design philosophy explores how humans, while adapting to nature, interpret and reshape the surrounding environment to achieve a new balance that can sustain human life in a sustainable and long-lasting way.
- Research
- The research focused on two main aspects. The first examined how volcanic activities have shaped Iceland’s landscape and human activities. It was particularly inspiring to understand how volcanoes and the hidden underground world provide fertile soil and geothermal heat for life, while many human activities and habitats are partially or fully embedded underground. The second aspect studied the geometries and forms generated by volcanic activities.
- Inspiration
- Iceland’s settlement history is shaped by volcanic forces and the landscapes and energy they generate. The vast horizontal terrain fosters a close relationship between human life and the earth. Inspired by volcanic forms and the mystery of the underground, the design reinforces this connection by integrating surface and subterranean space. It invites visitors to reflect on nature as they experience the expansive horizon.
- Project Duration
- 2025, Iceland
- Operation Flow
- The design serves as a tourist center introducing geological, historical, and cultural information about Icelandic volcanoes, showing how volcanic activities have shaped Iceland’s environmental and social landscapes. The concept originates from volcanic terrain, particularly exploring the interface between the ground surface and the underground. Around this interface, the building's circulation guides visitors to experience the horizon, the land, and nature.
- Team Members
- Haisheng Xu
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