University of Manitoba · Master of Architecture

Situated halfway up the hike to Iceland's thundering Dynjandi waterfalls in the remote Westfjords, this project proposes a 4,200m² School of Music — a place for the creation, meditation, and study of music at the edge of one of Iceland's most dramatic landscapes.

The design is rooted in a study of elemental interactions: the push and pull between permanent and vulnerable, solid and fluid, austere and flowing. These ideas, developed through casting experiments, physical modelling, and photographic studies during a studio trip to Iceland, gave rise to a clear architectural language. Solid, introverted volumes — cavernous, acoustically dense, and grounded in the landscape — are scattered across the hillside, housing performance spaces, practice rooms, the library, and student residences. Between them, a light, highly reflective glazed structure flows and bridges, hosting the collaborative, social, and academic life of the school: classrooms, study areas, lounges, and a learning commons.

The building reveals itself gradually as visitors ascend the site, tucked into the terracing slope so that it only fully emerges once explored — a spatial experience that mirrors the drama of the waterfall itself. Interiors respond to their function: the small performance hall features undulating, porous concrete walls inspired by Icelandic lava caves; a practice room is framed by a channelled view directly to the falls; the concert hall is lined in wood-clad undulating surfaces that deflect and enrich sound. The primary structure is a steel and cross-laminated timber hybrid, with insulated concrete forming the solid volumes and full-height reflective glazing wrapping the extroverted connective spaces.