New Skerjafjörður, a residential development planned in the southern part of Reykjavík Airport, forefronts the process of a gradual fadeout of the facility. Mandaworks was commissioned with the task to investigate and communicate a clear and inspiring collection of design guidelines to support the municipality to steer the quality and character of what is to become a model district for a vibrant, resilient and car-reduced living environment in Iceland's capital. The Design Guidelines complement and strengthen the area's existing masterplan, detailing a selection of pioneering solutions to ensure biodiversity, resiliency and high-quality urban spaces within the previously studied urban structure.
The comprehensive design guidelines focus on treatment of the publicly owned spaces between the buildings - the park, square and the streets. Novel to Iceland is how the car-reduced street typologies evolve and accommodate a range of scales, atmospheres, public space configurations and mobility options.
Enabled by the removal of the airport, a vision of “Gradient Landscape” celebrates the return of original landscape qualities that dominated the area before its construction: marshlands, coastal wetlands and bushy inland forests. The strategy gives a unifying identity to New Skerjafjörður development with layers of ecosystems gradually evolving from densely planted areas with trees and shrubbery in the north, through water collecting wetlands to coastal low grasses.
Meeting the unified landscape, individually programmed streets result in a sequence of diverse public realms. Breaking away from the traditional linear street, the ACROSS profile is based on a pattern of spaces that connect buildings facades and entrances, creating a residential third space that encourages vibrant neighbourhood life through everyday experience of spontaneous encounters. One large continuous planting bed dominates the NATURE profile and its sunken basin provides generous space for diverse planting and rainwater collection. Pedestrian connections placed on steel bridges across the planting bed allow for enjoying the healthy and green environment, without interrupting the wide biodiversity corridor.
The asymmetrical profile of LINE street minimises the drivable surface area to free up space for a continuous ribbon of public space programmed with activities and functions, like outdoor gym facilities, boule fields and cosy seatings.

As part of the preliminary design phase, our project was grounded in the assistance from the city planners. Even though dimensions of the spaces between buildings were confined to the parameters of the local plan, we succeeded in proposing pioneering solutions, proving that ambitious designs could also be applied in conditions of existing urban contexts. Nevertheless, in the pursuit of unconventional strategies, we systematically engaged the municipality with our ideas to ensure feasibility in terms of the next stages of development.
Following the city’s aspiration of transforming the area into a model car-reduced neighbourhood we proposed a smorgasbord of individually tailored street profiles; for example, three streets were turned into ACROSS, NATURE and LINE profiles, where, respectively, shared neighbours’ space, wide sunken planting bed, and a programmed activity ribbon were driving the design and supporting quality living, urban resilience and biodiversity.