Embla is a proposal for a preventive health program in Hrísey, a small island community in northern Iceland. Rooted in the island’s environmental qualities and cultural heritage, the project explores how architecture can support wellbeing through relationships between landscape, movement, community, and daily life.

Rather than concentrating care within a single institution, the proposal distributes the program across the island through a network of walking routes, shared public spaces, adaptive reuse of existing buildings, and small architectural interventions placed within the landscape. Movement through the island becomes part of the wellness experience itself.

The project responds to both increasing pressure on the healthcare system due to lifestyle-related illnesses and to the fragile condition of Hrísey, where seasonal fluctuation, limited services, and depopulation place pressure on everyday life and community resilience. Groups of eight participants stay in Hrísey for four weeks, developing personalised routines together with healthcare professionals focused on restoration, movement, social connection, and long-term lifestyle change.

Working across the scales of landscape, village, and building, the project proposes a new relationship between healthcare, architecture, and the everyday life of the island.

Myndir: Claudio Parada Nunes