Vollebak Island. A visionary concept for the future of habitation

Vollebak Island is the start of a series of extraordinary projects looking at how we’ll live over the next century in a world of climate change, space travel, and resource scarcity. Designed with visionary architect Bjarke Ingels, it offers a blueprint for the future – a carbon neutral compound built entirely off grid, in which the home and the island it’s built on, combine to become one living, breathing ecosystem.

Designed with visionary architect Bjarke Ingels

While we’re building clothes from the future, it’s Bjarke and his team at Bjarke Ingels Group who are redesigning the future of architecture. From buildings on Mars and a lunar habitat for NASA, to Google’s new Silicon Valley headquarters, the first 3D printed hotel, the iconic Lego Museum, the rebuild of NOMA, and Copenhill – the waste-to-energy powerplant they turned into a ski slope. As the pioneer of “hedonistic sustainability” Bjarke shows how visionary design can answer some of the world’s biggest challenges whilst still being playful, simple, and even fun.

Earth House and Wood House

The design of Vollebak Island is radically simple. At the heart of the island sits the Earth House – a village-like cluster of nine interconnected buildings that rise from the ground, resembling land art as much as architecture. Each is built from a blend of ancient and cutting edge materials, from bedrock and boulders, to seaweed and hempcrete. On the eastern shore of the island is Wood House – a bunker-like annex built from the trees on the island.

The Earth House is part land art, part architecture

At the heart of the island sits the Earth House – a village-like cluster of nine interconnected buildings built from a blend of ancient and cutting edge materials.

  • Wood House is built from the island itself  

    On the eastern shore of the island is Wood House. A bunker-like annex it will be built using cross laminated timbers from the wood on the island. While it’s a relatively new technology, it’s as robust as concrete.

  • A bath house cut out of the bedrock of the island

    Designed to reconnect you to the Earth, the bath house is cut out of the bedrock of the island.

A sunken, 3D printed, stargazing room

As the house emerges organically from the landscape, here you can see the circular window of the stargazing room at dusk.

A boat house from seaweed and a vast Viking fire pit

In the foreground is the boat house built from the abundant seaweed on the island. Behind it, constructed from thatch, are the main living quarters which come with a 6 metre Viking fire pit.

  • A greenhouse made from glass brick

    All the main structures of the Earth House can be seen in this arial view, including the greenhouse. Made from emerald coloured glass bricks it’s designed to grow enough food for the island alongside the planted rooftops of the Earth House. Today the island already has a hugely diverse ecosystem from sea scallops, chanterelle mushrooms, lobster, crab, to sea kelp.

Vollebak Island. A carbon neutral, off-grid compound

Creating a carbon neutral, off-grid compound set in Nova Scotia represents the perfect challenge for our future. As the climate changes and the weather becomes increasingly volatile, going off grid will require us to tap into multiple natural power sources simultaneously. Vollebak Island is designed to run on geothermal energy, offshore wind, solar power and ground source heat pumps, all of which will be stored in Tesla powerwalls.

Bjarke's plan for the planet

Completely self-sufficient and carbon neutral, Vollebak Island is the ultimate showcase for Bjarke’s ‘Plan for the Planet.’ Radical, utopian, and visionary, it’s a way of rethinking the way in which the world divides up its resources from first principles. Vollebak Island is the first proof of concept to show how this can eventually be scaled to villages, towns, cities, countries, or even the entire planet. You can read the full story behind it here.

We’re honoured to be partnering with Sotheby’s to auction Vollebak Island

“Vollebak Island is both a magical home and a work of art. True to Bjarke Ingels’ vision, it reimagines our way of being in the world in a truly sustainable and inspiring manner. Vollebak Island represents the intersection of architecture, design, art, and lifestyle—and is quite literally, a liveable piece of land art that stands alongside the great projects of Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy, Michael Heizer, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude.” - Simon Shaw, Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s Global Fine Arts