Why prefab & its logistics

Modular prefabricated construction is not simply a preference for Hugarró — it is the only construction approach that realistically reconciles the constraints we face: a chronic shortage of qualified local labour, volatile Icelandic weather, strict nature conservation rules that limit our on-site construction window, and the imperative to deliver a high-quality hospitality product on time and within budget. Every element of our build strategy has been designed around these realities.

The Icelandic imperative: why prefab is not optional
Building in a remote Icelandic location presents a set of compounding challenges that traditional in-situ construction simply cannot absorb:

• Labour scarcity and cost. Qualified construction tradespeople are in chronic short supply across Iceland. Where they exist, they are expensive and often not reliably available for remote sites. Foreign workers already account for roughly a quarter of Iceland’s entire workforce, reflecting how deep this structural gap runs.
• Weather exposure. Iceland’s wind, rain, frost, and rapidly shifting conditions make conventional on-site construction slow, unpredictable, and costly. Delays compound.
• Remote location. Mobilising and maintaining a large, multi-trade workforce on a remote site over many months is logistically complex and expensive.

Our strategy was therefore to out-design the dependency on local labour to an absolute minimum and to transfer as much of the construction process as possible to a controlled factory environment, where weather is irrelevant and quality is consistent.

There are no Icelandic companies that can deliver the combination of cost-effectiveness, precision, and relevant experience that we find in leading Central and Eastern European manufacturers. Most comparable projects currently operating in Iceland also use prefab units sourced from continental Europe — with varying degrees of success. We have been deliberate and thorough in our supplier selection.

The Birding Season: Our Construction Window Is Fixed
Iceland’s nature conservation legislation imposes strict seasonal access restrictions on ecologically sensitive sites — including the area around Hugarró. Nesting bird protection periods effectively close the site to significant construction activity from approximately May through August. This is a hard regulatory constraint, not a planning preference.

This means our window for on-site module placement activities runs roughly from September through April — Iceland’s most demanding months in terms of weather. The implications are significant:

• There is no flexibility to slide the programme into summer if something runs late
• A missed placement window means a minimum one-year delay to project opening
• Every unnecessary day of on-site activity is a day of unnecessary exposure to cost and risk

Modular prefab directly resolves this constraint. Module fabrication proceeds in the factory regardless of season, while site preparation and foundations are completed in Iceland in parallel. When the placement window opens, the modules are ready. The actual on-site placement operation is compressed into weeks, not months — well within the available window.

Factory & site: two workstreams running in parallel
One of the most powerful and often underappreciated advantages of modular construction is that factory fabrication and on-site civil works run simultaneously. While DMD Modular is manufacturing and fitting out the building modules in their Polish factory — including all interior fit-out, utilities installation, and quality testing — our team in Iceland is completing groundworks, foundations, and infrastructure. Neither stream waits for the other.

By the time the modules arrive on site, the ground is ready to receive them. This parallel working eliminates the sequential delays of traditional construction, where each phase must wait for the previous one to complete.

Our manufacturing partner: DMD Modular
Our modules are to be manufactured by DMD Modular, a leading Polish volumetric modular building company operating across Europe since 2016. Their portfolio includes hospitality, hotel, resort, residential, healthcare, and student accommodation projects in the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, and Iceland — making them one of the few manufacturers with direct Icelandic market experience and they came highly recommended by local hoteliers.

Relevant completed projects include a Hampton by Hilton (Bristol), a resort hotel extension (Belgium), Iceland’s Panorama Glass Lodge and multiple large-scale student accommodation schemes in Edinburgh and Copenhagen. DMD Modular operates under ISO-certified quality assurance processes and full compliance with European construction standards — including country-specific fire, acoustic, and structural requirements.

Factory-controlled production delivers measurably lower defect rates, superior thermal performance, and more predictable long-term operating costs compared to in-situ construction — all directly relevant to a 4-star nature retreat where post-opening remediation would be both costly and reputationally damaging.

Critically for our programme, DMD Modular will supply their own specialist installation crews to assist with on-site module placement. This eliminates our dependency on Iceland’s scarce and expensive local construction labour market for the most skilled and time-sensitive phase of the project.

The Logistics Chain
Our hotel consists of 48 modules in total. The cabin units are each made up of two halves. All modules will be transported by a specially chartered vessels sailing from a Polish seaport — a significantly more cost-effective and flexible option than standard ro-ro scheduled shipping services, and one that gives us full control over timing relative to our placement window.

Primary route — Port of Grundartangi:
The vessel docks at Grundartangi, approximately 30 minutes from site over ring-road quality infrastructure. Crucially, this stretch of the ring road is exceptionally quiet — carrying a maximum of approximately 30 vehicles per hour — meaning wide-load module convoys can move without traffic conflict, without night-time-only restrictions, and without the logistical complications that plague similar operations in more congested corridors through Reykjavik. Our team’s experience in maritime logistics is a further practical asset in coordinating this chain.

Alternative route — Nearby whaling station dock:
We are also considering to approach the owner of a whaling station with dock facilities located less than 10 minutes from the Hugarró site. If draft depth clearance is confirmed through a hydrographic survey, this option would reduce the road transport leg to a minimum and deliver meaningful additional cost and time savings. This remains an upside scenario under active development.

Crane strategy & module placement
The on-site placement of 48 modules has been planned around a tightly optimised mobile crane strategy designed to minimise crane repositioning — the single most expensive variable in the placement phase.

• Two crane positions cover the full placement of all 48 hotel modules.
• Each position allows the placement of an average of 2 cabins without repositioning
• Crane repositioning between the two positions is a single, planned move

This approach compresses what could otherwise be a lengthy, expensive, and ground-disturbing operation into a lean, efficient sequence — minimising both cost and the physical footprint of heavy machinery on ecologically sensitive terrain.

Time savings at a glance
The combined effect of parallel workstreams, factory fabrication, and optimised on-site placement is a dramatic compression of the overall project schedule compared to any traditional in-situ approach.

The practical summary: what would require 18 months or more of continuous on-site activity under a traditional build is reduced to a focused four-week placement operation, supported by months of factory production running in parallel and entirely outside Iceland’s weather and conservation constraints.