In 2005, Hugh Broughton Architects and engineering giant AECOM won an international competition to build the Halley VI base for the British Antarctic Survey. On February 5, 2013, it is officially opened.
Building in Antarctica is tough; snow eventually buries almost anything you build. Halley Base V was built on extendible stilts, but after 20 years they were encased in 75 feet of ice and couldn’t work anymore. The Base is also built on a moving ice shelf, so the buildings really have to move horizontally as well as vertically.
Hugh Broughton solved the problem by building an Archigram-like walking city. The architect explains:
To avoid the fate of previous abandoned stations, the modules are supported on giant steel skis and hydraulically driven legs. The hydraulic legs allow the station to mechanically “climb” up out of the snow every year to avoid being buried. And as the ice shelf moves out towards the ocean, the modules can be lowered onto the skis and towed by bulldozers to a new safer location further inland. The new Halley VI can therefore continue to respond to the changing needs of Antarctic science for many more years than its projected design life.
Mais informações aqui (Amazing Green Modular Halley VI Crawling Antarctic Base Opens Today).
Fonte:
Têm um aspecto tão sereno, assim, esses azul e vermelho, no meio do branco, do nada branco.
“Encaixa” bem no cenário. 🙂