Design Wanted For Antarctic Base

colonist writes "According to the BBC, The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have begun a major international competition to design a new scientific research station at Antarctica. The old station, Halley Research Station, was built in 1992 and its ice shelf will break off by 2010." According to the article: "The first four bases were built on the surface and gradually got covered with snow and ultimately got so deep they became crushed by the weight of ice and had to be replaced", though the "current base on stilts" fared better until the ice shelf problems.

Comments

Here... free...

[nametaken]

1) Put in the water, on pylons. Concrete ice-breaker pylons like they use on bridges.

or maybe..

2) Don't fight the mounting ice. Use a modular, extendable lift system, and build down into the ice. Much like the ice caves they build into glaciers, but with structural reinforcement and climate control + serious bilge pumps. Your computers will love it down there.

Re:Igloos.

[TamMan2000]

Still have the same problem of getting covered in snow and crushed.

I don't think so... I think they would get covered in snow and get stronger. one of the beauties of a dome is that it can take huge loads provided that they are fairly uniform. Getting covered in snow is very uniform loading. Snow, when under enough presure turns in to ice. Ice is the material the igloo is made of. I am pretty sure that the igloo walls would just thicken with time.

You would still have to worry about shifting ice causing asymetric loading of your dome.

Also you couldn't make it one big igloo, it would have to an interconected network of smaller ones. The thickness of wall required to construct an unsuported span (dome in this case) is pretty damn non-linear, and it would not be practicle to build ice walls large enough to support big rooms, when you could just make 4 smaller ones, and get twice the space...