There has been a research station at the Brunt Ice Shelf in the Antarctic since 1957, when the Royal Society led an expedition there. Halley VI, opened last February, is the first one to have the capacity to stand up and wander over to another spot on the ice to escape burial-by-snow, however.

Okay, so it doesn't exactly walk -- its eight modules are fitted with four four-metre-high hydraulic legs each, with skis on their ends. It means that, for the first time in the history of Antarctic exploration, when conditions get too extreme the British Antarctic Survey will be able to relocate its research station simply by instructing it to "climb" out of snow drifts, then tow it. "The design was primarily driven by practical concerns -- the rising snow level, the extreme cold, high winds, the isolation imposed by three months of winter darkness and the demands of the science," Hugh Broughton, director at Hugh Broughton Architects, the firm that won an international competition with engineers AECOM to design the centre in 2005, told Wired.co.uk. "Secretly, I can also admit to taking one or two looks at

Thunderbirds and Star Wars for a bit of inspiration."


The Brunt Ice Shelf is a floating shelf that moves around 700m west each year; it means any base there is at significant risk of being lost to the sea if the land breaks off to form an iceberg.

The first four Halley bases were all consumed by snow (1.2m falls each year), crushed and abandoned, while Halley V lasted 20 years by being able to raise its steel platforms using extendable legs.

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With Hally VI, however, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) wanted to ensure a legacy.

Aside from the pretty remarkable brief Hugh Broughton Architects was faced with, it would also have to contend with building in conditions where temperatures regularly plummet to below -30C, even in the "warmer" coastal region.


As a result, as much work as possible was done off-site. The cladding and steel frame that supports the 1,860-square-metre build were engineered and pre-assembled in Cape Town, and a trial build was carried out there to test buildability, air tightness and hydraulics before the "flat-pack" kit was shipped to the Antarctic.

There, a team spent four years squeezing the £25.8 million construction into the brief, ten-week-long Antarctic summer when temperatures can reach a relatively balmy zero degrees. "It is only possible to build during the Antarctic summer, which meant we had to maximise prefabrication to minimise jobs on site," said Broughton. "The maximum load that can be hauled to Halley over fragile sea ice is 9.5 tonnes -- this set a limit on the size of construction component that could be brought in.

We therefore designed the buildings as a sort of giant flat pack, for assembly on site. As the modules are similar, a factory line approach to construction was used to make best use of the limited time. In the third and fourth seasons the crews worked 24 hours a day in 12 hour shifts to get the job done -- this is possible as there is 24-hour daylight in the summer. It is fine if you are inside and it is warm but very hard if you are outside fixing bolts when its -25 degrees celsius."

The finished article, says Broughton, was remarkably close to the original design, with only a few tweaks. The number of legs attached to each module was reduced from six to four for instance, to reduce snow drifting, and three modules were left out. "For such a hostile environment it is amazing how close the finished project is to the competition concept," he told Wired.co.uk.

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Aside from have having a solid engineering plan in the first place, this may be partially down to the guidance from BAS and its station scientists. "They have been working in Antarctica for 60 years and have unparalleled knowledge of what works and what does not," said Broughton. "This did not prevent them from working with us as we explored new ideas for Halley VI."

The base is distinctly split between work and play areas -- essential when you have up to 70 meteorologists, atmospheric scientists, geologists and glaciologists populating it in the summer months, but 16 lasting out the bitterly cold, dark winters.

Blue modules house the accommodation, labs, offices, generators and an observation platform, while a red module at the heart of the station has social areas for eating and relaxing. These include a hydroponic salad garden and a double-height climbing wall lined with Lebanese cedar. It's about as five-star as you can get in the icy climes right now. "The scientists were heavily involved in discussing every aspect of the design and were very enthusiastic about all ideas related to colour psychology, timber veneers with natural scents, use of daylight simulation lamps and so on," said Broughton. "At the start of the project, past and present residents of Halley were surveyed for things they would like to see in the new station and we tried to accommodate as many of these as the budget would allow."

Efficiency and minimal environmental impact were also key, given the five prior Halleys had been left to the elements, huge junk piles in an otherwise unblemished white canvas. It uses a little less fuel per square metre than previous models, and just 20 litres of water per person compared to Halley V's 120 litres. Moving the modules around will of course be a big job and require a lot of energy, but seeing as Halley V lasted nearly two decades it's one they won't have to do often. "A blue module can be pulled by two vehicles and the big red module, weighing around 200 tonnes, can be pulled by 3 tractors -- it is probably the largest load ever pulled across the ice."


Essentially, what Halley VI provides for the Brunt Ice Shelf team is a peace of mind they've never before enjoyed. They can get on with their work without fear of undue interruption; there will be no need to abandon ship and transport massive amounts of equipment each decade -- when conditions get troublesome, the modules can be disconnected and moved one by one. When you're working in some of the most hostile conditions on Earth, not having to worry about a ticking clock could infinitely speed up vital progress. And it is vital progress -- it's at Halley that the hole in the ozone was identified in 1985. "The Polar Regions are the Earth's early warning system," said professor Alan Rodger, interim director of British Antarctic Survey in a statement. "It is here that the first signs of global change are observed. This is the first summer field season for Halley and already, our scientists there are working collaboratively with colleagues from USA including NASA on studies that will gain new knowledge about how our world works."

Since winning the Halley VI brief, Hugh Broughton Architects has gone on to design the Spanish base at Livingstone Island, a US observatory at Summit Station in Greenland and are working on further designs for a Korean Antarctic station and an Indian one.

But for Broughton, the Antarctic is far from the final frontier of design. "It would be great to transfer the knowledge from the icy desert of Antarctica to the sandy deserts of the world. There are also many synergies between our work and future space stations -- at some stage, someone has to land the first proper extra terrestrial commission!"