The most remote settlement on earth isn’t on the windswept shelves of Antarctica or the barren tundra of the Arctic. It’s actually Tristan da Cunha , an island in the middle of the South Atlantic. Visiting takes roughly 40 days of travel from London, where the architect Hugh Broughton –who recently designed a health center on Tristan–is based.

“Rather bizarrely, I think it may be the first project that we’ve designed and will be completed–because it’s under construction at the moment–[but that] we may not yet get to visit,” he says.

It’s bizarre because Broughton’s work as an architect has taken him to some of the most inhospitable, difficult-to-access landscapes on earth. The small U.K. firm first rose to international prominence in 2004, when it won a competition to design the sixth Halley Research Station, an Antarctic science base on the Brunt Ice Shelf–a thick wedge of ice on the edge of the continent.

To understand just how tough it is to build on this floating patch of ice, consider that the first five Halley stations were all destroyed. The first four were consumed by the ice, crushed and buried forever–this photo, from 1993, shows the masticated remains of Halley III being spit into the ocean. Halley V was demolished in 2012. Broughton’s solution was both utterly simple and incredibly radical (so much so that it’s been compared to the avant-garde ideas of architects from the ’60s and ’70s): give the buildings legs. Literally. Halley VI, which opened in 2013, is built on long skis that make it possible to tow each module to a new location when the ice shelf threatens to destroy it.

Halley VI’s mobility is now being tested for the first time. Last year, the British Antarctic Survey realized that a dangerous chasm was emerging near the station–a chasm that could eventually turn this section of the ice shelf into a full-fledged iceberg, taking the $32 million research station with it. Then, in October, a new crack emerged along Halley’s resupply route. Now, the Survey is preparing to move the station ever so slowly, to a new location where it will be safe from the maw of the ice. Because summer is so short, the ice shelf is so inhospitable, and the station’s science is so complex, the project will take two years.

“You have to consider so carefully that there’s very little escape from these buildings.”

While Broughton won’t be directly involved with the move, he has a detailed understanding of how it will work. After determining the ideal location for the base, crews will decouple its eight tall, modular pods and slowly tow them away using tractors. It’s an immensely precise process, Broughton explains: The station needs to be close enough to the ocean so as not to waste fuel transporting goods to and from the supply ship, but not so far inland that it’s threatened by a massive crevasse field where the ice connects to the actual continent.

Architects rarely have to think in terms of polar shipping logistics or fuel rations. But Broughton’s work in Antarctica has made him an expert in this niche field that combines housing with extreme environmental engineering and construction logistics. It’s design for survival in the most literal way. Since Halley VI, his firm has drawn up Antarctic research station designs for Spain, Brazil, and South Korea, as well as a station for the U.S. proposed for the Greenland Ice Cap.