Halley VI: inspiration and learning from an ice station

The Halley VI research station in the Antarctic is one of the very few significant buildings in the world that can be described as ‘infra-free’. Ruth Slavid's new book tells the story of this unique engineering project.

Ruth Slavid
29 June 2015

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The Halley VI research station in the Antarctic is unique, yet it is a remarkable building in so many ways.

It provides all its own infrastructure, generating electricity and heat, melting its own water and, at the end of each Antarctic season, taking its own rubbish away. It is also a building unlike any other, designed to cope with the special conditions of the Antarctic and, in particular, its position on a moving ice shelf.

"Aecom teamed up with Hugh Broughton Architects,  a practice that had never exceeded 10 in size, and whose largest previous new-build project was a Girl Guide hut in Wimbledon."

Those conditions include temperatures as low as -50C, 106 days of total darkness each year, wind-blown snow that builds up constantly, and being cut off from the rest of the world for eight months of the year. In addition, Halley sits on the Brunt Ice Shelf which constantly moves and regularly ‘calves’ into the Antarctic Ocean. 

A new book from Park Books, Ice Station: The story of Halley VI, tells the story of how the British Antarctic Survey set about getting a longer-lasting station than the five predecessors which had variously been buried and crunched up by the ice or, in the case of Halley V, would be in the near future.

Having launched an architectural competition, the client ended up appointing engineer Aecom (at that time Faber Maunsell). The firm had Antarctic experience yet surprisingly to many,  Aecom teamed up with Hugh Broughton Architects,  a practice that had never exceeded 10 in size, and whose largest previous new-build project was a Girl Guide hut in Wimbledon.

Together the designers, and the contractor Galliford Try, delivered a modular building mounted on skis and clad in bright blue and red. The building performs excellently technically, using for example far less water than its predecessor.

Ice Station: The story of Halley VI, is currently stocked at AA Bookshop and RIBA Bookshops and will be available on Amazon from 15 July. 

It can easily be lifted above snow drift and in a couple of years will ski to a new location. Its inhabitants enjoy a modern, brightly-lit space, with dramatic views out and daylight lamps to wake them in the winter. The team have shown that it is possible to design, deliver and assemble such a building in a series of two-month summer seasons, working in brutal Antarctic conditions.

Along the way, they have developed new cladding techniques and disproved accepted wisdom about the maximum loads that can be towed on Antarctic ice.

Halley is a special place in terms of research into the atmosphere – and it is where the hole in the ozone layer was first discovered. Its inhabitants live a life like that of no other scientists, whether preserving eggs for 14 months, digging up the snow to melt for water, or enjoying lavish midwinter feasts.

They now inhabit a building that makes their important work as easy and enjoyable as possible. The story of how this was achieved is an inspirational one. 

Ruth Slavid is an architectural journalist and author of a new book from Park Books, Ice Station: The story of Halley VI.