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Few living architects can claim, in good faith, to have shaped the character of a whole neighborhood, let alone a city or country. Yet, on a landmass around 40% larger than Europe, one man has exerted an outsize influence on the architecture of an entire continent.
Antarctica is home to over 70 permanent research stations — and 61-year-old Hugh Broughton has worked on more of them than anyone else. His eponymous firm has designed scientific facilities for the UK and Spain, developed proposals for South Korea, India and Brazil, and worked with Australia and New Zealand to redevelop their polar bases. His distinctly space-age aesthetic, born of necessity in one of the world’s most unforgiving environments, is now arguably the continent’s prevailing architectural style.
“I think our coverage of Antarctica is pretty good — certainly more than anyone else in the world,” said Broughton in his 16-person London office, almost 10,000 miles from the South Pole, before modestly caveating the claim: “You could call us the continent’s most prolific architects. But I don’t think it would make my head swell too much, because there’s probably only two or three others in the game.”
His buildings’ distinctive rounded corners, vibrant colors and pod-like forms are pragmatic responses to the challenges of building in extreme climates. Broughton nonetheless wears his sci-fi influences proudly. “We do spend time looking at screen grabs from ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Thunderbirds,’” he said. “We like space design in this office, and I dare say a little bit of it creeps into the design of these buildings.”
A wind deflector redirects polar winds down the facade of the UK -owned Discovery Building to prevent snow build-up. BAM
“But once we get to the interiors,” he added, “I actually think our response could be defined as vaguely classical.”
Building on skis
Broughton said his unusual specialty transpired “purely by chance” after he heard a radio segment about a competition to design a research station on Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf in 2004. The architect’s colleagues — in his then-four-person firm — encouraged him to attend the briefing, because “A, they’ll give everybody croissants, and B, there’ll be some great pictures of penguins,” he recalled. “I wasn’t up to anything else that morning, so I thought, ‘I’ll go along.’”
Many of British architecture’s big names were also in attendance. But Broughton’s relative inexperience proved less of a hindrance than he initially feared — because none of them had worked in Antarctica, either. “I came out of the presentation buzzing,” he said.
The Halley VI British Antarctic Research Station can be relocated entirely if cracks emerge in the ice shelf. James Morris
Maximizing natural light is a key design consideration for Broughton, who considers the mental wellbeing of occupants a priority. James Morris
A brightly colored bedroom at the Halley VI British Antarctic Research Station. James-Morris
The architect’s groundbreaking competition entry would eventually become the Halley VI British Antarctic Research Station, a series of elevated modules joined via insulated connectors that resemble the bellows of an accordion. The facility stands on hydraulic legs-on-skis that mechanically “climb” through the ever-rising snow. Constructed on what Broughton described — with characteristic British understatement — as “a very dynamic environment” (the Brunt Ice Shelf is currently moving toward the sea at a rate of around 13 feet a day), the entire station can be towed inland if cracks threaten to cut it adrift. This is precisely what happened in 2017, when Halley VI was relocated 14 miles away to escape a huge rupture in the ice shelf, dubbed the “Halloween Crack,” that risked leaving the station afloat on an iceberg.
In the two decades since the project’s completion, Broughton has become the go-to architect for polar design. He also used his experience as a springboard to other extreme locations, including one of the world’s most remote inhabited islands, Tristan da Cunha, which can only be reached via a six-day boat trip from South Africa. The ferry service is so infrequent that the architect struggled to secure a spot. “The islanders have priority, and they’re always wanting to come over and see the dentist or the doctor or something.”
Broughton’s latest Antarctica project is his largest to date: The Discovery Building, a 48,000-square-foot facility at the Rothera Research Station, the capital of the British Antarctic Territory. The two-story structure contains workshops, medical facilities and preparation areas for field expeditions, as well as a control tower for the air and marine operations. Yet, despite the project’s many technical achievements, Broughton appears most enthusiastic about its bright, light-filled living areas.
Officially opened this year, the UK’s Discovery Building replaced several old structures that had reached the end of their operational life. BAM
A control tower rises above the roof line, providing 360-degree views of the station’s runway and wharf. Matt Hughes BAS
Antarctic design has historically been led by engineers. Whether the stations were pleasant to inhabit for long periods was often an afterthought. As a result, Broughton said, interiors “lacked any inspiration and could really wear down residents quite quickly.” Now, finally, architects are being asked to address the human experience of living in extreme isolation.
Broughton thinks deeply about his occupants, some of whom may be stationed in his facilities for two years or more. He considers the relationship between private and public spaces, and how interior layouts encourage encounters between colleagues; he studies color theory, lighting design and the psychological properties of different materials — including what they smell like. (Broughton believes the natural aroma of Lebanese cedar, for instance, can mitigate the effect of sensory deprivation in an isolated research station.)
“There’s no way you’re going to ever move an elephant seal. And they only have partial sight, so they can come right up to your building and damage the facade.”
Hugh Broughton, architect
The size and placement of windows is particularly important. They are also a matter of compromise: Walls trap heat more efficiently than glass, so in Earth’s coldest region, natural light comes with an energy cost.
At the Discovery Building, this meant carefully placed skylights and triple-glazing. Broughton has even looked to space travel for inspiration: At Halley VI, he used aerogels — transparent insulators pioneered by NASA and comprised mainly of gas — that can be trapped in window glazing to maximize sunlight while reducing heat loss. “Anything that gives you a little bit more vitamin D, a little bit more natural light, is going to be really good for your mental wellbeing,” he said.
Tabula rasa?
The history of Antarctic buildings is, in Broughton’s words, “very short.” Architecture didn’t even arrive until 1899, when Norwegian explorer Carsten Borchgrevink completed the continent’s first ever buildings — two timber huts; one for living, one for storage — as part of an early British-financed expedition. The 18-by-21-foot structures, which were essentially kit homes made from prefabricated pinewood, are still standing today.
Technologically, much has changed in the intervening decades. Modern polar facilities are almost entirely self-sufficient in terms of power generation, heating and circular wastewater systems; Broughton’s walls are typically made from fiberglass panels packed with thick “closed cell” foam insulation, with tiny air pockets protecting them from moisture. But the key building principles remain much the same as in Borchgrevink’s day: prefabricate as much as you can, deliver the components as close to the site as you can, and assemble them as quickly as you can — ideally within an Antarctic summer, which runs from around November to March.
Architectural models at Hugh Broughton’s 16-person London office. CNN
Broughton’s buildings may have no neighbors, but he disputes the idea that Antarctica is some kind of architectural tabula rasa. His designs are intended to be subtle, understated and able to “sit gently and comfortably” in their surroundings. And while not subject to the same building codes as a city, Antarctica’s architects are usually governed by the planning rules of whichever country has commissioned them. Moreover, all Broughton’s plans need to be approved at an annual meeting of the Antarctic Treaty’s signatories, requiring comprehensive environmental impact studies.
“People are sometimes surprised when we talk about design constraints in the Antarctic, imagining that you’ve got a blank sheet of paper — a white site — and you can do what you like, but the reality is very far from that,” Broughton said.
The Juan Carlos 1 Spanish Antarctic Base comprises a 24-person habitat module, a science module and a series of support modules for services and storage. ARC
Alongwith extreme weather conditions, animal encounters present an occupational hazard. While working on Spain’s Juan Carlos 1 base, Broughton faced “a real issue” with fur seals. “They would lie on the fuel lines, and they’d lie across the doors, so it was hard to get in,” he said. Elephant seals pose an even greater threat: “There’s no way you’re going to ever move an elephant seal,” the architect said. “And they only have partial sight, so they can come right up to your building and damage the facade.”
A perimeter railing packed with plywood is usually enough to keep elephant seals at bay. The real design challenge, however, is protecting animals from buildings, not vice versa. Broughton’s use of bright exterior paints was partly informed by conversations with marine biologists who were concerned that seabirds, such as petrels, might become confused by — or even accidentally strike — white- or gray-colored buildings. Too much red, meanwhile, risks disorienting penguins, whose eyes can’t perceive it (likely because red light does not deeply penetrate the ocean, which is their primary hunting environment). “You don’t want too many red buildings if you’ve got loads of penguins around,” Broughton warned.
A somewhat more prosaic, though no less pressing, challenge is snow drifts. In Antarctica, miscalculating the position of your building may see it buried within a single harsh winter. One of Boughton’s cardinal rules is one of orientation: angle the building’s shortest face toward the prevailing wind. At the Discovery Building, however, this wasn’t possible, so Broughton instead designed a huge wind deflector that channels gusts over the roof before deflecting them down the facade, pushing snow away from the building’s base. Curved roof eaves meanwhile prevent eddies — swirling pockets of air — from producing more localized snow drifts.
‘Embassies on the ice’
Geopolitical tensions are simmering in the world’s polar regions. With its untapped natural resources and lucrative shipping lanes, the Arctic north is a more likely flashpoint than remote Antarctica (look no further than recent friction between Europe and the Trump administration over Greenland, where, in friendlier times, Broughton was commissioned to co-design a research station for the US National Science Foundation). But the world’s southernmost continent appears destined for a more tumultuous 21st century, too.
Broughton has a long-term partnership with the Australian Antarctic Division to deliver critical infrastructure works. Courtesy Hugh Broughton
Seven sovereign states (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the UK) have established territorial claims, which extend from the South Pole like slices of a pie. Though these borders sometimes overlap, the Antarctic Treaty, signed in Washington in 1959, has kept the peace by prohibiting military — or indeed any non-scientific — presence on the continent. The mood has shifted, however, in the two decades that Broughton has been working in the region.
“We see some countries doing more development than others, at greater speed,” the architect said diplomatically. Other unnamed nations have meanwhile been “thinking more about their presence as much as they are thinking about scientific research.”
“There’s definitely a kind of architectural language evolving in Antarctica.”
Hugh Broughton, architect
“We didn’t used to talk about (geopolitics) when we first started,” he added. “Now, pretty much all the time it gets mentioned — the significance of ‘presence,’ or being there. We now often refer to these research stations as being like embassies on the ice.”
That ice, which covers around 98% of the continent’s landmass, is melting at an unprecedented rate. American, Russian and Chinese activity in the region is growing. A ban on mining, agreed in the 1990s, is scheduled for review in 2048, which could open the door to a new era of resource competition and great power rivalry. These developments, though worrying, should be promising for an architect with Broughton’s skillset, though he relishes the current “very collaborative environment,” a direct result of the continent’s historical depoliticization.
Broughton pictured in Antarctica in February 2019 during a trip with the New Zealand government’s Antarctica agency. Courtesy Hugh Broughton
“We all talk to each other; we share ideas,” he said of his relationship with other arhitects and designers working there. “I don’t feel it’s competitive. It’s mutually supportive, which is a characteristic of people working in Antarctica, generally.”
It is easy to imagine a future — a much warmer one — in which Antarctica is far more inhabited than it is today. (At present, the summer population is an estimated 5,000 people, while it drops to around 1,000 in the winter, depending on the year.) So, centuries into the future, might Broughton’s designs serve as early architectural reference points? Could his research stations be icons of antiquity, like the Parthenon or Rome’s Colosseum are to Europe, that inform architects to come?
He modestly sidesteps this grandiose suggestion while acknowledging that his influence is discernable across the region. It is, he added, “sometimes nice” to see his design solutions “stray into other stations that we haven’t been involved in.”
“There’s definitely a kind of architectural language evolving in Antarctica.”
