The new Halley VI Antarctic Research Station, the first fully-relocatable research station, launched this year and was designed by Hugh Broughton Architects with AECOM for British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The station's predecessor, Halley V, had drifted too far from mainland and became endangered of calving with an iceberg. BAS organized an international competition in 2004 to select designers for Halley VI, and a modular design was conceived by the winners, HBA.
According to information provided by the architects, the modules are supported on giant steel skis and hydraulically driven legs. The legs allow the station to rise up out of the snow to avoid being buried, and as the ice shelf moves out towards the ocean, the modules can be lowered onto the skis and towed to a new, safer location further inland.
