Designers Challenged to Build 'city on Ice'

Researchers will today launch the world's most demanding architectural challenge: to design a hotel and workshop on an Antarctic ice shelf.

The five predecessors of the new Halley Bay research station - always home to at least 16 people, and 50 in summer - tended to sink at the rate of at least a metre a year as the ice melted beneath them and snow built up around them.

Temperatures drop as low as -55C, so building will be possible outdoors only in January and February, when they average -5 C. There will be no building suppliers for 3,000 miles.

"It isn't just a little group of scientists; you are running a miniature city," said Chris Rapley, the director of the British Antarctic Survey, which will commission the £19m project. "You have your power supply, you've got your waste disposal, you've got your general maintenance, your communication.

"It's an airport, because our aircraft call in there; it's a seaport - when the ship comes in you have to offload materials and put the waste back on. It's a very complex operation."

British scientists have worked on the sea ice at Halley Bay for almost 50 years. It was there that the "hole" in the ozone layer was first spotted, in 1985.

The design competition for the new base will be unveiled at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London today.