Ice Station to float away..

[Aquawind]

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Britain's Antarctic ice station has a design problem few architects can have envisaged when it was built -- within a decade it is likely to float away.

The existing base is built on an ice shelf which is likely to break off into the sea if global warming continues at its current rate.

So now the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has appealed for designers to come up with a replacement.

Not only will the new $35 million (£19 million) station have to be able to operate throughout the year in one of the world's most inhospitable environments, it will have to be environmentally neutral and aesthetically inspiring.

So strict are the environmental rules governing Antarctica that all refuse -- including human waste -- is supposed to be bagged up and shipped out so no lasting trace is left of outside occupation.

"This is an ambitious project," said BAS director Chris Rapley. "It will be a fusion of science, architecture, technology and engineering."

The new station will replace BAS' existing Halley facility on the Brunt ice shelf which is expected to follow much of the ice-bound continent's sea ice and break away as the world's climate warms.

The existing Halley station is the fifth to be built on the Brunt shelf since 1956 to study changing weather patterns.

Unlike its predecessors which have simply been swallowed by the ice, the current Halley is on stilts and is jacked up each year to avoid being submerged by snow.

A BAS spokeswoman said the new station, scheduled to be operational by November 2008 in time for the 2008/2009 southern hemisphere summer when the staff quadruples to 60, would probably be built on the remains of the Brunt shelf.

But it will be sited on the landward side of the expected crack in the shelf, rather than on solid ground.

"It is a relatively simple matter to resupply a station by sea if it is on the ice shelf. Siting it inland on solid ground would mean resupply by air which is astronomically expensive," the spokeswoman said.

The new station will not only have to cope with temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius (-22 Fahrenheit) and howling gales, but will also have to be able literally to rise above the regular snowfalls.

A shortlist of design teams expressing an interest by August 3 will be asked to submit concept proposals to the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a winner will be named in September 2005.