Assignment

Commissioned by the Belgian Federal Government, the International Polar Foundation (IPF) set out to design and construct a landmark scientific research station in Antarctica as Belgium's primary contribution to the International Polar Year 2007-08. Successor to Belgium's King Baudouin Station that was constructed in 1958 and shut down in the late 1960s, the Princess Elisabeth Station aims to make a significant contribution to scientific research with a view to obtaining a greater understanding of how our planet and its climate function.

© René Robert / International Polar Foundation

The new "zero emission" Belgian station serves as a unique scientific research platform. Open to hosting scientists from the international scientific community, the Princess Elisabeth Station plugs a major logistical gap in the network of research stations in East Antarctica, providing much-needed services and facilities in the eastern Sør Rondane Mountains.

Amongst the most important choices that were made during the initial phases of the project was the construction site. The solid granite of Utsteinen Nunatak, located at the eastern edge of the Sør Rondane Mountains, was an ideal location. Constructed on pilings anchored into the exposed granite surface of the nunatak, the station was aerodynamically designed to take advantage of the easterly winds flowing from the interior of the continent to prevent massive snow accumulation on top of and around the station - a problem that many Antarctic research station must confront, and a problem that eventually did in the King Baudouin Station four decades earlier.