Greenland Ilulissat: Icefjord Centre - Prequalification

The form and architecture of Icefjord Centre (IC) is
meant to raise awareness of how global warming is
affecting the sustainability of the Greenland ice sheet
and thereby, the sustainability of the whole world.
By seeking inspiration from traditional Inuit building
methods, igloos and turf-huts, the construction will
draw from the experience of the ancestors to retain
heat and energy within its walls in the most sustainable
way possible.
The exterior of the building, its form and inner structure
is based on and reminiscent of the old Greenlandic
turf-huts. A weather mantle will be placed on top of
the ground structure, a blanket of sorts made out of
woven stainless steel, in tribute to the Greenlandic
igloo. This will not only provide shelter for the building
itself from the forces of nature, but also make it a
symbol for the great task at hand for all of mankind,
the spurning against global warming and the melting
of the glaciers. The mantle will serve as a natural
organism, a metaphor for the faltering glacier, by
each year revealing to us the status of the ice sheet
by gathering ice and snow on top of itself. If there is
no ice and snow covering the mantle it indicates that
the snow status is not in balance and thus shows in a
visual way the impact of global climate change on the
glaciers of the world.
The mantle is diverse which gives the effect of
the building taking on different forms and colours
depending on the light and weather. The inspiration
is sought from the transformations of the ice sheet,
from the point of separation of the inland ice and until
it moves out to sea as floating icebergs.
The idea is that the mantle serve as an architectural
metaphor for the diversity of snow and its formation
and the multiple words the locals have for snow and
different types of snow, and thus narrating to the
guests of the Icefjord Centre the important and ever
miscellaneous histories of the formation and shaping
of snow and ice in all its magnificence. The mantle is
also meant to interpret global warming and the impact
this global climate change and the melting of the
glaciers has on all life on earth.

A Threefold Iceberg

There are three main parts of the building, which
reflects the unravelling icebergs. These parts are
supported by three foundations and thus the building
floats over the ground, without touching it in any way,
like a floating iceberg in the sea. The pillars serve as
technical spaces and as containers for warm water
and their shape and position is also meant to harness
and wield the energy of the north-eastern winds by
means of wind tunnels for energy process.