Case Study: Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA)

What a Zero-Emission Research Station Teaches Us About High-Performance Housing

If we want to understand how housing, composition, research, and survival can perform under pressure, go somewhere that breaks it. In Antarctica- our current focus as we delve into cold-climate studies- nothing is stable. The climate is brutal; the logistics are punishing. Even time behaves differently. We must be meticulous, unassailable in our assertions regarding what we build.

These conditions were ultimately some of the most compelling when I was researching built work in Antarctica for my thesis project in 2025. How we brace- structurally and in envelope, psychologically and functionally- has been extensively tested in the cold through a string of international successes and failures, and we are continuing to challenge these limits today. New technologies are moving much quicker than our standards of environmental and architectural protection in the Antarctic (under the Antarctic Treaty, see here), so it was vital to me that I referenced projects that have thus far stood against the tests of ice, wind, and fire (more on that to come). One of the buildings I absolutely adore within this criteria is the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA, above). Beyond the cute name and the appeal of her striking aluminum exterior, the layers underneath, interior systems throughout, and exterior support elements come together to successfully inaugurate her as the first completely net-zero station within Antarctica.

What a feat.

Her home informational site reads:

Just like Rome, the Princess Elisabeth Station was not built in a day. Over the course of several seasons, the IPF team surveyed various sites, selected an appropriate building site, and consequently set to building the Princess Elisabeth Station on top of Utsteinen Nunatak.

... Besides the obvious need to shield its occupants from the cold of Antarctica, Princess Elisabeth Antarctic also needs to be air-and-water-tight to achieve optimal energy use and heat transfer. The nine layers of the station's walls each have their own function; from insulation to blocking water vapour, all contribute to the efficiency of Princess Elisabeth Antarctica as a passive building and a “zero emission” scientific research station.

You can read more about her construction process here, and even more about the passive building layers and strategies here. I believe she deserves the attention.

Of course no muse escapes the rendition of the artist. In attempts to study composition, system efficiencies, and passive strategies, I'd drafted her (main) floor plan and elevation, below. These were excellent first steps in understanding what it is about form in this climate that renders a station effective or ineffective.

Ugh. Love her. Close, shared quarters and sleeping dorms, efficient showers and shared bathrooms, open common zones, communal kitchen space, the semi-private workspaces and necessary private, enclosed rooms, systems and functionality-focused organisation— and plenty of storage.

The plans disclose just how significant spatial planning and mass can be. And while the "grouping" was- in the end- rebuttaled in planning for my final project, many of the interior spatial leasons were gleaned from this example.

On the exterior, her thicker floors, angled walls, and gently filleted edges, alongside her reverse space-frame footings lofting her above the rocky outcrop she's perched on, add to the design techniques employed to make the building successful in Queen Maud Land.

These lessons, too, made it to the final project pitch.

Farther investigations were done regarding the frame, skin, temperature and moisture layers, and connection details in section. You can view this in the final presentation brief on https://resiliencebydesign.wixsite.com/nsportfolio

Give her a look! Let me know what you think.

All my best,

Nicole