Continuing where the 2022 Design Build class left off, the 2023 Design Build class for Colorado Building Workshop at University of Colorado Denver designed small buildings in Antarctica for NOAA scientists, replacing their old campus with a new better functioning and better insulated one.

The buildings are used to conduct research on the animal life (such as seals and penguins) living on Cape Sheriff on its northern coast. These buildings are needed to house and shelter the scientists, as well as provide storage, workshop, and laboratory facility. In addition, a second building was required to be replaced a mile north of their main campus. This needed to be designed and built to act as an emergency shelter in a worst-case scenario, as well as a rest space while out gathering research. We often referred to this building as the “bird blind” because of the impressive views through the windows that look out to seals and in some cases thousands of penguins.

The class of 2022 was responsible for designing structures for housing as well as dining/kitchen space. The class that I participated with was the class of 2023 where we designed the lab building, or “fur seal lab,” with the workshop as well as the emergency building, the “bird blind”.