Svalbard Science Centre in Longyearbyen, Svalbard

This new building on the Svalbard archipelago north of the Arctic Circle substantially expands the Svalbard Science Centre. The Norwegian University Centre UNIS, which is specialised in arctic research, now has capacity for 550 students. Furthermore, the Svalbard museum, the Norwegian Polar Institute and the Governor of Svalbard received new premises. Despite relatively low snowfall, the strong wind on the island moves huge volumes of snow. So as to avoid larger drifts in front of windows and entrances or on roofs, the Norwegian Building Research Institute developed an aerodynamically optimised form of building and positioning together with the architects. The first rough tests were carried out on physical building models on a Norwegian plateau. Then the researchers went ahead with CFD simulations.