It generally comes at us from the south, and we have to manage it somehow.Īre there things that you’re learning from traditional methods of conserving heat that go into your research, or is the group mainly developing new technologies? There have been famous attempts to make an architecture for the north, but there’s been very little impetus to create an Arctic architecture from the north. The idea of what a home-or a public building or a school-looks like and how it should behave is often based on temperate models, and we then have to retroactively make them Arctic. Importing technologies, assumptions, and best practices from the temperate zone without thorough vetting causes us as many problems as our physical environment does. So, there’s underrepresentation in the design field, and in policy and building code. Every Arctic country in the world is governed by a capital city that is not in the Arctic-and that goes for Russia, Canada, Alaska, everywhere. Oversights in detailing or failures to plan small appropriate details in construction do not fail small in the Arctic: They always fail big, because it’s a zero-forgiveness environment.īut in addition to our physical environment, the north has always faced a postcolonial problem. We have an antagonistic physical environment that is very hard on buildings. The north has two primary challenges that it has to face constantly.
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Most northern places have small populations, so they don’t have their own building code they’ll take a building code from the temperate region and add amendments specific to the physical environment in Alaska and the Circumpolar North.īetween those three programs, we try and stay at the forefront of regional design for the Arctic and subarctic climates.Ĭan you talk about the challenges of the extreme terrain and cold weather in the north? Then we have a smaller program called Policy Research, which aims to aid policymakers and governmental entities but also looks at the code amendments that northern communities need to consider. We design prototype homes that we test with occupants living in them for various periods of time. We also have a design program, the Sustainable Northern Communities program, that aims to take some of the building research and find real-world or holistic building applications. The Architect’s Newspaper: What are the main areas of research for the CCHRC?Īaron Cooke: Our largest program is the Building Science Research program, which deals with testing and researching the suitability of different techniques and products for the physical environment and cultural environment of circumpolar peoples.
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Aaron Cooke, architect and program manager of the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (Courtesy CCHRC) As the communities of the Circumpolar North adapt to climate change, their solutions hold lessons for carbon-neutral designs in the temperate zone while providing a pointed message about post-colonial regional design. Cooke spoke to Matt Shaw, AN’s executive editor, and Stephen Zacks, AN contributor, about technologies and prototypes being developed to conserve energy, recycle heat, rethink building envelope systems, stabilize homes situated on melting permafrost, and ensure supplies of fresh air. The Cold Climate Housing Research Center ( CCHRC) describes itself as “an industry-based, nonprofit corporation created to facilitate the development, use, and testing of energy-efficient, durable, healthy, and cost-effective building technologies for people living in circumpolar regions around the globe.”Īaron Cooke, the architect who leads the Sustainable Northern Communities Program at the CCHRC in Fairbanks, Alaska, is at the front lines of helping northern communities in developing solutions for homes in extremely cold climates.