You might say that the kinds of built structures you find in either Antarctic research stations or the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth (located in Russia) are polar opposites: some are high-tech, capable of elevating themselves above the accumulating snow or departing to warmer climes via helicopter, while others are as humble as it gets. But people have learned how to survive in these harsh places, whether by keeping coal fires burning around the clock or burrowing into the earth for warmth, and even polar bears have some secrets to share with architects on surviving amidst all that ice.

Monte Rosa Hut, Switzerland

This five-story wooden structure on Switzerland’s Corner Glacier by Bearth & Deplazes Architekten has an exterior look befitting its environment, making it seem morel like a research facility than an ‘alpine hut’ for adventurers.

Memu Meadows Experimental House, Hokkaido, Japan

An experiment by architect Kengo Kuma, the translucent ‘Memu Meadows’ house was designed to test the limits of domestic architecture in extreme cold conditions. It’s a modern spin on the traditional homes of the indigenous Ainu, whose buildings used bamboo grass exteriors to hold in the heat of a central fireplace that remains burning all the time. Kuma’s version replaces grass with insulation and polycarbonate cladding but remains cheap and accessible, and allows the house to glow like a lantern after dark.

Halley VI, World’s First Mobile Research Station, Antarctica

Halley VI by Hugh Broughton Architects stands up to some of the most extreme conditions on earth, serving as a mobile home base for Antarctic expeditions. It’s located on the floating Brunt Ice Shelf and can be transported on its ski-like feet, while hydraluic rams allow it to be raised above the snow as it accumulates. Seven interlinking blue modules offer offices, bedrooms, labs and energy plants while the central two-story red module contains social space for 16-32 crew members.

Arctic Adaptations: Concepts Reflecting Indigenous Canadian Traditions

Canada commissioned Lateral Office to curate its Nunavut-inspired exhibition at the 2014 Venice Biennale, entitled ‘Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15.’ The project proposes how architecture could improve the development of cohesive communities even as the environment and the world around them rapidly changes.

Trollstigen Tourist Route, Norway

Set along the Trollstigen national tourist route in Norway, this visitor center and overlook by Reiulf Ramstad Architects gazes out onto a mountain pass that’s lush and green in the summer and formidably snowy in the winter. The overlook is particularly dramatic when the snow starts to accumulate.

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Extreme Architecture 15 Structures Built To Withstand The Worlds Coldest Places

The most remote and climactically unforgiving place in the world, Antarctica has served as a setting for only the hardiest and most practical of architecture since its initial exploration in the 19th century. An exhibition at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale examines how the man-made structures of the continent have evolved over the decades since, and how aesthetics could come into play in the future, adding some form to all that function.

‘Anarctopia’ is a pavilion featuring a model of the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley VI Research Station by Hugh Broughton Architects as well as work by 15 international architects and artists examining the provisional nature of architecture in Antarctica and new design proposals that go beyond the scientific, industrial and military missions that have directed the continent’s utilitarian architecture in the past.

Directed by artist Alexander Ponomarev and architect Alexey Kozyr, the pavilion offers visions of snowflake-shaped structures covered in solar panels nestled into a snowy landscape dotted with wind turbines and penguins. The organizers hope that the project will have an impact on the design of real stations in the future. “Among enthusiasts and unbolt schemes dwells the promise of a new Antarctic man.”

And while most of us will never get to explore the actual Halley VI Research Station in Antarctica, visitors to the Biennale can get up-close and personal views of models of the world’s fist mobile research center, which opened in 2013. The pods that make up the station are set on adjustable ski-like feet so they can be relocated inland to avoid being stranded on an iceberg, and raised above high snowfall accumulations.

At the end of the earth, in some of the most remote places known to man, the remains of ill-advised human exploration and activity can be found in the form of rusting equipment, buildings almost entirely buried in snow, and abandoned ships. Left behind due to inaccessibility, war, failing industries and harsh, inhospitable conditions, these whaling factories, military bases and research facilities make up some of the world’s eeriest ghost towns.

Whaler’s Bay Ghost Town, Deception Island

(images via: wili_hybrid, wikimedia commons)

Established as a ship base on C-shaped Deception Island by a Norwegian-Chilean whaling company in the early 20th century, Whaler’s Bay was abandoned when oil prices plummeted during the Great Depression. It sat empty until the British reclaimed it as a base in 1944, but a series of volcanic eruptions in the 1960s sent everyone packing again. A mudslide caused by the most recent eruption in 1969 buried many of the structures.

Decades later, it’s totally empty but for the remains of the buildings, equipment and ships. Deception Island is so named because the tiny entrance to its bay is difficult to find; some explorers thought the island was nothing but high, rocky cliffs that are impossible to access. Once inside, however, visitors are greeted by surprisingly warm waters courtesy of the dormant volcanoes, which boil in some spots but offer comfortable bathing in others.

Pole of Inaccessability with Bust of Lenin

(images via: wikimedia commons, npolar.no)

The southern point of inaccessibility – the point in Antarctica that’s furthest from any ocean – is the location of a now-defunct Soviet research station established in 1958. As difficult to reach as it was, the station was never very robust; it had a hut for four people, a radio shack, and an electrical hut, all of which were pre-fabricated and brought in on tractors. The base was in use for a whopping 12 days before it was suspended indefinitely due to its remote location. All that was left behind was a single building topped with a bust of Vladimir Lenin. Snow drifts have buried most of the building so that the bust is all that can be seen of it today.

Grytviken Harbour, South Georgia

(images via: wikimedia commons, tripmondo)

This rusted jumble of equipment was once a large Norwegian whaling base, with about 300 men working to process captured whales, rendering the blubber, meat, bones and viscera into oil. Established in 1904 in the most protected harbor of British-owned South Georgia Island, which offered plenty of flat land for building, it soon became home to an Argentine meteorological station as well. But over the following sixty years, the population of whales in the seas around the island declined dramatically, and by 1966, the station closed. The whaling station site is still littered with whale bones as well as carcasses of industry and architecture. The island of Grytviken is also the gravesite of the explorer Ernest Shackleton, who was buried alongside whalers who died there.

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Desolate Desertions 7 Abandoned Wonders Of Antarctica

As the last continent on Earth to be explored – and still the least developed – Antarctica may yet fall prey to the onward march of human civilization, but its lack of resources beyond ice make it an inhospitable place to build. Architecture student Taylor Medlin of the University of California at Berkeley has developed a thesis project packed with ideas, and while some may be fantastically tongue-in-cheek, the project itself is a work of art, revealing tiny worlds cut into the ice.

Medlin’s architectural proposals use various forms of ice as the primary building material rather than unsustainably transported materials from other continents, often reinforced with a variety of additives that could make the ice stronger and easier to work with.

A refrigerated display cabinet holds blocks of ice and wax carved into little rooms, illuminated from within, complete with human figurines that illustrate Medlin’s ideas with stunning detail.

Reminiscent of the miniature models of Thomas Doyle, these rooms are visible through both fisheye lenses that peer inside and magnifying glasses fixed to the outside of the case. Entranced viewers find complex compounds with steel frames, huts on stilts and simple ice caves with secret subterranean basements, all bathed in an eerie golden light.

Medlin, a John K. Branner fellow, has many more photos of the project and scans of his sketchbook available on Flickr.