![]() ![]() “Through their subsistence practices and other cultural lenses, are really attuned to reading the environment,” says Cho, offering often-untapped ability to interpret weather patterns, geology, and ice formation. includes input from the local communities, and the UVA team will work with the Iñupiaq Indigenous residents throughout. Army Corp of Engineers’ Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). In addition to North Slope Borough government and Utqiagvik residents, Cho and Jull are partnering with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Cold Climate Housing Research Center and the U.S. Photo by Andrew Shea/Arctic Design Group, 2017. Researchers will be monitoring aquatic environments (water chemistry, organic matter), meteorological conditions (humidity, wind speed, particulate matter, solar radiation), and subsurface environs (soil temperature, moisture), looking in with ground-penetrating radar, with full sensor installation tentatively set for next summer. The National Science Foundation grant provides $3 million over five years, enough for a wider UVA contingent, including students and faculty from the schools of environmental science, engineering and applied science, and data science. This focus on Arctic urban conditions, say Cho and Jull, is the most unprecedented element of the research. The UVA team will install a tight, focused network of sensors in city limits that belies the vastness of the surrounding North Slope Borough: 89,000 square miles, larger than the state of Utah. Utqiagvik (population 4,000) is the northernmost settlement in the United States. Utqiagvik, Alaska, where the researchers will be examining surface hot spots where melted ice pools. “How can we learn from that and develop more resilient design strategies?” The Arctic is an “extreme and very dynamic environment that constantly goes through cycles of weather and climate where water in its phases between liquid and solid constantly renegotiating and reconfiguring the organization of the land,” Jull says. Even as melting sea ice expands the bounds of commerce, the thawing permafrost literally shifts the ground beneath one’s feet-the Arctic-and Cho and Jull plan to track these changes to determine how to meet them with stable, functional, and sustainable development. This data will help Cho and Jull formulate guidelines for building height, form, materials, and foundations, as well as wider urban planning concerns in the Arctic.įounders of the Arctic Design Group, Cho and Jull see the Arctic as a bellwether for changes to come elsewhere, and as a singular venue to test and develop innovative design ideas, as well as methods of collaboration that can address the constraints of climate change. Cho, her partner Matthew Jull, an associate professor of architecture, and a team of UVA researchers will install aquatic, meteorological, and geotechnical sensors in the North Slope Borough town of Utqiagvik. How might designers augment ice cellars’ cooling capacity in ways that support Indigenous traditions, while contending with the Arctic’s position on the front lines of climate change? This question is just one part of the National Science Foundation-funded research by the University of Virginia’s Arctic Research Center, aimed at gathering data to determine the design parameters for Arctic infrastructure in an era of expanding development and climate change, says Leena Cho, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at UVA. “To keep that type of meat secure and healthy, we need to evaluate our earthen storage shelters.” “We keep it there in trust for the community,” says Gordon Brower, the director of North Slope Borough Planning and Community Services and a member of the Iñupiaq Indigenous community. Studies have indicated that climate change may be a factor, but soil conditions and development on top of cellars are also causing warming and potential failure. But as climate change melts permafrost, the cellars are failing, leading to spoiled food. To store the whale meat, tribal communities dig ice cellars in the permafrost, a major infrastructural feat, as a 50-ton whale can feed thousands. In Alaska, beyond the Arctic Circle in North Slope Borough, Indigenous communities practice subsistence whale hunting. Photo by Chengxin Sha/Arctic Design Group, 2020. View of Utqiaġvik, Alaska, and the Chukchi Sea in February 2020. Excerpts from his article is provided below. In a feature article "Thaw-scape Scrutiny" written by Zach Mortice, Landscape Architecture Magazine shared the work of UVA School of Architecture professors Matthew Julland Leena Cho, co-directors of the Arctic Design Group, who are engaged in federally-funded research through the University of Virginia's Arctic Research Center that will help set a baseline for how to build in the Arctic. ![]()
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