ARC Arctic: Modular Domed Settlements for Ellesmere Island's Polar Extremes

Building a city at the edge of the habitable world demands a fundamentally different logic of urban growth. ARC Arctic proposes that logic: a section-based masterplan where every module can function independently or lock into a larger network, all sheltered beneath dome-shaped multilayer membranes engineered to retain heat, harvest solar energy during polar nights, and resist the full spectrum of Arctic precipitation. The settlement targets Ellesmere Island, one of the most remote and climatically severe territories on Earth, and treats that severity not as a limitation but as the primary design driver.

Designed by Azamat Rakhimbirdiev, ARC Arctic was shortlisted in the EHC - Arctic competition. The project goes well beyond a single building or shelter typology; it lays out a complete urban ecosystem with residential courtyards, research hubs, educational zones, leisure facilities, underground gardens, and a hyperloop transit system connecting every sector. It is, in effect, a prototype for autonomous polar habitation at city scale.

Reconfigurable Sections on a Protected Flat Terrain

The masterplan reads like a circuit board for survival. Each section is designed to be reconfigurable in arbitrary numbers and arrangements, allowing the settlement to scale from a small research outpost to a fully populated urban district without a fundamental redesign. Sited on a protected flat terrain, the layout distributes residential complexes alongside administrative, municipal, and research hubs, with shopping, catering, entertainment centers, and dedicated educational zones for schools and kindergartens filling out the programme. Artificial ponds and green infrastructure soften the plan, offering ecological and psychological counterpoints to the surrounding ice.

Connectivity between sections relies on a hyperloop transit system capable of moving both goods and people across the settlement at speed. Below ground, pedestrian networks and metro lines link vital areas, while segway-friendly paths ensure accessibility for inhabitants with limited mobility. The ambition here is total internal mobility without exposure to polar conditions, a prerequisite for any settlement that expects to retain a permanent population.

Layered Domes: Membrane, Solar Panels, and Underground Gardens

The exploded axonometric reveals the real ingenuity of the proposal. Each module is encapsulated in a dome-shaped multilayer membrane that performs several roles simultaneously: it retains heat and blocks cold penetration, hosts internal solar panels that provide lighting during the months-long polar night, and shelters covered gardens and greenhouses on underground levels to sustain food production year-round. The layered section moves from geothermal energy systems at the base, through inhabitable programme, up to the membrane canopy, creating a vertical gradient from energy source to environmental envelope.

Geothermal energy works alongside artificial reservoirs and wind and solar sources to make every sector self-sustaining. The strategy avoids dependence on any single energy type, a critical redundancy in an environment where equipment failure in winter is not an inconvenience but a survival threat. By stacking food production, energy generation, and climate control into the same structural section, Rakhimbirdiev's design keeps supply chains short and entirely internal.

Scalability as a Survival Strategy

What distinguishes ARC Arctic from many extreme-climate proposals is its insistence on modularity as a form of resilience. A single failed section does not compromise the settlement because each unit sustains itself through its own energy systems and food production. Growth happens by addition, not by overhaul. Rakhimbirdiev frames this as a direct response to shifting population needs and territorial expansion, acknowledging that any Arctic settlement will need to flex over decades as climate conditions, research priorities, and resource availability change.

Why This Project Matters

ARC Arctic takes the question of polar habitation seriously enough to address it at the scale of a city rather than a cabin. The integration of hyperloop transit, geothermal energy loops, underground agriculture, and dome-enclosed modules into a single coherent masterplan demonstrates a systems-level thinking that most Arctic proposals lack. Each design decision, from the multilayer membrane to the segway-accessible underground paths, follows from the central premise that extreme environments require extreme redundancy.

Rakhimbirdiev's shortlisted entry in the EHC - Arctic competition offers a credible blueprint for how architecture might respond to climate adversity not by retreating from it, but by building self-sustaining urban ecosystems within it. As polar territories become more strategically and scientifically significant, proposals like ARC Arctic shift from speculative exercise to necessary planning. The work signals that modular, energy-autonomous settlements are not just feasible for the Arctic; they may be the only typology that makes long-term sense.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designer: Azamat Rakhimbirdiev

Enter a Design Competition on uni.xyz

uni.xyz runs architecture and design competitions year-round that reward proposals with spatial conviction and real site intelligence.

Project credits: ARC Arctic by Azamat Rakhimbirdiev EHC - Arctic (uni.xyz).