Multi Functional North House: Modular Spheres for 1,000 People on Arctic Ice

What does a city for 1,000 people look like when the ground is permafrost and the wind never stops? The Multi Functional North House answers with spheres. Clusters of elevated, aerodynamic pods built from fiber-reinforced polymer sit on adjustable legs above the terrain of a northern Canadian island, connected by enclosed corridors that double as wind energy harvesters. The project treats the Arctic not as a hostile void to be sealed out, but as an active force to be negotiated through geometry, material science, and modular logistics.

Designed by Michał Kacprzyk, the project was shortlisted in the EHC - Arctic competition. The brief called for a sustainable settlement capable of supporting research, conservation, and off-grid living on an 800 x 800 meter island site. Kacprzyk responded with a repeating vocabulary of spherical modules, residential towers, and linking corridors that can be shipped, assembled on site, and expanded incrementally as the population grows.

Wind Turbines in the Corridors, Structure in the Sphere

The assembly diagram lays out the logic clearly: a structural frame receives spherical housing shells, and the corridors connecting them carry arrays of wind turbines. Rather than placing renewable energy infrastructure at the perimeter of the settlement, Kacprzyk embeds it within the circulation network itself. Wind funneled between modules spins turbines that reinforce the station's self-sufficiency. The fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) construction provides the thermal insulation and durability needed to withstand Arctic conditions while keeping individual components light enough for modular transport.

The interior corridor rendering reveals a different register entirely. Curved ceilings, slender columns, and hanging vegetation create a warm, greenhouse-like passage that opens through a glass perimeter onto the landscape. It is a deliberate counterpoint to the exterior severity: a space where inhabitants can walk among plants and daylight even as snow blankets the ground outside.

Circular Plans That Organize Living, Working, and Gathering

The floor plans expose how the spherical geometry translates into habitable space. Each circular level is organized around a central staircase core, with rooms radiating outward to maximize usable area within the curved shell. One set of plans shows residential apartments arrayed around the perimeter; another reveals dedicated workspaces on a separate level. The division is clean: live on one floor, work on another, move between pods through the corridor system.

The exterior view of linked modules confirms the spatial rhythm at settlement scale. Spherical pods sit in paired rows, connected by horizontal corridors with narrow slot windows that admit light without compromising insulation. The symmetry reads as calm and deliberate in a landscape that is anything but. Snow gathers around the elevated legs rather than against the building envelope, a direct benefit of raising the entire station above grade.

Elevated Pods Walking Through the Snow

The most evocative image in the set shows three figures walking beneath a cluster of pods as snow falls. The spheres hover on structural legs, giving the settlement an almost zoomorphic presence, like creatures paused mid-stride on the ice. The adjustable foundation system referenced in the design description becomes tangible here: each leg can respond to shifting terrain, protecting both the building from ground-level snow accumulation and the permafrost from the thermal load of a heated structure above.

The accompanying section and plan drawings of a circular tower module show a central core with radiating residential levels, confirming that vertical stacking is part of the strategy too. The settlement is not only horizontal. Towers rise within the pod clusters to increase density where the programme demands it, all while maintaining the same FRP construction system and spherical formal language.

Why This Project Matters

Arctic architecture proposals often default to either heroic engineering or survivalist minimalism. The Multi Functional North House occupies a more interesting middle ground. Its modular logic is genuinely pragmatic: FRP panels can be manufactured off-site, shipped to remote locations, and assembled without heavy on-site infrastructure. Its aerodynamic spheres are not stylistic choices but thermodynamic ones, minimizing surface area relative to volume and shedding wind loads that would batter a conventional rectilinear building.

What elevates Kacprzyk's proposal beyond technical competence is the attention to inhabitation. The green corridors, the clearly zoned living and working floors, the scale figures walking casually through snowfall beneath the pods: these details argue that extreme-environment architecture does not have to feel extreme to its occupants. For a competition asking how 1,000 people might live sustainably on Arctic ice, that argument carries real weight.

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About the Designers

Designer: Michał Kacprzyk

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Project credits: MULTI FUNCTIONAL NORTH HOUSE by Michał Kacprzyk EHC - Arctic (uni.xyz).