Cirque Summit Station
A summit station anchored in permafrost at 3,312 metres.
Valais, Switzerland · 2014–2018
A cable-car summit station on a rock ridge at 3,312 metres in the Valais Alps, where the ground is frozen all year and warming. We designed the foundations to keep it frozen.
Keeping the ground frozen
Permafrost holds the ridge together, and in a warming climate it is thawing. The station stands on micropiles drilled 18 metres into the rock, and twenty-four passive thermosiphons draw heat out of the ground every winter so the rock around the piles stays below zero. Sensors in each pile report the temperature of the mountain. The cable-car machinery sits in an insulated chamber cut six metres into the rock, lined so that its heat never reaches the frozen ground.
Built in the valley
There is no road to the summit. The station was prefabricated as steel-framed modules in a valley workshop and flown up in 340 helicopter lifts over two summers, then bolted together by a crew of twelve. Its dark timber shingles will silver over the next decade.
At three thousand metres every bolt is carried by someone. We drew fewer of them.
A gallery over the void
The visitor gallery cantilevers six metres beyond the ridge, its floor and walls glazed. On clear days it looks across glaciers that the research room below has measured since the station opened.
Images: Instinctual Group.
