greg3 Posted May 21, 2017 Posted May 21, 2017 (edited) A after seeing an image of this building in a news report this morning, I thought it might make a nice build. A couple of hours building this afternoon and this is the result... Untitled by g.nat, on Flickr A bit of background info... Although most countries keep their own gene banks of important plant types, these sites can be vulnerable to accidents, disasters and war/civil strife so it was decided to build an international seed vault which would hold duplicates of these seeds. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was officially opened in 2008 and acts as a backup storage site for important crop seeds from all over the world. It's built on the island of Spitsbergen just over 800 miles from the North Pole and construction was funded by the Norwegian Government. Seed storage is free and the running costs are shared between Norway and various other Governments and foundations. The site currently stores around 900,000 different seed samples and in 2015 the first withdrawal of seeds took place to replace research samples destroyed during the Syrian Civil War. The seeds themselves are stored in vaults some 120m inside the mountain and kept at around -18º C. The only part of the structure visible from the surface is the entrance. In accordance with Norwegian law which states that publicly funded buildings over a certain cost must include artwork, the building features a public art installation above the entrance and along the roof. Called Perpetual Repercussion it involves a series of mirrors and prisms that reflect the polar light during the summer and are lit by fibre optic cables during the winter. The building was designed to withstand any potential threat but has recently suffered it's first case of flooding, caused by the melting permafrost (thought to be linked to Global Warming). Although this flooding was restricted to the entrance hall, work is now being carried out to improve drainage and waterproofing. (which is why it was in the news!!) I like the way the "art installation" catches the light in this pic!! I tried using tiles but the cheese slopes seemed to work better. Untitled by g.nat, on Flickr Untitled by g.nat, on Flickr I'm pretty pleased with how my version came out - but might tweak the landscaping a bit (also I couldn't continue the art installation along the roof - might have to look into using a sticker!!) Anyway thanks for looking - comments are always welcome!! Edited May 21, 2017 by greg3 Quote
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