experimentation in the region. Engineers found that buildings could be constructed to be parallel to the direction of the wind to prevent the accumulation of snowdrift. Another discovery that engineers made was that the structural foundations of research stations can be made directly into the rock bed of station sites at sites which were sediment and rock dominant over ice. After this period of trial and error, in the early 2000s, there began a movement to create more consistent, commercialized structures which emphasized durability. A notable example of this was the formation of the design of Halley VI in 2005, which involved a design competition to create the most effective and long-lasting research station suitable for its location on a floating ice shelf. The resulting design consists of an elevated station set on hydraulic stilts which allowed operators to physically move or relocate it out of snow drifts. Bert Buecking, an architect working on designs for India's National Center for Antarctic and Ocean Research's new research station emphasized the importance of this redesign on shifting the approach to the construction of Antarctic research stations, "when the U.K. built Halley VI, many nations realized the importance of doing something special, and not just doing something." Similarly, the Australian Antarctic Building System (AANBUS) has claimed to set the standard for design in the Antarctic by utilizing braced steel framed structures, insulated panels and vapour barriers to overcome previous design and practicality issues. See also Research stations in Antarctica List of research stations in the Arctic Observatory Human outpost Space station International Space Station (ISS) References External links station