Ice Core Storage Facility
National Science Foundation
OZ Architecture
February 2022 - February 2023
Lakewood, CO
The new Ice Core Storage Facility for NSF was a project to replace their existing storage facility with a larger capacity more efficient space. The main goal of the project was to be able to double the storage capacity of the existing facility. Although storage was the stakeholders largest concern, they also wanted to make the new facility more appealing to the public face and give it a more professional look.
The creation of a new Ice Core Storage Facility was a unique project. The project was set out to create a new facility adjacent to the existing facility within the same large government storage facility on the Denver Federal Center campus in Lakewood, CO. The project consisted of creating a new facility with the focus on creating more storage volume for storing new ice cores and to create a new public face for the program for users of the building and for tours they have come in.
The design of the new facility created greater efficiency and usability for the program within the same footprint of the existing facility. Through the design we also created a new formal office space to replace the existing facilities office that was a 1980’s trailer set inside of the building.
This is an existing look into the core storage room of the NSF Ice Core Facility. The existing facility during design held roughly 26,000 1-meter long ice cores from all over the world, being up to 400,000 years old.
A look at the facility section will show you the unique challenges of constructing the new facility within an existing warehouse. Building 810 on the Denver Federal Center campus houses its own unique design with its barrel roof structure. This meant we had to consider creative solution to achieve the maximized volume for the cold storage areas. The design team ultimately decided to get the desired volume the existing slab would have to cut out and the whole cooler recessed roughly two-feet.
The second public outreach options was to utilize the long face of the cooler to create a timeline of what an ice cores life could show from the beginning of its formation to it being drilled and studied by the NSF scientists.
This is an existing look into the core storage room of the NSF Ice Core Facility. The existing facility during design held roughly 26,000 1-meter long ice cores from all over the world, being up to 400,000 years old.