Earth Observatory / LPO arkitekter

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Text description provided by the architects. Ny-Ålesund is a research town on the island of West Spitsbergen of Norwegian archipelago Svalbard. This is the northernmost settlement on Earth with a permanent population of 30-35 people, which increases in the summer to 120. Ny-Ålesund was founded as a settlement of coal miners in 1917, but in the 1960s coal mining was discontinued and the town was converted into a research settlement. Currently, there are 16 research stations run by scientists from 10 countries. A new earth observation station established by the Norwegian Mapping Authority (Kartverket) and developing by NASA will be the seventeenth in this list.