Bema Gold
Additional Info
Award Winner : Metric Modular
Architectural Excellence : This mining camp, designed to house 650 workers and support staff in an extremely remote Russian Arctic location, is completely self-sufficient and includes a fully-equipped medical center, laundry facilities and extra kitchen storage space to maintain sufficient supply levels through extended periods. A number of recreational amenities were also incorporated into the design to make life in camp more enjoyable and sustainable.
The camp is designed around a unique village concept with recreational amenities positioned directly off the main corridor including a library, TV and games rooms, a fitness center as well as a full gymnasium for team sports. The sleeping quarters are housed in 17 side wings for added privacy and feature single and twin room accommodations with custom-built birch millwork. Two women’s wings were included as well as single occupancy rooms with private washrooms for senior managers and private VIP accommodations for on-site and visiting executives.
Cost Energy Effectiveness : Because the Arctic can experience winter temperatures as low as minus 65 degrees Celsius with 100 km/hour winds in the winter and up to 35 degrees Celsius in the summer, all materials were selected based on their ability to endure these harsh conditions as well as their ease of maintenance.
To deal with the extreme cold, the camp was designed with a state-of-the-art hot water glycol heating system that uses excess heat from the mining operation and provides an almost unlimited supply of hot water.
To reduce shipping costs, the main connecting corridor and the dining room were constructed with knock-down modules and the wing corridors and the gymnasium were panelized so they could be stacked for transport to reduce the volume and number of truck loads required.
Occupied Date : 9/12/2006
Production Start Date : 3/1/2005
Project Location City : Kupol
Technical Innovation : Special steel handling skids were incorporated into each module to facilitate the many different types of equipment and trucks that were used to move the units. Once the modules reached the Russian container port, they were trucked 400 kilometres to a holding area where they remained until the winter road was ready. They were then re-loaded and trucked another 200 kilometres on an ice road to the final destination. Transporting all the units from the holding area to the mine site took approximately three months with final assembly starting in February 2006.
As the camp can be completely isolated by weather for up to 3 weeks at a time, fail-safe systems had to be designed into the project. Major systems for heat and power were constructed with full redundancy in the event of failure and the fire protection system and fire breaks were designed to isolate the rest of the camp in the event of a fire.
Total Square Feet : 123034
Category : Relocatable: Institutional or Assembly: over 5,000 sq. ft.