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Old, New and Unusual

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This week at Davis: 7 October 2011

For the past few weeks we have been going on a bit about the new Living Quarters at Davis, so this week we will give you a break and revisit some of the older and more unusual buildings around station.

Over the past five years Davis has undergone a major infrastructure upgrade and several new buildings have come about as the result of this. Accommodation has been upgraded with SAM (Summer Accommodation Module) and TAD (Temporary Accommodation Dwelling) coming online. TAD is made up of containers that have been fitted out and bolted together to make 12 rooms, while SAM (38 rooms) is made of 40 foot shipping containers that have been clad and lined so that it is hard to realise that the comfy rooms were in fact once containers. Using shipping containers again, buildings like the Field Store, Science Marshalling Area and the start of the new boatshed have been constructed in a busy few years for the trades team and a huge change for the station.

With all this work there have been a lot of old buildings removed and still some to go or to be moved, given a new life and put to a new use. Five years ago the station had a big accommodation problem. Old, manky and crowded outbuildings for bedrooms and not enough water to keep the station going without water restrictions being imposed all year round were all the station had to offer. Today the new infrastructure and a reverse osmosis desalination plant producing water have changed this and the station is now in good shape to accommodate the needs of the Antarctic program for some time to come.

A wander around station will reveal a mixture of old, new and strange buildings that have been captured in the following photos.