Proposed as a preliminary design with Bruce Mau Design for Shell’s SURE Northern program in northern Alberta, the project involved developing a sustainable, mobile home base for several hundred men that could be transported to various sites while mitigating its impact on the region. Responding to conditions in current camps around Fort McMurray and the unique social dynamic of an international and typically all-male work crew, the team sought to investigate several new technologies – from airships to educational training facilities – that would benefit the crew, their families as well as the communities they came from.

Ultimately, the ambition here was to facilitate a transition away from fossil fuels to other technologies (wind, solar, wave) by incorporating those opportunities into this architecture. When projects were complete, crews would be able to take with them the architecture (living units, community facilities) to their homes in other parts of Canada, or Philippines, India, etc.