Preserving your design works
in the Arctic for millenniums

Arctic Design Vault, a non-profit program sponsored by Design Daily, is archiving the world's architectural digital memories in a deep-freeze repository 800 feet underground and stored in a renovated industrial facility for at least 2,000 years. The first preservation will be deposited near Global Seed Vault in Norway by the end of 2023. Now the program is calling for design works, including but not limited to drawing, rendering, photography, from concept to built form.

Join the Program for free

About Program

Initiatives

With the emerging architectural design works that defined various historical marks, it has a tendency to be deserted, obsolete, or worst-case scenario, though improbable, losing these works through a global calamity. Thus, documenting, preserving, and storing these design works are necessary.

Approach

Through the collaboration with multiple channels, and collected drawings, renderings, photographs from architects, firms and designers in a secure process. The design repository will be stored in the deep-underground Arctic vault built by Design Daily or trusted third parties in Svalbard, Norway.

Benefits

As a part of the future heritage, preserving today’s design works are becoming important to avoid it being obsolete. Sponsored by Design Daily, archiving these works through advanced technics of storage helps ensure the safety and preservation of these data for future generations.

Steps to Join

Here's the step by step guide to joining the Arctic Design Vault program.

Click to visit Design Daily User Center

Register a new account and login user center

Find the What's New page and form to leave your information

One email will be sent to you with unique link

Open the link to upload your design works to Design Daily

Design Daily stores the repository underground

Claim your activity badge on profile page after archiving

Timeline

The preservation program proceeds round by round, and the first vault will be deposited by the end of 2023.

31-Dec-2023

Deposit the repository into underground

01-Oct-2022

Upload design works through User Center

20-Jun-2021

30-Apr-2021

Announce program and launch website

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it free to join the Arctic Design Vault program?

Absolutely FREE. Since it is a non-profit program sponsored by Design Daily, the participants, as well as memberships, don't have to pay any fees at any stage. The program is permanently free.

Who owns the copyright of the submitted design works?

The copyright of the work belongs to you or its original holder from beginning to end. The program is a repository for archiving architectural digital memories. We will not use these works without permission and authorization. Even if getting your permission and authorization, we still have no intention to use your design work in any condition.

Which certain form of storage are you using to preserve design?

We will collaborate with a trusted third party to convert all digital design works (in the form of binary code) to grey pixels that are inscribed into a four-level grey film that contains eight million data points per frame which contain around 120 GB which could be readable through a digital scanner, microscope, etc. This technology is structured on open-source principles to protect the information at the same time making the data accessible whenever it is needed through a digital scanner and open-source software. At the same time, we still use solid-state hard (SSD) drives for storage as a backup.

How would this last 2000 years?

The storage for this data would be located deep inside an arctic mountain in Svalbard and it is a demilitarized zone. Thus, making this location suitable to protect valuable data. The cool dry conditions prolong the longevity of the data being stored in this vault. There are successful cases for preventing the loss of irreplaceable data, for example, Global Seed Vault, Arctic World Archive, where they are in the same area with same philosophy.

Still have a question?

We hope our answers to some of your frequently asked questions help, but should you have any further queries, please feel free to contact us.

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Preserving your design works in the Arctic for millenniums