![Nunavut Inuit Heritage Cente, Dorte Mandrup](https://az-media.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/awards/2024/06/21100349/Azure_Dorte-Mandrup_Nunavut-Inuit-Heritage-Cente_Hero.jpg)
The Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre is a low-lying, flat-roofed structure that will emerge from a hillside overlooking Iqaluit. In its design, Danish firm Dorte Mandrup minimized the use of structural steel and drew instead on natural materials: granite and wood on the floor, sod and tundra on the roof, and stone quarried on site for the wall of the semicircular plaza, an exterior space that will be cut from the building itself. The heritage centre’s shape is inspired by patterns formed in snowdrifts by the prevailing wind. The Nunavut climate and landscape will be allies, not adversaries.
![Nunavut Inuit Heritage Cente, Dorte Mandrup](https://az-media.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/awards/2024/06/21100624/Azure_Dorte-Mandrup_Nunavut-Inuit-Heritage-Cente_04.jpg)
Architect: Dorte Mandrup
Award of Merit: Ideas, Prototypes and Unbuilt Projects
Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre (Dorte Mandrup)
The heritage centre’s shape is inspired by patterns formed in snowdrifts by the prevailing wind.