The only reporting of the Styrofoam igloo project was in the children’s section of The Age, a newspaper in Melbourne, Australia on Sept. 9, 1960. The headline read: “Eskimos Find Plastic Igloo Better Than Snow Houses!” The article informed its young readers that the plastic version of the traditional Inuit housing structure was made from 18 inch by 36 inch Styrofoam blocks, held together by wooden meat skewers and tar adhesive. 

An Inuit man named Pitsulak, who was “famous as a fast builder of snow igloos,” The Age wrote, was brought south to Ottawa to cut the Styrofoam blocks for a test igloo, built “on a circular floor of two layers of plywood with Styrofoam inlaid between them.” The resulting 18-foot (5.5 metre) diameter structure was then disassembled, shipped to Kinngait and reassembled by Pitsulak.  The project relied on the skill of the inuit - the white man just supplied the materials. 

James Houston was one of the first white settlers in the tree line, he was a NSO, or Northern Service Officer tasked developing local economies and social programs in an effort to excerpt Canada sovereignty over the region. Arriving by dog sled with his young family, his son James, who was 5 years old when he moved to Kinngait said the Styrofoam Igloo community was 25 igloos all around a lake. "It was just the wrong material" said John when we spoke over zoom and I asked him about wh y the project ended. An disabled Inuit man called Kingwatsiak didnt have use of his legs, when his styrofoam igloo quickly ingulfied as a result of a fire; he was unable to walk or crawl out. 

Wetrooms and made from foam, and the corners are covered with fibreglass with a resin rolled on.  Cementitious extruded polystyrene backerboard is a highly workable material with good load bearing and impact resistance.  They have a fibreglass mesh shell and can we drilled and worked. We mainly use this product for the flooring, and we use polyisocyanurate for the walls and roof. We add the fibreglassed later on ourself and use epoxy resin to cover it - just like with a wetroom. Or  boat or a surfboard To acheive larger spans we use steel, just like we do with concrete. 

It was named Baggins End, but the local and students just call the community, the igloos. There is sprayed polyurethane inside. We thought it would be better to use a thinner amount of fibreglass and a higher grade of resin, and just use steel rebar inside the material like with concrete. Above are the photographs from 1972, below is from 2011. The domies have an active social media presence. 

We are not the only ones doing it this way now. 

How we used to do it.

How we do it now.