Potentials and polarities on charged ground
- Reprogramming the defunct nuclear power plant at Barsebäck.
This is a project of an eel farm. It is also an investigation of a series of buildings.
- Reprogramming the defunct nuclear power plant at Barsebäck.
This is a project of an eel farm. It is also an investigation of a series of buildings.
Furthermore
it is a landscape reader and site converter of former industrial
land of
urban proportions.
I have
embraced multiplicity in favor of one uniform idea.
This
project is not a series of drawings prepared for construction, nor a vision
according
to the local municipality, or what anyone expects of the facility today.
It is a
selective and personal study with a speculative design outcome.
I have
been working with the negative connotations around certain buildings.
Neither
rejecting nor accepting these presumptions, I saw spatial qualities in
the
actual buildings, the site and the land around. Thus there was a potential to
revitalize.
stroke
me were two distant, crude colossi, almost religiously situated in one of
Öresund’s
prime locations.
The
structures were impossible to reach, but visible from afar.
Of
course I knew they were the former nuclear power plant at Barsebäck,
closed
since 2005, after a thirty year long political debate, not the least from
the Danish
side.
Not
producing energy, still producing cultural connotations and evoking a great
portion
of fear, as I soon discovered.
The
facility is sometimes mentioned in the family of Chernobyl’s and Fukoshima’s,
the
plant has actually not resulted in any direct death or proved injury.
For the
several hundred employees and hundreds of thousands of households, it
has
however been an efficient producer of energy.
From a section through the facility, I came up
with the alliteration mantra sea-site-soil-society. This became my programmatic motor.
I saw a type of production that
could benefit from the vicinity to the regional assets.
Research
for the robust spaces and technical infrastructure.
I did
not see the reason to plant e.g. another art museum here.
This is
a place for high tech in a rural environment. This was
another
interesting duality of course.
