The Bartlett
Summer Show 2021
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The Village Inside the Nuclear Power Plant

Project details

Programme
Unit PG12
Year 5
Award
  • Distinction
  • Bartlett School of Architecture Medal, MArch

The design narrates the future of a decommissioned nuclear power plant and its surrounding village in Mihama, Japan. The narrative generates and is generated by an interminable dialogue between nuclear forms and heritage, and the traditional life of this Japanese coastal town. The dialectic is further reflected in the construction of a Shinto sanctuary, which integrates ceremonial and commercial activities such as fishing, rice farming and sake brewing.

This project proposes a recycling and recovery of nuclear waste, postulating and predicated on the progress in current experimental decontamination technologies.

The narrative draws upon the complex relationship between Japan and nuclear power, the latter depicted by post-war architects, such as Arata Isozaki, as part of a natural cycle of death and rebirth. Ultimately, the architecture aims to present radioactivity as a natural phenomenon that can and should be addressed, attempting to advance a response to the nuclear waste crisis, the heritage of nuclear power plants and the economy of the villages that depend on them for their own power needs.

Outlines of Nuclear Geography

Infographic summary illustrating nuclear decontamination and recycling techniques, exploring a direct, critical response to the controversial practice of burying nuclear waste in deep geological repositories.

Decontamination, dismantling and construction at Mihama reactors 1 and 2

Drawings exploring the complexity of the nuclear power plant and the labour-intensive practices of decontamination and dismantling. The erection of a Shinto sanctuary has deliberately been chosen as a form of preservation.

Mihama light festival and playground

The design explores everyday life in the surroundings of a decommissioned nuclear power plant, advertising the safety of the waste decontamination processes.

The Future of Mihama Bay

The overall vision of the future of the village and the nuclear power plant in Mihama, where spaces and components from the former power station have been recycled on site and throughout the village.

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The Future of the Village and the Nuclear Power Plant

The elevation aims to highlight the juxtaposition between the former nuclear power plant and the village whose economy depended upon it.

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The Bartlett
Summer Show 2021
23 July – 07 August 2021
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