. NUCLEAR SANCTUARY
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The Nuclear Sanctuary investigates the dichotomous relationship between hope and fear of the French Nuclear industry. Combining the archive, tourism and folklore, the architectural proposal seeks to physicalise the complexity and magnitude of French nuclear culture, safeguarding its nuclear legacy. The project looks to re-articulate the nuclear story through architectural narrative, becoming a cognitive tool to speculate on how nuclear culture will be perceived in the future. Reactivating the decomissioned power plant Chooz A to stand as a monumental marker in time, the Nuclear Sanctuary presents a window into the future through the past, situated in the present.
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"We nuclear people have created a Faustian Bargain with society"
- Avin M. Weinberg
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NUCLEAR TIME
France's Nuclear Legacy will long surpass our generations. In many cases high-level radioactive waste must remain safeguarded for 100,000 years. How do we as nuclear people start to engage with this notion of ‘nuclear time’ and how might design play a role in preserving its complex past for the future, whilst providing a position for critical reflection in the present?
CHOOZ NUCLEAR VILLAGE
Located 10km from the north-east Beligan border, Chooz is a remarkable nuclear landscape. Nestled within the Ardennes mountain range, the small town houses multiple nuclear sites and continues to be at the forefront of French nuclear modernity.
RE-ACTIVATING CHOOZ A
The project aims to re-activate the decomissioned power-plant through a narrative world, using architecture as a means of story-telling. Safeguarding the past and projecting Nuclear Culture into the future, Chooz A's caverns are re-interpreted as a journey through France's nuclear complex.
CONSTRUCTING NUCLEAR FOLKLORE
The decomissioned caverns of the Nuclear Sanctuary are here re-imagined, imbedding the complex story of Nuclear France within its walls. Invoking sacrality, the sanctuary looks to safeguard the story for future generations, establishing a nuclear folklore for all to engage with. Long used as means of passing down information, folkore is used in line with ideas of architectural narrative as a tool for cultural preservation. In so doing the heritage process invites the practice of hermeneutics, opening the site and France's nuclear legacy for continued interpretation and reading.