Observations of nuclear landscapes
Diploma project Master's of Landscape Architecture
"Sky-Ground observations of nuclear landscapes"
Supervisors: Luis Callejas, Christiana Pitsillidou
Scientific consultancy: Jenni Hultman, Kevin Chen
The Oslo School of Architecture and Design
Affiliation: Institute of Urbanism and Landscape
Fall 2019
Working with radioactive landscapes of the disbanded nuclear test site
Nuclear arms race leaves behind deeply and widely transformed landscapes. One of such transformed landscapes is located in the eastern steppe of Kazakhstan. The Semipalatinsk test site, also known as the Polygon, was the primary testing venue for the Soviet nuclear weapons. This crippled land is associated with the tragedy of about 1.2 million people.
The design of the 5 sites of the Polygon are dictated by radioactive pollution. Radioactivity limits and opens immense potential. The 5 sites expose different aspects of radiological conditions. The scale ranges from the master plan of a 7*8 km field to interior design of an underground building. The observation is conducted from the sky, as radioactivity limits the time one can be on the ground.
The aim of this project is it to reveal the damaged story of this territory: what has happened to it and what will continue to happen in the next 20, 400, 1000 years until radioactive particles break down, which will never happen totally.
