360Photography

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

Despite warnings about dangerous radiation and an ongoing project to cap and contain further fallout, many families have already taken up residence around Ukraine’s famous failed nuclear reactor – this skyscraper would enable them to do so safely. The skin of the building provides more than just shelter, glowing like a grounded aurora as it captures and processes radiation.

Designed by Zhang Zehua, Song Qiang and Liu Yameng, Unexpected Aurora filters air and water, harvests solar energy, and creates a kind of self-contained oasis that would allow people to resettle the wastelands around Pripyat. Their design won them an honorable mention in the 2015 eVolo Skyscraper Competition.

Protocol for many irradiated sites is simply a bit of soil coverage (as little as a few feet) and conversion to a park (as opposed to homes), the idea being: a bit of exposure here and there is not too harmful, though living right on top of contaminated areas could be. Many parks in San Francisco, for instance, were built on sites once used as test beds for hosing down irradiated ships, which were intentionally placed closed to nuclear tests in the ocean. As the government learned, you can’t wash away the radiation, but trying to do so does cause some to leak into the surrounding ground. Of course, the situation in and around Pripyat is significantly more severe.

The creators set the scene: “With a big bang, the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, the amount of radiation is about 400 times of the atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima. About seven million people were forced to leave their homeland in two days, they had no time to say goodbye to their present life.”

They also acknowledge the aftermath: “But not everyone accepts the arrangement of fate. The negative effects of radiation have been dafeated by a large group of settlers, more and more people are returning to their homeland which located in the restricted area, what can be sure is that they use a different way to look at the risk which they bear.”

There is no perfect solution for a complex problem like this, and the concept is unlikely ever to be realized, but at least this approach recognizes the reality on the ground and attempts to bridge the gap between an imperfect present and hopeful future.

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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