Design gesture through land reclamation

Terra Strata

Can relinquishment of open-cut coal mines in the Latrobe Valley be staged through land reformation events to generate program, in conjunction with and to follow on from mining operations?

This is my current research question which was recently presented for mid-semester critiques.

The following images with a self-critique, are from this presentation.

                                                      

Question: I decided that relinquishment of the mine was not solely about its closure. As the OC continues to grow, so does the rehabilitation of the OB area and mine batters. This allows for the integration of other passive or active programs to operate simultaneously along with mining. Whilst this could pose security problems for the mines, strategies for safety and security could easily be drawn. 'Programs' could be introduced by stages, at a time in which the land has been stabilised in its self-perpetuating rehabilitation. 

How then is the land reformation 'planted' to allow use to grow whilst also supporting healthy ecological systems?

Plan of Loy yang open-cut mine, power station and overburden:

left - growth of open-cut per year; right- infrastructure on site

Infrastructure plan (right) - in drawing the layers of roads, conveyors, buildings and water pipes; the form of the mine is determined. It is these structures that both inhibit reformation and create the land form, as below drawing of terraces and conveyors which allow operations.

Land use zones were created on the plan for Loy Yang. These were determined where current operations and movement are frequently occurring (marked with red '+'), in which new programs would be difficult to introduce due to safety and nuisance. Away from the operational area, I found that in testing out program placement, these zones are where I was favouring re-design. This allows for the continuation of mining of which I, at this stage of the project, am too afraid to propose changes to.

This has created a segmented plan to work with. That is not to say that how the 'passive' area is designed, will not affect how the 'active' area operates. For this the scale of time needs to be investigated and my position made clear on what I want the design to become.

Notional time scale of a section through the overburden and open-cut areas of Loy Yang. This sequence follows that the OC grows by 120 (to150) meters per year upon the east batters and the overburden continues to grow of height (up to 50m) and area which is variable but estimated within the boundary. This section is not propositional but is a representation of the scale and expansion of the mine.

Here I proposed that re-vegetation occur in the over burden (external and then internal OB), which is helped along by allowing small dams in the OB to assist the growth, as well as a seedling area in the internal OB (sheltered and sun drenched area).
As this established over time, its attractiveness to habitat and for programs (walking to mt biking, to horse-riding), increases. Perhaps creating horse trails can have the additional benefit of collecting organic matter to fertilise soil.

Climbing as a program whilst not overly viable for the in-stable coal batters, is introduced initially as a slope stabiliser where seedlings are planted by Eco-climbers. As the grade of the slopes could be appealing for climbing and batters also need to be stabilised, these could be shot-creted to allow this activity to continue.

In this sequence I looked at how mt biking could be sequenced into the rehabilitation. This might initially only be able to occur in small areas where trails/roads are already established but branch out as new areas rehabilitated are opened for use. This sequence can be studied as an expanding event which gains momentum in the number of people it attracts as much as how trails expand.

Both passive (re vegetation) and active (mt biking) programs, as mapped out in these sequences suggest an expansion of space, much like the expansion of the operational OC mine.

The problem with these representations is that they look at an enclosed area which isolates the programs. How do these connect to other ecological or recreational networks within the region?

Scale! All the sections I am producing do not justify the enormity of the place which means that proposing designs, many of the details of the existing complex infrastructure are ignored.
Human scale, operational (movement) and a larger regional scale need to be explored to truly test changes to form.

This brings me to which direction and emphasis my research is currently taking.
1. Gesture - what is design gesture? What is my gesture determined by my position of projected outcome? Is my gesture about maximising future usage or is it actually about minimising future usage to allow ecological systems to regenerate? Is this my style and how I engage as a designer?
2. Scale - Can my design proposition investigate regional networks and how they can link with mine relinquishment proposals?
3. Argument - How do I engage with the economics of ongoing operations opposed to re-programming of the sites to propose financial or environmental offsets?
4. What do I want the sites/region to be?

End of Semester is in four weeks and there is still so many questions to answer.