Project Abstract
There are three open cut brown coal mines in the Latrobe Valley which are due to be closed in the next 20 to 30 years. Upon closure, the site is required by law to be rehabilitated. This denotes restoring land to its previous use, which is vastly different to the pre-disturbed condition subjected by 30-80 years of excavation.
Current closure plans for all three mines, are to re-grade upper mining batters and inundate the open cuts to create a lake. This plan might be 100 years in the making and does not consider post-industrial use or the transformation of site. The resulting landscape is engineered and risks being ‘marked off the map’ rather than intentionally reclaiming ownership for the region and to restabilise the disrupted ecology.
The project aims to reform a landscape that is not abandoned by its community by programmatic use. At its minimum it should render a healthy ecology through water treatment facilities and re-stabilisation of slopes.
Recreational and ecological programs are investigated as a way of opening up the options pre and post-closure of the mine. These programs all have different spatial parameters which transform the current open cut. Depending on the time in which these transformations take place or programs can be integrated, the spatial and temporal parameters of current mining operations can begin to reshape the landscape.
Through using program, aesthetics and process as the driving factors, design gesture is created which is the interjection that takes the site beyond what is legally required, beyond the boundary of the site and investigates a post-industrial landscape that is Australia’s future.
The notion of 'gesture'
Design gesture is the intervention that takes the site beyond what is required according to rehabilitation regulations, to change the attraction from mineral exploitation to a resourcefulness of place. The project seeks to explore the use of gesture within one of the mine sites but also create a framework that precipitates beyond the site boundary and questions how mining reclamation is implemented in Australia.
This is the grander gesture but can be carried out on a number of scales.
Punta Pita coastal trail (Moller, T 1995, Chile) is a project which I have been drawn to through its innate ability to seemingly merge into the site conditions but aids access as well as a sculptural beauty. It is these small gestures which make up a network but do not override the rough untouched characteristics.
Punta Pita coastal trail (Moller, T 1995, Chile) is a project which I have been drawn to through its innate ability to seemingly merge into the site conditions but aids access as well as a sculptural beauty. It is these small gestures which make up a network but do not override the rough untouched characteristics.
The existing (industrial) aesthetics of open cut mines are the cut marks and terraces which have formed it. As this is already a powerful movement, the question pends of “how heavy should my hand be when designing in this context?” (Sue-Anne Ware, 15 March 2011).
Through using the idea of gesture, or the notion of constructively creating more than is required for the benefit of ecology and enjoyment of people; the project is to test how this might change the configuration of how industry is phased out. Through gesture, the project becomes different to a remediation approach.
Summary
Over the course of Project A I have become familiar with the mining operations and the approach to ‘rehabilitation’ that coal mines in the Latrobe Valley take, through four site visits. The site is loaded with ecological, technical and ethical challenges which become a complex system in which to engage myself.
My design process has been congested with the current mining processes and not ‘reclaiming’ the site and projecting a vision for it. The research that has been done constructs a good base to determine the tool set and canvas in which to begin designing.
My vision for the site is to create a new typology of park which configures ecological restoration and encourages public engagement with the site by facilitating multiple and overlapping visitor use. This is to be used as a framework in which to discuss reclamation at a broader scale.
Through the design process I want to understand a) how I, as a landscape architect, could position myself in relation to this large industry which is re-shaping Australia landscape and b) how this could be manifested in my designs.
Project B Brief (Projection for finalising design and research processes)
Policy, Program, Process, Transformation, Gesture and Aesthetics.
From this I want to produce:
•A new typology of park from a mine reclamation site
•How unexpected events can play a part of the reformation
•How to create a project framework that can be implemented within policy
•How this new typology and framework can be used a prototype for mining
projects further afield
What do I want to learn from this project?
•To test the notion of gesture within my design propositions
•Determine how to pitch my designs within the mining industry by framing them against other reclamation projects in Europe and the United States to argue why current practise of rehabilitation within Australia should be changed
