Mining District - Land Of The Mechanical Miners

Faculty of Architecture AR3036 Monsoon 2021

Meghana Toutireddy, Rutvij Saini

Living Museum: Salvaging Le Corbusier’s Floating refuge Arijit Chatterjee, Asha Sumra

Jury Citation A dystopian narrative of a future Ahmedabad. Evocative drawings demonstrating great rigour, precision, and commitment. The juxtaposition of past, present and speculative technologies gives the proposal a sense of reality, despite its fantastical premise. A fiction made manifest in cinematic breadth and scope.

Design Description The story inquires a possible future where robots are increasingly aiding difficult human activities to imagine the destruction of a landscape indifferent to that one that has been shaped over hundreds of years of collective human effort

Reflecting on how any natural resource is rationed with additions like dams that are constructed over rivers that move villages and communities for the greater profit of the larger society, this fiction tries to encapsulate the aspects of prosperity and adversity to imagine an exaggerated vision.

Such narratives follow a branch of pataphysics as an idea that “the virtual or imaginary nature of things as glimpsed by the heightened vision of poetry or science or love can be seized and lived as real. Pataphysics in a number of statements and examples, including that it is “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments

In the search for the last sources of energy humans have uncovered rich Neutranium deposits under Sabarmati- a radioactive material that when mined could provide energy for to the human civilisations for the next 200 years. However, realizing the potential harmful effects of staying and working near radioactive mines and contamination of the soil and water, humans have evacuated Ahmedabad using air balloons – a mass exodus.

These activities of exporting and mining happen on the background of the landscape of Ahmedabad with the destruction of entire city blocks and to dig up open pits while changing the terrain from a flat interconnected landscape of roads into an irregular topography of dumping sites next to the mines indifferent to the intricate city fabric that was previously A robotic mining district was created by human that processes and exports energy to the human cities, where the Riverfront is a bustling airship hub with the incoming and outgoing crafts. The barge is retrofitted into a navigation vessel that inspects and coordinates the activities at various open pit mines across the city.

Airship barge

(Navigation ship with radioactive sensors and laboratory for radioactivity detection)

Hot air balloon

(Communication network and checkpoints for temporary data storage)

Paddle barge

(Mobile workshop along the Sabarmati as a transport vehicle for robot repair and kit of parts)

Airship hub

(Main exporting hub to the human cities of the fuel cells)

Extraction site

(Extraction towers next to the mines to refine the ore)

Fig.1 Huge mines dug where the radioactive material nutranium is found in concentration in complete disregard to the city fabric developed over centuries with the sole purpose of mining and extraction

Fig.2 Designing and detailing the robot miners: The robots process the neutranium as detailed to be exported to the human cities

4. Mooring masts for the airships to export fuel cells to the human cities 5. Large fuel cell storage towers connected to the mooring mast for loading and unloading of the fuel cells to be exported 6. Robotic maintenance and repair workshop

7. Communications laboratory

9. Robotic programming pods

1.Helium extraction towers to refill the balloons and a repair and maintenance workshop

3. Outdoor servicing and repair workshop

2. Ramp leading down to the equipment repair and maintenance workshop

Barge landing at the airship hub

Fig.3 The airship hub including balloon and vehicular repair workshops, robotic communication center with the human cities and fuel cell storage towers

Fig.4 Extraction and processing laboratories with landing sites for the baloons and airships to be taken to the airship hub for exports showing mining activities in the district

SCANNING MACHINE

Fig.5 The barge retrofitted into an airship as a navigation vehicle with laboratory and sensors for radioactive material detection

Fig.6 The barge retrofitted into an airship as a navigation vehicle with laboratory and sensors for radioactive material detection

1. Roof The roof is openable if any machinery needs to be fitted inside the volume and needs exposure to the sky. 2. Louvers The louvers help maintain air circulation so that the machines dont overheat and acts as a natural exhaust system. 3. The upper Deck The Upper deck consists of three volumes of enclosures with access in between through stairs to the mid landing.

4. Robot kit storage The upper level is used to store and maintain the parts which are used to make the robots

5. Receivers The receiver collects all the signals from the paddle barge and the network of smaller balloons

6. Fenestration The slab is lifted in order to get the light inside the workshop space which is covered by the hull.

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7. Scanner The scanner scans and detects the smallest of radioactive emitted through the material in and around it and monitors the signals.

8. The Manufacturing plant The manufacturing unit takes the fuel cells collected and harvests its energy to further make the robotic equipments and tools required

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9. Innovation lab The lab keeps track of newly discovered substances and the researches on the new devices and tools to better the quality of work.

10. Service boxes These boxes and removable usable pieces of furniture which can be used to adapt to the space and attach machinery. Can be used as a scaffolding. in workflow. 11. Paddles The paddles are driven by two separate motors inside which in sync allows it to be on the surface and is powered simultaneously with the manufacturing plant.

12. The Launch and service platform The paddle barge acts as storing and servicing parts of the jet propulsion system which is carried to the Airship if needed.

13. Screen The screen is a full volume screen accessed by the hydraulic flooring unit.

Fig.7 Paddle barge: Mobile workshop along the Sabarmati as a transport vehicle for robot repair and kit of parts