MAPPING THE SPOILS OF I N DU S T RI A LI S AT ION
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T RA N S FORM AT ION S I N THE HIGHLAND LANDSCAPE 2015
Architecture Dissertation MA (Hons) Architecture Supervisor: Victoria Clare Bernie ARJA10002
JAC K CRIPPS
Prologue
ABSTRACT
Abstract
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Mapping the Spoils of Industrialisation
“For centuries, the cycle of industrial growth and decline has transformed the Highland landscape. With the advent of large-scale hydro-power in the 1940s, to the Fast Breeder Reactor at Dounreay in the 1950s and the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, the Scottish landscape is now marked by a profusion of industrial sites whose grounds bear the remnants of peoples’ speculation and innovation. With the future of certain industries in doubt and the re-occupation of these post-industrial sites still unclear, we must take responsibility for the contaminate history of our industrial actions and begin to consider how we can make informed, sustainable and aesthetically sound judgments about the future use of such altered grounds. The challenge of reclaiming and repurposing the rural brownfield site is one that is currently prohibited by current modes of cartography. Through the implementation of a cognitive process of mapping, this dissertation will propose a method of working that best facilitates the re-imagination of these marked landscapes by developing a holistic understanding of the events that have taken place throughout their history. The map in this way may extend generatively into the formation of the design itself and begin to speculate on what the future of these sites may then be. Together with a narration of the sites at Sloy and Nigg, this research will present some of the ways in which the ground has been impacted upon and how within the spoils of industry there lies the possibility for an appropriate re-imagined future. This method of work will be applied to the post-industrial landscape of Dounreay. Now in a period of decommission, the stains and wastes of nuclear production are distinctly evident in the surrounding environment and this poses a unique challenge to mapping both its impact and value when considering the heritage of the highland landscape.� 1
Chapter One
THE POSTINDUSTRIAL HIGHLAND LANDSCAPE
The Post-Industrial Highland Landscape
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Mapping the Spoils of Industrialisation
THE stains of nuclear, hydro, oil and other invasive industrial pro-
cesses have been an inextricable part of the Highland landscape for over a century. Human activities related to industrialisation have brought about irreversible changes in the landscape that are unprecedented in both their magnitude and scale. Energy is a basic, fundamental need of mankind and whatever its immediate source may be, it comes from the landscape we all inhabit and therefore cannot be exploited without some impact on that exact environment. Those endeavouring to harvest from the wealth of the rural lands of Scotland have for better or for worse, contributed to the makeup of a transformed Highland landscape.
[Fig. 1 Construction of DFR at Dounreay]
[Fig. 2 Remains of a settlement at Easter Turrerich]
[1] James Hunter, On the Other Side of Sorrow: Nature and People in the Scottish Highlands (Edinburgh: Birlinn LImited, 2014), 16.
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[2] Making Scotland’s Landscape: Scotland’s Water. Performed by Iain Stewart. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2010. Television Series.
In his publication On the Other Side of Sorrow, James Hunter presents the idea that the Highlands in the past and to this day have been portrayed as a place unscathed by man’s activities. Seen by many as the archetypal retreat, the tourist visiting this land is vulnerable to its charm and consequently assumes a clouded outlook that the Highlands are in their natural unaltered state. This, as Hunter points out, and as this dissertation will clearly outline, is wrong. Indeed, the Highlands still retain in many parts, areas of remarkable natural beauty; however, the results of human action have marked the land in ways this stranger is often blind to. Not many on their passage through the landscape will notice the faint lines of run-rig land, evidence of a historical cultivation seldom seen thanks to the brutal activities of the clearances, or the loss of woodland floor species as to the introduction of greater yielding spruces from the U.S and Canada. The untrained eye may easily overlook these more concealed marks of an industrial occupancy and imposing onto this ground our nations needs we have reached a stage whereby the Highlands will never be the same again. This change and exploitation has artificially stripped away much of what made the Highlands so enchanting. One of the earliest examples of this can be seen in the activities of the clearances. The history of agriculture is one that has remained omnipresent throughout the evolution of the Highlands and as the most primitive of all industries has been key to the sustenance and well being of its population. However, the introduction of commercial sheep farming from England in the 18th and 19th centuries was to severely scar the physical and social landscape of the Highlands. The acres of land required resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of Highland people from their homes. Of those evicted, some were accommodated in crofts or smallholdings, though they were often found wanting in their ability to sustain the communities living within them. The rest saw fit to migrate to the Americas and other colonies of the British Empire. Those leaving sought a new beginning in a world to the West, where, “rather than submit to the tyrannical exactions of their landlords” [1], they may buy land at will and live in the freedom of their own adoptions. For John MacRae, a poet who himself migrated from Scotland and settled in North Carolina, the need to leave his homeland is evident from his Gaelic composition. [Fig. 3] Agriculture can be looked upon in a rather nostalgic way in the Highlands. It had successfully sustained the Neolithic farmers of the past and for a time had facilitated the supportive social structures of small agricultural townships. However, through its commercialisation, it set in motion events that would propel Scotland to the forefront of industrial change and in particular energy production. This industrial power is best exemplified by the resources of water, oil and nuclear. At some stage in their life, all three have commanded international prominence and have brought to attention the wealth and power to be found in the Highland landscape. After the formation of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board in 1943, the harvesting of Scotland’s water radically changed the Highland glen. The first scheme to materialise was the dam at Loch Sloy. A huge concrete monument, Sloy’s dam paved the way for an abundance of further developments to recalibrate Scotland’s water. By the efficiency of NoSHEB’s management through the miles of manmade tunnels and piping, the only water system that happens naturally now in the Highlands is rainfall. Such is the extent to which this waterscape has been engineered. [2] The nature of human management however is never perfect and this has had a great significance on the social and ecological landscape.
Let us go and may God’s blessing be with us. Let us go and charter a vessel. Better that than to remain under landlords who will not tolerate tenantry; Who would prefer gold to a brave man, Though it be in the crab’s claw; We shall all go together – Small is my esteem for the man without heroism.
[Fig. 3 (Left) John McCrae Composition]
With respect to oil and threading a line through the Cromarty Firth, the alien like forms of drilling platforms dominate the views from Invergordon out over the waters of the North Sea. The discovery of oil here in the late 1960s completely transformed the Scottish landscape and itself was a mini-industrial revolution in the Highlands. Only envisaged to last a few golden years, the North Sea oil industry is still very much alive and one yard that continues to contribute to this can be found in Nigg Bay. First opened in the 70s, Nigg has undergone a turbulent existence, however, under new ownership it has been reinvigorated and is very much an infrastructure of productivity. Although the duration of its labour is put in doubt by the fabled realities of oil’s resource, it will for the foreseeable future continue to leave its mark on the coastal, marine and social grounds of the Highlands and North Sea. The third industry of interest and the principal focus of this research can be found in Caithness on the northern coast of the British mainland. For nearly two decades the site of Dounreay was recognised for its advancements in nuclear power and its striking white steel dome soon became a beacon of atomic research in Britain and throughout the world. Such is the nature of nuclear power, this facility became outdated and its legacy was a wealth of radioactive waste that demanded the arduous task of its decontamination and management. That mission, it has been estimated, will be completed by the year 2025, at which point it is envisaged the site will be planted over with the native verdure of Caithness. As seen at Dounreay, technological change often renders these large sites redundant thereby raising the question of what their post-industrial activity may be. The work of Alan Berger, a professor of landscape architecture at MIT, considers the post-mined landscapes of the American West and queries, “what are the prospective opportunities for altered landscapes to create new types and forms of landscape occupation?” [3] He argues that current approaches to the re-use of post-industrial sites fail to utilise the unique and potential possibilities available within them. Born out of human intervention, these landscapes react and perform differently to most and as such the qualities that make them distinct should be deeply considered when re-imagining their future. How these qualities are identified and represented is then of great importance. As outlined by the title of his publication Taking Measure Across the American Landscape, the landscape designer and theorist James Corner proposes that to understand a landscape one must first take measure across them. In the common sense of the word, that would assume a collection of quantifiable information of the land in question. However, to facilitate the re-imagination of these sites, we must not be restricted to such deceptive and false current conventions. Those who study the landscape in such ways are mistaken if they believe it performs as an isolated system in itself. Failing to recognise that these are fluid phenomena is to fuel an approach that has engendered an anthropocentric representation of the environment. Seen as the empty white space, the void waiting to take on meaning from the black mass, the ground in current methods of cartography is devoid of all character. [4] They are flat, one-dimensional constructs, densely filled with codes and symbols that bear no resemblance to how we interact with the ground
[Fig.4 Construction of Loch Sloy Dam]
[3] Alan Berger, Reclaiming the American West (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 15.
[Fig.5 Pipeline at Kinlochleven]
[4] Robin Dripps, Groundwork in Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strategies. Eds., Carol Burns, Andrea Kahn (New York & London: Routledge, 2004), 74.
itself. Our knowledge and understanding of space is far more ontological and experienced and therefore current methods of landscape representation fall short in conveying those particular modes of recognition.
[5] Ibid., 77.
In her essay Groundworks, Robin Dripps considers the implications of the word ‘represent’ with regard to landscape and describes it as, “something that, although always there, has remained obscure or hidden.” [5] What we may understand from this is that the creative activity of drawing and representing the world in which humans are placed is one that naturally facilities the discovery of new possibilities in the ground. Through these representations, or mappings as they shall be known, I hope to present to the field of design and planning, by no means a new idea, but one considerably underused and underutilised; using drawing as a cognitive and cerebral tool to discover pervasive yet dormant conditions so that these post-industrial landscapes may be uncovered and best re-imagined for future use. The process of drawing is to suggest that we not only ameliorate these vistas through technologies of bioremediation and chemistry but that through an act of drawing they may reshape a person’s understanding of a particular landscape thereby allowing it to be re-imagined for potentially, a better or more appropriate future use.
[6] Alan Berger, Representation and Reclaiming: Cartographies, Mappings and Images of Altered American Western Landscapes, Landscape Journal 21:1-22 (2002): 11.
By considering archival research, interviews, field exploration and mapping this dissertation will uncover and present a narration of the three industrial sites of Sloy, Nigg and Dounreay. In the latter, the process of mapping will be deployed and by exploring themes of resource, tradition, translation, waste, cultivation, boundary, botany, and wildlife, it will outline the reaches of disturbance nuclear power has had on the proximate landscape. Through conducting fieldwork at Dounreay I was able to establish a developed level of understanding of the site and its surroundings that provided me with a wealth of otherwise hidden material. The map unlocks the potential in this material and from them we may begin to speculate on what the future of these sites may be. As Dripps explains, by representing landscapes in such ways allows us to construct readings of it that would otherwise remain unseen or too complex to envisage. [6]
[Fig. 6 Construction of Dounreay Fast Breeder Reactor]
[7] Gary L. Strang, Infrastructures as Landscape (Infrastructure as Landscape, Landscape as Infrastructure). Places, 10(3), 1996. 11.
[8] Fraser MacDonald, “Scotland’s modernist buildings die another death as Inverkip’s vast chimney falls,” The Guardian, July 26, 2013, https://www.theguardian. com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2013/ jul/26/scotland-modernist-inverkip (accessed April 7th, 2015).
[9] Andreas Huyssen, Nostalgia for Ruins, Grey Room, No. 23, pp. 6-21, 2006. 7.
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Gary Strang outlines in Infrastructure as Landscape, that post-industrial sites must be viewed as an opportunity, creating new layers of landmarks, spaces and connection that become a fundamental part of rural form. [7] By virtue of their inherent scale, these systems often overwhelm the amenities they were intended to provide for. Considering that they hold such a prominent position in the landscape, it seems strange that there has been a wider disregard of our built industrial heritage. As has been the case concerning the ruin of Sir Basil Spence’s Trawsfynydd Power Station, “it is characteristic of our time that buildings erected amid the white heat of mid twentieth century urbanisation and industrialisation are being quietly and incrementally lost.” [8] At Trawsfynydd, Spence famously coined the phrase, ‘will it make a beautiful ruin?’ Fully aware of the temporal nature of nuclear power stations, he knew it would someday sit derelict in the Snowdonian landscape. As Andreas Huyssens explains in his publication Nostalgia for Ruins, the nature of a ruin is one that embodies its past and gives it tangibility but at the same time is no longer accessible. [9] In that sense, the landscape together with the post-industrial systems that inhabit them hold a vital connection to the heritage of the Highlands. The history of Neolithic brochs and cairns is a significant one in this landscape and the future of the post-industrial site is now just as open to interpretation. Through this dissertation, we will come to understand how industrial ruins may become significant additions to Scottish heritage and by following the layers of Dounreay’s mapping, we will develop an appreciation of the histories that have marked its ground and as a result put ourselves into a position that is best suited to speculating on its future re-imagination.
[Fig. 7 (Below) Drilling Rigs in the Cromarty Firth]
List of Figures 1. Construction of DFR [Online] Available at www.hi-energy.org.uk/ Decommissioning/Dounreay. (Accessed April 16, 2015) 2. Remains of a Settlement at Easter Turrerich [Online] Available at http://highlandclearances.blogspot.com/2012/02/croftinafighag.html (Accessed April 16, 2015) 3. John MacCrae Composition in Margaret MacDonell, The Emigrant Experience: Songs of Highland Emigrants in North America ( Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 36-37. 4. Construction of Loch Sloy Dam [Online] Available at https://canmore.org.uk/site/92619/loch-sloy-dam (Accessed April 16, 2015) 5.Pipeline at Kinlochleven [Online] Available at https://canmore.org. uk/site/76446/kinlochleven-aluminium-works-pipeline (Accessed Aptil 16, 2015) 6. Dounreay Power Station [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay.com/details/php?ID=2757 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 7. Drilling Rigs in the Cromarty Firth [Online] Available at http:// media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/1b/87/ce/1b87ce239925248b88313869de5fabef.jpg (Accessed April 16, 2015)
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Chapter Two
RESOURCE EXPLOITATION IN THE HIGHLANDS
Resource Exploitation in the Highlands
02
Mapping the Spoils of Industrialisation
THE chronology of certain industrial activities in the Highlands demon-
strates that recent changes in the landscape, although hailed as radical, are deeply rooted in history. The following examples of iron, aluminium, water and oil cultivation demonstrate that industry has long inhabited the Highland stage and has consequentially scribed into the ground clear marks of its occupancy. What can be seen is that the Highlands have been transformed through the events of industrialisation from a landscape of small pre-clearance farming communities to one scattered with the monuments of industry. Through topics of scale, duration, aesthetics and social migration, this research will outline changes highlighted by the spoils of industry. It will present the themes of discussion in Dounreay and identify various critical conditions that need to be considered when re-imagining a post-industrial site.
Bonawe Iron Foundry In 1753, Robert Ford founded the Bonawe Ironworks on the seashores of Loch Etive. Iron’s historical presence in this landscape is still marked today by a host of visual traces. The undulating ground around the foundry evidence of deposited slag heaps and the treeless landscapes that surround proof of the charcoal that was once needed to fuel the great furnace. From a tiny farming community, iron brought to this landscape for over a century the benefits of its industry, but now among the crumbling stone of the old casting house it is a ruin in this Highland landscape.
Kinlochleven Aluminium Works
[Fig. 8 Aerial view of Kinlochleven Aluminium Works]
The residues of aluminium production have a great presence in the landscape of Lochaber with the post-industrial township of Kinlocheven serving as the greatest of these legacies. Once a desolate glen, the only traces of a human occupation were at the hunting lodges of Kinlochmore and Kinlochbeg. However, under the colossal figure of Blackwater Dam and the great volumes of water it holds behind we can begin to understand the scale of changes the aluminium industry brought upon this landscape. The growth and demise of this once prosperous town is symbolised by the concrete footprint of the former reduction works. Still tied to the pipes that once powered its smelters, it serves as a reminder to the great socio-economical transformation that aluminium brought upon the Highlands. Aluminium made clear the power and wealth to be found in the water’s of Scotland and as a result the industries to would follow would go on to far more significantly alter the Highland landscape.
Harvesting the Waters of Sloy
[Fig. 9 Workers in Powerhouse at Kinlochleven Aluminium Works]
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The historical use of water as a natural resource in the Highlands can be traced by its many architectures of reservoirs and dams, pipes and power stations, aqueducts and intakes; they are monuments that have all left their mark upon the Highland landscape. Once limited to private endeavors such as that seen at Kinlochleven, it was not until 1943 and the inception of NoSHEB that the wide scale harvesting of Scotland’s greatest natural resource began to the benefit of its rural and urban communities. Tom Johnston, the chairman of NoSHEB, saw Scottish waters as an opportunity for social engineering and through such planning he intended to help the impoverished Highlander. Where light and heat were once the products of gas lamps, peat and wood, he sought to introduce the utility of electricity into homes, taking control of Scotland’s entire water system to create modern homes and higher standards of living. This, he envisaged would halt the threat of emigration of young men on their return from the war who had been exposed to the greater opportunities that lay abroad. The first development by the board in this drive for renewable energy was materialized in 1948 on the shores of Loch Lomond at the Sloy Power Station dam. 182-foot tall and spanning 1,170 feet across, this was the first of a post-war reconstruction that would provide hydroelectric power all the way
[Fig. 10 Sloy Power Station]
[Fig. 10 Sloy Power Station]
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[Fig. 11 Pipeline at Sloy]
[10] Engineering Timelines, “Sloy Hydroelectric Scheme”, Engineering Timelines, http://www. engineering-timelines.com/scripts/ engineeringItem.asp?id=1014 (accessed April 10, 2015.)
[11] Peter L Payne, The Hydro: A Study of the Development of the Major Hydro-electric Schemes Undertaken by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (Aberdeen, Scotland: Aberdeen University Press, 1988), 99.
[12] Historic Scotland, “Sloy Awe Hydro Electric Scheme, Sloy Power Station Including Boundary Walls, Gates and Gatepiers (Ref:43188),” Historic Scotland, http://data. historicscotland.gov.uk/pls/ htmldb/f?p=2200:15:0:::::BUILDING:43188 (accessed April 10, 2015).
[Fig. 12 Catchment area of the Sloy scheme]
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from the glens to Glasgow. To achieve such a feat however, the entire waterscape surrounding the dam had to be re-calibrated. Out of sight in the hills to the north and south, great lengths of tunnels and aqueducts were driven into the ground to divert every possible drop of water towards the reservoir and the voracious appetite of Sloy’s turbines. As a result, the reservoir grew considerably and the level at Sloy rose by 150 feet, thus effectively doubling it in length. [10] The natural drainage basin once at 6.5 square miles, was extended to 32.5 square miles [11] and this artificial network therefore totally re-ordered the natural flow of the water at Sloy and throughout the Highlands. With the need to present the industry formally within the landscape, NoSHEB took great care in developing an architecture that would best represent the optimism and hope that surrounded it. Tasked with transforming these industrial volumes into a positive architectural expression was Harold Ogle Tarbolton. His modernist design for Sloy deploys the use of simple forms that are clean and pure against the backdrop of the surrounding crags and trees. Glazed facades offer views of the airy, light filled turbine hall that itself resembled the positive psychological impacts this industry was intended to have. In contrast to this language, the form of the dam is more organic in its relationship with the natural rock that embraces it. Far less delicate in its aesthetic, its functional requirements mean it is a monumental inscription on the ground. The combination of these styles is expressed in the finer details at Sloy where the oak doors, crafted brass handles and polished marble pillars give a quality to the interior that further demonstrates the scales of ambition that NoSHEB intended to express through these new hydro architectures. [12] Signs of the hydro’s duration in this landscape can be observed by the way in which the once clear line between the man-made and the natural has gradually faded. The fear of industries introduction to this once ‘pristine’ landscape has largely disappeared under the moss and lichen that have adopted the built forms of its industry. This new habitat is one created by the rooting of human activity where the infinite limits of Scottish water have continued to remain a vital renewable source of energy for Britain. The cross-fertilisation of the natural and man made is indicative that these industrial architectures are firmly bedded within the future of this landscape.
[Fig.13 Loch Sloy Dam and Reservoir]
[Fig.14 Sloy Dam and Reservoir]
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[Fig. 15 Aerial of Nigg Fabrication Yard]
An Industry of Utility in the North Sea The 70s were a decade plagued by energy crisis. Beset by uncertainty, the nation lacked a reliable oil supply and up until the 1960s, Britain’s oil supplies were imported at huge costs. The idea that the country may be sustainable in its resource was an impossible dream until the discovery of the wealth that was to be found in the North Sea. In 1967, after the first well was drilled, a number of foreign companies were quick to assert themselves into this region and by the late 80’s the Highlands were prospering from the gluttonous consumption of oil.
[13] Carolyn J. Stone, Marine mammal observations during seismic surveys in 2001 and 2002. JNCC Report, No 359. 2006. 38.
For companies to confirm the locations of oil and gas reserves in offshore waters, marine seismic surveys are used to determine the structure of the substrate beneath the seabed. Airguns generating low and high frequency soundwaves are fired; the resulting reflections then used to map the underlying geology. Despite the human concept of sea as a place of silence, for many marine mammals and fish, sound plays a key role in their natural functioning. Feeding, navigation and social interaction all depend on the auditory sense and by introducing a foreign acoustic into this environment the possibility of interference can often lead to physical harm. A survey taken by the JNCC in 2002 looked into the reactions of cetaceans when airguns were fired and found that, “positive interaction with the vessel or its equipment occurred significantly more frequently when the airguns were silent than during periods of shooting.” [13] Further traces of the industry’s impact can be recorded to the offshore waters surrounding the Shell owned Gannet Alpha Platform. In 2011 a leak detected to a seabed flow line sent over 200 tonnes of oil bubbling into the North Sea. The sheen of leaked oil on the ocean’s surface was a glaring reminder of the damages these anonymous rigs can have on the ecosystems of their marine environment. Hidden then from our consciousness, these offshore infrastructures may not be considered publicly to be of immediate harm to the landscape, though what I have eluded to above is an indication of how they are doing precisely that.
[Fig. 16 Oil leaking from flow line]
[14] Maxwell Gaskin, North Sea Oil & Scotland: The Changing Prospect. (London: The Economist, 1997), 13.
[15] Joseph A. Pratt, Tyler Priest & Christopher James Casteneda Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas. (Texas: Gulf Publishing Company, 1997), 249.
The sheer scale and size of the yard and its buildings led to the loss of these adjacent sand dunes, intrinsically disrupting the character of the previous landscape. “The constantly shifting tidal mud flats, beaches, dunes, spits and bars give a dynamic feel to the east coast of Scotland,” [17] however, the siting of the yard on this peninsula has given a real sense of permanency to the Cromarty Firth. Aerial images of Nigg (Fig. 15) give us an indication of this grounding, as the yard appears as much a part of the physical landscape now as the shifting dunes once did.
[16] Ibid., 249.
Both the aerial and terrestrial views show that the scale of this industry is alien within the confines of the bay. The dotted rigs through the Firth and the great warehouses that sit within the yard have created a new landscape view defined by an aesthetic of utility and huge size. The visible consequences of oil are ubiquitous in our hydrocarbon age with the products of petro-chemistry vital in constructing today’s plastic culture. However, the agents of that culture are distinctly remote and inaccessible to the ordinary person whereby their monotonous blanket walls and huge steel structures are a reflection of the famously secretive and image sensitive corporations that build them. The representation of oil is one articulated and orientated around the idea of a silently running platform or fabrication yard, where the architectural motif employed naturally entails notions of containment and service. What does
[17] Moray Firth Partnership. “Landscape of the Cromarty Firth.”. Moray Firth Partnership, http://morayfirth-partnership. org/landscapecromarty/html (accessed April 10, 2015).
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The nature of drilling platforms demands a particular physical condition for the siting of the yards that create and maintain them. Nigg Bay is one that proved to be an ideal candidate with level land and deep nearby water fulfilling the principal requirements demanded of these landscapes. [14] Opened in 1972, the yard soon boasted Europe’s largest dry dock and this 300 x 180 x 15 metre structure required the removal of around 1.5 million cubic yards of sand and sandstone that were deposited at the edge of the bay. [15] With the graving dock in place and the associated equipment constructed, including more than 60,000 square metres of buildings, the Nigg Yard ‘rose from the sand dunes to become one of the leading fabrication yards in the world.’ [16]
not come through in this aesthetic however is the environmental injuries it have been inflicted and the regional histories that have been reordered as a result of their industry. One such social community witness to the transformative power of oil was the nearby settlement of Alness. At its peak Nigg employed over 5,000 people and Alness quickly saw its population rise from 3,000 to 6,000 in the years between 1971 and 1981. Many of those incomers came from Glasgow, with clear traces of their presence still evident in the town today. [18] Doubt was cast over the employment of this migrated workforce in 2000 when the decline of orders led to the closure of Nigg. However, its acquisition by the Global Energy Group in 2011 has continued its life in the industry and plans for a second quayside development have brought the promise of new jobs in the immediate future.
[18] Alness. “Alness in Bloom.� Alness, http://www.alness.com?Alness-in-Bloom-g.asp (accessed April 10, 2015).
The hydrocarbon age in the Highlands can be traced back to a clear beginning and the changes it brought significantly impacted on the ground. Oil is a non-renewable resource and although its duration is unknown, towns such as Alness that have been built around their industry must prepare themselves for a future similar to the one enforced upon Kinlochleven. Like nature, the infrastructure of oil yards is resilient and adaptable. Once in place, these post-industrial structures will endure in the Highland coastline and therefore we must consider how is best to ameliorate them. Whether as current trends suggest that is through renewables and the fabrication of wind turbines is open to interpretation However, critical to the planning and consent of how we construct the power generators of the future is an appreciation of their footprint and their degree of sustainability in a landscape with ever increasing demands being placed upon it. This chapter has identified ways in which the grounds of the Highlands have been altered by different industries that have acted upon it. As demonstrated in these four examples and in particular through water and oil, we can begin to understand the extent to which industry has re-shaped this landscape. The scale and duration of their dominance across the coastal and mountainous grounds of Scotland has become clear and has manifested itself formally within the individual aesthetic of each industry. With regard to oil, despite its ubiquity within this environment, the scale of its structures and limits at which they operate is difficult to comprehend. The spectacular sight of a drilling platform sluggishly ferried through the Cromarty Firth still inspires a sense of awe at its presence. However, once returned to the vast waters of the North Sea, they resume to operate invisibly in the background, out of sight and out of mind. Similarly, the myriad of water catchments that feed the great reservoir basins that generate power for an entire country is something inconceivable when you stand at the summit of Ben Vorlich looking over the waters of Loch Sloy. Those across the nation who presume the perpetuity of electricity are unlikely aware that it has come at the expense of the complete re-calibration of the Highland waterscape. In that way they are also blind to the micro happenings and the rich subtleties to be found in the ground of these sites. In the new ecosystems that now inhabit the infrastructures of water, or the blending of native and foreign populations in the oil towns of the eastern coastline, under the theme of duration, these sites have evolved to become permanent additions in the Highlands whereby their stories are beyond a point of being dismantled. The extents of these social and environmental alterations are difficult to visualize, but it is possible as I propose, through the process of mapping.
[Fig. 17 Drilling rigs in the Cromarty Firth]
List of Figures 8. Aerial view of Kinlochleven Aluminium Works [Online] Available at http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/76800/details/kinlochleven+aluminium+works (Accessed April 16, 2015) 9. Workers in Powerhouse at Kinlochleven Aluminium Works [Online] http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/76800/details/kinlochleven+aluminium+works (Accessed April 16, 2015) 10. Sloy Power Station [Online] Available at http://static/panoramio. com/photos/large/11800004.jpg (Accessed April 16, 2015) 11. Pipeline at Sloy [Online] Available at http://canmore.rcahmsgov. uk/en/site/94415/details/inveruglas+loch+sloy+hydro+electric+power+station (Accessed April 16, 2015) 12. Catchment area of the Sloy scheme in Peter L. Payne, The Hydro: A Study of the Development of the Major Hydro-electric Schemes Undertaken by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (Aberdeen, Scotland: Aberdeen University Press, 1988), 100. 13. Loch Sloy Dam [Online] Available at http://canmore.rcahms/gov. uk/en/site/92619/digital_images/loch+sloy+dam/ (Accessed April 16, 2015) 14. Sloy Dam and Reservoir [Online] Available at http://canmore. rcahms/gov.uk/en/site/92619/details/loch+sloy+dam/ (Accessed April 16, 2015) 15. Aerial view of Nigg Fabrication Yard [Online] Available at http:// ncap.org.uk/frame/8-1-3-1-63-206?search=keywords/nigg&freetext=yes (Accessed Aptil 16, 2015) 16. Oil leaking from flow line [Online] Available at http://news.stv.tv/ north/266633-shell-releases-video-of-oil-spill/ (Accessed April 16, 2015) 17. Drilling rigs in the Cromarty Firth [Online] Available at http:// media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/1b/87/ce/1b87ce239925248b88313869de5fabef.jpg (Accessed April 16, 2015) 18. Nigg Fabrication Yard with rig under maintenance [Online] Available at http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/288768/contribution/ nigg+fabrication+yard/FNLnf_24467/ (Accessed April 16, 2015)
[Fig. 18 Nigg Fabrication Yard with rig under maintenance]
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Chapter Two
WHAT IS HIDDEN IN A MAP?
What is Hidden in a Map?
02
Mapping the Spoils of Industrialisation
“For him who flies above it, a map is all he sees, This living scape of being but symbols and degrees; The reader of the maplines has neither known nor felt The place where the great Mihaly Vorosmarty dwelt; What’s hidden in the map? Yes barracks, mill, and arms, But for me crickets, oxen, steeples, quiet farms; With field-glasses he marks the crops and industries, But I, the trembling laborer, the forest trees, The twittering orchards, vineprops with their tended grapes, And the old granny in the graveyard where she weeps; And what is targeted as rail of factory Is just a lineman by his signal-box to me, And children watch him wave his red glad for the guard; And sheepdogs rolls and tumble in the foundry-yard; And in the park the trace of loves who once loved me, The honey taste of kisses sweet as bilberry, And on the way to school you’d not step on a crack Lest you’d forget your lesson, or break your mother’s back; The pilot cannot see that paving-stone, that grass; To see all this, there is no instrument or glass.” [Fig. 19 Miklos Radnoti, I Know Not What]
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AS outlined in the introduction, mappings are deconstructive and specu-
lative tools. Not just a two-dimensional representation of the landscape, they are formed from fragments of material found and discovered and reveal to the reader altogether new relationships and experiences in the landscape. [19] This mapping is a process of thought that whilst measuring present and past conditions, lives in the future and is more concerned with the processes involved than the results acquired. Neither scientifically authoritative nor factually legitimate in the traditional sense, they are creative attempts to influence the discourse of re-imagination through discovery, as opposed to recovery. [20] As we will come to understand in Discovering the Spoils of Dounreay, the effects of this power station have been felt far further afield than its proximate surroundings. Through drawing these observations between sites and within the site, mapping becomes a measuring device that makes this landscape as a whole far more comprehensible and open to future interpretation.
[19] Alan Berger, Reclaiming the American West. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 18.
[20] Ibid., 18.
In his poem ‘I Know Not What’ (Fig. 19), Miklos Radnoti’s description of the landscape of Hungary makes legible conditions of the landscape that are otherwise immeasurable. He presents to the reader the numerous scales that perform on the ground but that often go unnoticed. Paul Emmons observes in his essay Drawing sites: :Site Drawings, that the geometrical drawing of lines on paper is directly analogous to marking the ground of a site. As noted by Leon Battista Alberti in his On the Art of Building in Ten Books, he states, “it was customary to mark out the line of the intended wall with a trail of powdered white earth” [21]. This direct practice of drawing, where plans were etched into the earth by stretched ropes and sunken pegs, reinforced the bond between the architect and the ground. Now more formally the process of walking a compass across an architectural drawing, the two are still akin. For us to intervene appropriately within these post-industrial landscapes we must understand that, “architectural drawings are not merely conventional signifiers, but are instead meaningful manifestations meeting at the intersection of the real and the possible.” [22] Significantly then, a reason for this discussion is to highlight that the conventional methods currently deployed in landscape representation are far too stable and final in their aesthetic. With little recognition of their temporality and to the shifting landscapes they depict, their apparent closure undermines the imaginative and creative capabilities of what they represent. The sophistication of modern surveying techniques and the spatial images they generate have replaced the measured maps one might find in John Home’s 1774 survey of Assynt. Through Home’s presence in the landscape and his critical analysis of the ground, he was able to provide a more accurate representation of what it was to live off the land and from his drawings came the fairer distribution of ground based upon its agrarian potential. As such his maps provided clarity of the land that helped alleviate the pressures of starvation and halted the waves of emigration from the county.
[21] Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. J. Rykwert, N. Leach & R. Tavenor. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), 101.
[22] Paul Emmons, Drawing Sites : : Site Drawings,” in Architecture and Field/Work, ed. Suzanne Ewing, Jeremie Michael McGowan, Chris Speed & Victoria Clare Bernie (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2011), 128.
As Denis Cosgrove notes in his publication Mappings, the current scale of official state maps is one comparable to the cruising altitude of a passenger jet. The difference in recognition when viewing the landscape at this height compared with the macro scale and the subtle weaves seen on ground questions the ability of current methods at accurately depicting these landscapes. In comparison, the techniques of mapping I will propose are the same as those that Emmons, Corner, and Cosgrove allude to. Through rendering the invisible visible, drawing in this way acts as vehicles of creativity that allows for an understanding of the terrain that isn’t limited to the surface expressions of the ground. The hidden social and natural forces that underlie any given place are uncovered and considered and in that sense the map is inextricably linked with any future unfolding’s in the landscape. As Cosgrove states, “an implicit claim of mapping has conventionally been to represent spatial stability (and) in a world of radically unstable spaces and structures, it is unsurprising that the idea of mapping should require rethinking.” [23]
[23] Denis Cosgrove, Mappings. (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 5.
Considering this, the method of work I am proposing is to ask the reader to engage in a discourse with the map that reveals new stories and unexpected solutions in the landscape. To take a fresh, holistic view of the ground and
[24] Alan Berger, Reclaiming the American West. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 18.
[Fig. 20 John Home’s Survey of Assynt]
[25] James Corner & Alison Bick Hirsch, The Landscape Imagination, Collected Essays of James Corner 1990-2010. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2014), 161.
[26] Ibid., 164.
List of Figures 19. Miklos Radnoti, I Know Not What [Online] Available at http://www.visegradliterature.net/works/hu/Radn%C3%B3ti_Mikl%C3%B3s-1909/Nemtudhatom%E2%80%A6/en/18930-I_ know_not_what%E2%80%A5 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 20.John Home’s Survey of Assynt [Online] Available at http://mapsnls.uk/view/74424927 (Accessed Aptil 16, 2015)
envision what was otherwise overlooked, unseen or unpredicted. [24] In the following chapter I will present the different levels of enquiry at Dounreay through separate layers of a drawing. These individual scripts of a greater narrative will draw out of an existing landscape a clear description of the ground that may then subsequently transform the future meaning of it. [25] Drawing is an embodied activity that engages and informs the designer’s imagination and when applied to these post-industrial sites there holds within it the possibility of creating reimagined landscapes, previously unforeseen, of richer and more meaningful dimensions. [26]
Chapter Three
discovering the spoils of dounreay
Discovering the Spoils of Dounreay
03
Mapping the Spoils of Industrialisation
DRIVING
north through the peat lands of Caithness along the Causeway-Myre road you quickly realise that this is a county of rolling plains, shallow lochs, wide vistas and huge skies. Translated into Gaelic as Gallaibh, its English definition is read as ‘Among the Strangers’, and should you find yourself in such northern territory, that is perhaps how you might feel towards the natives of this historic land. Unlike the vast topographies before it, this is a strikingly flat land bounded to the west and south by the peaks of Ben Hope and Ben Klibreck. To the north it faces the power and might of the Pentland Firth and to the east the wealth of the North Sea. A small land, it covers merely 700 square miles with most of its underlying rock hidden, buried beneath loose materials deposited in the ice age and by the deep peat beds which give this area its more recognisable title of ‘The Flow Country’. Where the bedrock is visible, it is often dramatically so, in coastal cliffs and geos or in the man-made quarries of Caithness flagstone, an illustrious resource of the area whose value reaches as far as the streets of New York. The geographical nature of this site was once its greatest asset; the fertile quality of the land meaning farming was prosperous and a long coastline enabling an extensive fishing community.
[Fig. 21 Landscape of Caithness from space]
[27] Herbert Muschamp, “Building on the Ruins of Temples to Nuclear Power”. The New York Times, April 2, 1995, http://www.nytimes. com/1995/04/02/arts/architectureview-building-on-the-ruins-oftemples-to-nuclear-power.html (Accessed April 16, 2015)
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[28] James Gunn, Dounreay History: Brief History of Dounreay. (Dounreay: Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, 2001), 1.
Much of this agrarian history dates back before any accounts of it were written. However, such is the profusion of Neolithic remains to be found in the region that their occupancy in the landscape is clearly marked by the bumps and indentations of Cairns and hut circles alike. How the inscriptions of these structures have endured through time illustrates the lasting effects the people of this place can have on its landscape. One such people were the nuclear pioneers of the 1950s, who brought to this landscape a new industry, allegedly clean in its production, the effects of which though can still be profoundly seen and measured today. It is almost 20 years since the last nuclear power was generated from Dounreay. Since then and for the last decade, the task for Dounreay Site Restoration Limited has been to decommission and clean the effluvia of three decades of low, intermediate and high level radioactive waste detectable in the surrounding landscape. Although the word decommission may seem to evoke images of a crisp, bureaucratic efficiency, the reality behind its process is far from neat. [27] It is proposed that ten years from now the facility will reach its interim end state (IES) and thereby fulfill its closure contract with the NDA to achieve full restoration of the site and clean all contaminate materials left behind by the first of Britain’s nuclear undertakings. This will make Dounreay a brownfield site. However, it will not mark the end of it existence. The site at that time, devoid of visible structure will be fenced off inside a high security compound, left to the governance of nature for next 300 years until any traces of man-made waste is at a level safe enough for humans to once again inhabit. This begs the question, alike their Neolithic counterparts, how will the activities of atomic Dounreay be perceived in the landscape of future Caithness? The remains of nuclear power are an entirely different proposition to the charm of ancient Brochs and chambered Cairns, so how might we reimagine past and present Dounreay for the best obtainable future possible? This is the question that I will seek to address in this subsequent chapter, using the cognitive act of drawing as a tool to order, reinvent and rediscover. Firstly, it would be valuable to understand why this particular site at Dounreay was chosen for the location of a nuclear power station. o The area had a sparse population, thus minimizing public health is sues in the event of a major nuclear incident. o Access to the sea for effluent discharges and cooling purposes. o Access to a very large supply of fresh water. o Extensive area of flat solid ground suitable for building large facili ties. o Two sizeable towns nearby with a pool of labour readily available, social amenities and scope for the new housing needed for the incoming skills and professional labour. o Established transport links by road, sea, rail and air. o Dounreay airfield was already owned by the Government through Admiralty. [28]
What made the traditional farming and fishing industries of Caithness prosperous in past times were for similar reasons why this new modern industry had chosen this location. Attracted by the same remote, flat coastal landscape, nuclear power was now a force ready to create its own mark on a new layer of the region’s history. The need for Dounreay came out of the aftermath of the Second World War. A shortage of readily available fossil fuels to accommodate for the nation coupled with the crippling cost of importing them from abroad meant the energy of nuclear power was seen as the right fit to satisfy these amplifying needs. The uranium fuel for this industry was at the time a scarce resource, with the demand for nuclear weapons great after the war. Sparing the details of a complex nuclear evolution, out of this uranium shortage the Dounreay Fast Breeder Reactor was born. Construction of the plant started in March 1955 and in a matter of four years, 180 facilities had been erected on site. Local man Alistair Fraser was a boy when the first of the construction began and he commented, “every day you passed Dounreay, the skyline was becoming jagged, fractured as new buildings were going up and cranes were towering into the sky.” [29] It is worth stating, however, that preceding the plant here was the wartime airfield, RAF Dounreay and the Boston camps, which grouped in small clusters, can clearly be seen in Fig. 22 to the south of the site. These camps were christened with the names of British aircraft and served as accommodation for the workers who constructed the airfield. Before the nuclear facility there had been only a handful of structures scattered across Dounreay and therefore, the simple visual impressions of these new atomic buildings on this landscape cannot be understated. The form of DFR is the most striking of these impacts. Structurally completed in May 1958, the sphere was an architectural response to its own engineering and technological requirements. 41 metres in diameter and constructed of mild steel it wasn’t until over a year later that the reactor achieved criticality. For Dounreay, this was its greatest achievement to date and the first triumph in British nuclear research. The second of these visual marks is the Prototype Fast Reactor. Commencing construction in 1968, PFR took the lesson learnt from DFR to become capable of producing far greater levels of electricity and as such, its appearance in the landscape is much different. The structure put in place for the reactor was a stainless steel tank 15 metres in depth and 36 metres in circumference. [30] Unlike DFR, this reactor sits beneath the ground and as such, the sectional dent of its activity will mean that the capping of this void will be necessary come the time of the IES. Much of this material will be the recycled rubble from the many demolished buildings on site. In doing so, this relict of nuclear power will be inscribed long into the future of this landscape when all visual traces of their terrestrial structure have gone.
[Fig. 22 View of Boston Camps]
[29] Corrina Thomson, “Dounreay 50 years on,” Nuclear Engineering International, March 23, 2004, http://www.neimagazine. com/features/featuredounreay-50-years-on/ (accessed April 10, 2015).
[Fig. 23 Boston Camps]
[30] William A Paterson, 50 Years of Dounreay (Caithness: North of Scotland Newspapers, 2008), 69.
The Atomics: Mapping a Social Impact
“...at 4:30pm each day the only traffic jam north of Inverness takes place as Dounreay empties and the town of Thurso fills.” [31]
The current population of Thurso is a diluted mixture of the lineal descendants of the inhabitants of Thurso and the more proximate descendants of the pertinently named ‘Atomics’; incomers to the town, attracted by the prospects of a new nuclear employment. The union of these people has proved remarkably successful, with the natives of Thurso naturally absorbing the atomics much as they assimilated with the Norse incomers before them. The construction of this technological experiment in Dounreay brought with
[31] Alistair Scott, Native Stranger: A Journey in Familar and Foreign Scotland (London: Warner Books, 1995), 81.
[32] James Gunn, “Dounreay Heritage,” Interview by author. February 20, 2015.
[33] William A. Paterson, 50 Years of Dounreay. (Caithness: North of Scotland Newspapers, 2008), 13.
it great experiments of a social kind. The population of Thurso, over a period of seven years, nearly tripled from roughly 3,200 to 9,000 residents. [32] Prior to this sharp increase, the truth of the matter is that Thurso was in a state of decline. Both fishing and flagstone industries were slowly dying and the agriculture that had once brought opulence to the region had become mechanized, not affording the same promise of jobs it had previously done. As explained by Caithness writer Donald Omand, prior to the new growth, Thurso was heading, “into little more than a beautiful village.” [33] The government, wanting to ensure all facets of this nuclear development were successful worked hard to get the amalgamation of these people right and very quickly the ground of Thurso was changed. A number of new housing estates were developed by the SSHA and NDA, with further infrastructural, leisure and social facilities assembled to accommodate for this growth in population. With many of these atomics being young newlywed couples, the birth rate also rose significantly, resulting in new schools and a technical college on the periphery of the town. Now into the third generation of these families, it can be said with some confidence that the government realised its task of integrating the atomics into one of the remotest landscapes of Britain. One question to be asked now in the light of Dounreay’s closure is will Thurso continue to provide opportunities for its inhabitants? The legacy of Dounreay is one that has changed the social landscape of Caithness considerably. Generations of today grew up with the iconic view of DFR on their horizons and its constant presence has been a transformative agent in shifting the attentions of Caithnessians from a community of farmers to one of industrial vanguards. We can speculate with some confidence that the trades of fishing, flagstone and farming will never again reach the prominence of their past, so what now might the ground provide for the future of Thurso?
[Fig. 24 Construction of ‘Atomic’ Housing Scheme]
[34] James Hunter, On the Other Side of Sorrow: Nature and People in the Scottish Highlands. (Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, 2014), 220.
[Fig. 25 An ‘Atomic’ family]
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Should it seek once more to harness innovative energies then the potentials of tidal power in the Pentland Firth are well documented alongside the already implemented wind turbines in the landscape. If these powerful waters were to become the future of this town could they be more responsive and conscious to a landscape that is still recovering from its last great industrial enterprise? For me, a return to its agrarian pastime would be to disregard the possibilities that its landscape currently presents. As explained by Hunter, ‘to go down that road would simply be to evade the challenge which this magnificent piece of territory poses to anyone prepared to think seriously about its future.’ [34]
[Fig. 26 Particle excavation]
[Fig. 27 Diver surveying seabed]
Mapping the Ecological Impact Between the years 1963 and 1984, thousand of small particles of radioactive fuel escaped from Dounreay’s liquid effluent outfall diffuser. Since then they have been consistently detected and recovered from the surrounding seabed, coastline and beaches. Unsurprisingly, this significantly impacted on the ecosystems in those areas. Located 600 metres north of the coastal edge, the diffuser chamber at the end of the effluent tunnel has been recognised as one of the main sources of radioactive discharge from the station. [35] Richard Short, email message to DSRL Hydrogeologist, March 3, 2015.
[36] Steven McKenzie, “Dounreay radioactvitiy animal testing could be reduced,” BBC New: Highlands and Islands, March 24, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ new/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-12834612 (Accessed April 10, 2015).
[37] Rob Edwards, “Scottish nuclear fuel leak ‘will never be completely cleaned up’,” The Guardian, September 21, 2011, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/21/scottishnuclear-leak-clean-up (Accessed April 10, 2015).
Located in a high-energy environment, the diffuser is often subjected to the strong tidal currents of the Pentland Firth and as a consequence the waste particles are incredibly mobile within their marine environment. After divers began to find traces of these radioactive particles near the outfall, an exclusion zone was established in 1997 by the FEPA. As a precaution, the removal of crustacea, fish and molluscs within a 2,000-metre radius from the old outflow is therefore prohibited. [35] The UKAEA now understands this contamination to be mostly LLW though some HLW particles have also been detected. That being said, DSRL are required to regularly test species in these waters to ensure they are not being harmed by any past discharges from the facility. As of 2009, more than 22,000 marine animals were caught, killed and tested including 1,254 crabs, 130 lobsters, 190 fish and more than 21,000 periwinkles. [36] When the ban was introduced in 1997, the aim was to return the seabed to its original condition, cleared of all pollution and traces of nuclear industry. However, since this recommendation, SEPA have conceded that to return the seabed to a pristine condition would ultimately do more damage than good. [37] By trying to reach a waste material that doesn’t pose any significant threat to human health, local ecosystems may be destroyed and more numbers of marine wildlife put at threat. As previously stated, the industry of fishing was and still is to a lesser extent today, an important source of income for many Caithnessians. The reactions of local fisherman to the ban have been varied. Some believe it unnecessary as the movement patterns of the crabs and lobsters caught in the Dounreay area often mean they travel long distances and might quite as easily be fished outside of the enforced radius. Others consider it imperative that a ban is put in place with some fishermen occasionally finding radioactive debris in their creels, therefore inciting the worry that their source of income and livelihood will be put in jeopardy.
Archeologies of Waste [38] Scottish Natural Heritage, “Soil Function: Cultural and Archaeological Heritage,” Scottish Natural Heritage, http://www.snh. gov.uk/protecting-scotlands-nature/safeguarding-geodiversity/ pressures/living-landscape/cultural-and-archeo/ (Accessed April 10, 2015).
“Soils hold in their properties and structure the imprints of historical and pre-historical record of human activities.” [38]
Performing as a library of cultural and environmental information, ground preserves a record of our deposits on top of and within the earth. One such record can be identified at Cnoc-na-h’Uiseig on the site of Dounreay. Dating back to 4,000 B.C, this chambered cairn sits just north of the old airfield. Record of an ancient past, the cairn contained a number of relics and artifacts, yet in 2005 this Neolithic structure was to be excavated in preparation for the construction of new disposal facilities for the profusion of low-level waste on site.
[Fig. 28 Past LLW storage facility]
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The Vaults A much more considerable mark on the landscape than Cnoc-na-h’Uiseig, the two LLW vaults were completed along with their inherent infrastructures and services in May 2014. 243,000 cubic metres of soil was blasted and excavated from the ground producing extraordinary negative landforms out of this exhumation. Once cleared the vaults were then lined with reinforced concrete walls in preparation for the 175,000 cubic metres of solid waste that needed managing. An additional three-metre layer of excavated material (enhanced geosphere) was also placed across the existing ground surface between the vaults and coastline to ensure that any future contaminated groundwater flows out into the sea rather than the surrounding soil. These aren’t the only two vaults to expect here though; DSRL has permission for up to four more sub-surface vaults to accommodate for further LLW arising from plants decommission. Once filled, ‘Demolition LLW’ and ‘LLW Vault’, as they are known, will be closed and capped over with engineered materials in preparation for restoration landscaping. Planted with resident verdure, these vaults will become new features in the flat fields of lower Dounreay. Artificial topographies swelling from the landscape acting as markers of a contaminate injury long to be felt in the ground. The remains of the waste materials from the generation of nuclear power with not likely be forgotten any time soon, with inscriptions of [Fig. 30 Aerial view of excavated LLW vaults]
[Fig. 31 Artist’s impression of vaults future end state]
[Fig. 29 Mapping of ‘The Vaults’]
[Fig. 32 Construction of LLW vaults]
The Shaft In May 1997, in what turned out to be a seminal year for Dounreay, the 65-metre deep waste shaft on site exploded, scattering radioactive debris throughout the local landscape. It was around this time that criticism of nuclear power and the programme at Dounreay was mounting and this incident did not help to dispel those worries. Particles emitted from the explosion in the shaft have since been detected as far as Sandside Bay, 10 miles west of Dounreay. As a result, UKAEA is required under the authorization of SEPA to routinely monitor local sites along the coastline; Crosskirk, Brims Ness, Scrabster, Thurso Beaches and the Dounreay Foreshore.’ [39] Although these particles - irradiated fuel the size of a grain of sand – are concluded to be of no significant public health risk, it is the perceived risk they pose that
[39] BBC News, “‘Nuclear particle’ find on beach,” BBC News, March 26, 2005, http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4384435.stm (Accessed April 16, 2015).
defines one of the greatly discussed environmental problems in the area. In 1998 the decision was made for the shaft and the neighboring silo to be emptied of their ILW. Expected to be demolished by 2021, after incurring costs of approximately £355 million, this stage of the site’s decommission will see the end to one of the major projects in the site’s cleanup. Although the greatest visual scars of this tunnel will disappear with its demolition, satellite images and tools of our modern day visual culture will still display traces of its inhabitance on the coastal edge. Further still, the particles strewn across the landscape will continue to serve as a stark reminder of the shaft’s past detrimental impact. [Fig. 33 Waste inside shaft]
[Fig. 34 Working platform at shaft]
[Fig. 36 Mapping of ‘The Shaft’]
The Landfill
[Fig. 35 3D schematic of shaft and effluent system]
[40] Dounreay Site Restoration Limited, “Landfill 42,” Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd. http://www. dounreay.com/decommissioning/ infrastructure/offsite/landfill-42 (Accessed March 12, 2015).
The third example in these archaeologies of waste is the landfill. Adjacent to the eastern territory of Dounreay, Landfill 42 is located just outside the licensed perimeter of the site, though record of its waste being deposited there dates back to the early 1960s. Used for the disposal of materials from excavations and building demolition, it is estimated the UKAEA deposited around 70,000 cubic metres of soil, rock and concrete at Landfill 42 until 2005. [40] In 2006, UKAEA pleaded guilty at Wick Sheriff Court after it was discovered that small amounts of radioactive waste had illegally made their way into the landfill. As a result, SEPA served a closure notice on the landfill and DSRL have recently completed the task of excavating the contaminated ground and capping it with 25,000 tonnes of rock. Public access to this site will continue to be restricted for the next 300 years with DSRL required to periodically monitor the ground for gas, groundwater pollution and other signs of waste contamination. Consequentially, this inert site could have easily been abandoned, but instead there has been an attempt to appropriate this large area in a manner beneficial to the local wildlife. A top layer of gravel and shingles has been implemented in the hope that it provides suitable ground for the artic terns, ringed plovers and other nesting birds found in the area. As of yet however, this engineered site has remained vacant; unfamiliar to the birds that would naturally find home in such ground.
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[Fig. 38 Landfill 42]
[Fig. 37 Mapping of ‘The Landfill’]
The Drainage Further traces of human intervention in the ground can be seen in the plant’s drainage system. Divided into five zones, each focused around its own milliscreen station; the drains are buried and pass through these stations before the discharge heads out to sea. This vast and elaborate network of active and non-active drains weaves below the grounds surface, drastically altering the configuration of that subterranean environment. As highlighted by Strang, these infrastructural systems are so complicated that they begin, “to take on qualities of nature itself and therefore present the same threat of random catastrophe that nature does.” [41] All of the active drainage on site at IES will be decommissioned and removed, though the future of the non-active systems remains in doubt. If is found that they are uncontaminated, then this vast network may yet remain. Submerged below the surface, these lines of human geometry will become a permanent feature in the ground of Dounreay. Though these structures will remain invisible, supplementary surface ditches will further express the marks of human habitation.
[Fig. 39 Construction of Landfill 42]
[41] Gary L. Strang, Infrastructure as Landscape (Infrastructure as Landscape, Landscape as Infrastructure) Places, 10 (3), 1996, 12.
What we can see from these examples is how the industrial activities of Dounreay are now inexorably intertwined with its immediate landscape. Forming new layers within the ground, these archaeologies of waste have been cosmetically mitigated in an attempt to return the site to some image of its untouched former self. In some cases this may be achieved, however, in others the results will never entirely dispel the traces of human activity. Often without visual manifestation on the surface, records of their existence will live on in policy or for the argument of my purposes, in drawings and maps.
Mapping Archaeobotanics Robert Dick was a self-taught botanist and geologist who spent much of his life observing the surrounds of Caithness. Fascinated by the geological formations and native fauna of the area, over his lifetime, Dick collected an incredible amount of material from this landscape. Most impressive of these collections is his herbarium. Now housed at the Caithness Horizons museum in Thurso, when visiting this collection you are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of species that are on display. Over his time wandering through the landscape, Dick amassed around 3,000 specimens, which still to this day are
[Fig. 40 Construction of drainage adjacent to effluent tanks]
[Fig. 41 Workers laying drainage]
[Fig. 42 Mapping of ‘The Drainage’]
a precious resource when seeking to understand the plant species adapted to this northern landscape. As previously stated, the post-industrial site of Dounreay is one that will likely be planted over with the native greenery of Caithness and the numerous species that were documented by Robert Dick. Current research conducted by the ERI is attempting to set in place plans for ecological restoration of this brownfield site. Reference data taken from seven sites along the coast has provided information of the plant diversity to be found on these ocean-exposed cliff tops which has thereby informed the six plots of land that are now being used to test the viability of certain vegetation classifications for implementation into decommissioned Dounreay.
[42] Alan Berger, Reclaiming the American West, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 209.
[43] Alan Berger, Reclaiming the American West, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 209.
[44] James Hunter, On the Other Side of Sorrow: Nature and People in the Scottish Highlands. (Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, 2014), 224.
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A question that arises from the nature of restoration ecology is to what extent do we restore these grounds? What levels of history do we propose to reapply to the post-industrial site? Instead of returning to a bygone age, these landscapes have the potential instead to be seen as the viable testing grounds for a range of new ecologies that may lead to more programmatically inventive uses and future occupations of the landscape. [42] The marks of industrialisation on the ground have the ability to expand our aesthetic sensibilities beyond the simplistic judgments of what is natural and what is man made. Through their cross-fertilisation they unveil the possibility of revaluing the landscape and through that edification may lead to the creation of a number of new forms and ecologies. [43] What these six small plots of ground on the periphery of the site present then is the potential to test an array of cosmopolitan species that might become permanent additions to this landscape. Could Dounreay provide sanctuary for threatened species native to the UK and Scotland such as the Scottish Primrose or the Oyster Plant? A seed bank is just one of the opportunities available. A return to it past, after such disruptions have occurred seems the least interesting of these though. As outlined by Hunter once more, “we have the opportunity today in the Scottish Highlands to turn around those processes which have done so much damage,” [44] and through Archaeobotanics and a new approach to restoration ecology, perhaps we may do so.
Mapping the Ruins of Dounreay
“Ruins entail not only ‘decay’ but the image of what was once considered to be viable or even ideal. They are objects of the past that show us an alternative form of the present.” [45]
Visiting Dounreay in its current guise is a rather odd experience. Although the site has been closed for many years it still remains very active in its process of decommission. Neither operational nor yet a ruin, from a proximity of 10 miles down the coast at Sandside Bay, the white dome in the words of William Paterson, “dominates in dramatic silhouette the flat and empty landscape of the far west of Caithness.” [46] Few settings are so dictated by a single modernist building that carries itself like a medieval cathedral over its landscape. To possibly lose it would be to mark the end of an era, the dissolution of a nuclear monastery that is a symbol of industrial progression and achievement in Scotland. What is interesting about the nature of nuclear power is how it is a source of energy imperceptible to the human senses. Our inability to feel the effects of radiation with any immediacy is then perhaps hyperbolized by the sheer size and brutality of nuclear reactors. Maybe it is only when they become great impressions on the landscape, in the way that DFR does, that we are able to appreciate the severity of their activities and the damages they inflict upon the ground. If Dounreay is remembered in 300 years by a single image it will most certainly be that of DFR. Alike all the structures on site, the sphere was an architectural response to its own engineering and technological requirements. 41 metres in diameter and constructed of mild steel, it is still unsure of today the fate of the structure that has since its construction has been an intrinsic part of this landscape. As Huyssens explains, “concrete, steel, and glass building materials aren’t subject to erosion and decay the way stone is.” Unlike the gradual ruination seen at Bonawe, the challenges of preserving nuclear power facilities for the nostalgia of their ruin are substantial. Where significant levels of contamination exist, how this affects the case for their costly preservation is an important question to ask in how they are imagined for future use. Perhaps it’s the case that a bold move or future imagining isn’t necessarily employed and the interest is instead in the very processes of ruination of the site itself. In that sense, an on-going process of non-human interference could lead to a host of conceivable outcomes over the course of time. I am reminded here of the works of Gilles Clément and ‘The Third Landscape’ whereby a designation of space is left to landscape evolution and the control of nature. In juxtaposition to grounds submitted under the exploitation of man, The Third Landscape – an inaccessible raised rock mass planted with 3,500 square metres of natural vegetation – forms an area of receptivity to biological diversity alone. [47] One can imagine that a similar future might be adopted at Dounreay. Under the control of the previously discussed Archaeobotanics, this post-industrial landscape and the decaying structures of its nuclear heritage could be conditioned and remade by the activities of natural living systems. Potentially overseen by an elevated architecture, Dounreay over the course of its 300 years of exclusion may become host to countless variations of native and foreign ecologies. Manipulated and operated by mechanized levers and arms, the speculative futures that we may imagine for this ground are plenty.
[45] Nicolas Stutzin, Ruins and Monuments. Advanced Architectural Research 2010-2011, Columbia University GSAPP, 2011, 56.
[46] William A. Paterson, 50 Years of Dounreay, (Caithness: North of Scotland Newspapers, 2008), 31.
[Fig. 43 Gilles Clement, ‘The Third Landscape’]
[47] Gilles Clement, “The Third Landscape”, Gilles Clement, http://www.gillesclement.com/ art-454-tit-The-Third-Landscape (Accessed April 10, 2015).
List of Figures 21. Caithness from Space [Online] Available at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/Archaeology/Images_Multimedia/research_projects/ river_stone/river_01.JPG (Accessed April 16, 2015) 22. Aerial view of Boston Camps [Online] Available at http://library. dounreay.com/details.php?ID=1904 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 23. Boston Camps [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay/com/ details.php?ID=1296 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 24. Construction of ‘Atomic’ Housing Scheme [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay.com/details.php?ID-2806 (Accessed April 16, 2015)
[Fig. 44 DSRL’s impression of Dounreay at IES]
25. An ‘Atomic’ Family [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay.com/ details.php?ID=2811 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 26. Particle excavation [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay.com/ details.php?ID=947 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 27. Diver surveying seabed [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay. com/details.php?ID=1167 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 28. Previous LLW Storage Facility [Online] Available at http://library. dounreay.com/details.php?ID=1853 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 29. Mapping of ‘The Vaults’, Authors own image 30. Aerial view of excavated LLW vaults [Online] Available at http://library. dounreay.com/details.php?ID=2756 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 31. Artist’s impression of vaults future end state [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay.com/details.php?ID=840 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 32. Construction of LLW vaults [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay.com/details.php?ID=2770 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 33. Waste inside shaft [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay.com/ details.php?ID=149 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 34. Working platform at shaft [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay. com/details.php?ID=291 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 35. 3D schematic of shaft and effluent system [Online] Available at http:// library.dounreay.com/details.php?ID=139 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 36. Mapping of ‘The Shaft’, Authors own image 37. Mapping of ‘The Landfill’, Authors own image 38. Landfill 42 [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay.com/details. php?ID=2660 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 39. Construction of Landfill 42 [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay. com/details.php?ID=2661 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 40. Construction of drainage adjacent to effluent tanks [Online] Available at http://www.dounreay.com/UserFiles/Image/Particles/d1211%20effluent%20tanks.jpg (Accessed April 16, 2015) 41. Workers laying drainage [Online] Available at http://library.dounreay. com/details.php?ID=1159 (Accessed April 16, 2015) 42. Mapping of ‘The Drainage’, Authors own image 43. Gilles Clement, ‘The Third Landscape’ [Online] Available at http://3. bp.blogsport.com (Accessed April 16, 2015) 44. DSRL’s impression of Dounreayat IES [Online] Available at http:// library.dounreay.com/details.php?ID=2731 (Accessed April 16, 2015)
Chapter Four
a reimagined highland landscape
A Re-Imagined Landscape
04
Mapping the Spoils of Industrialisation
[48] Gaston Bachelard, On Poetic Imagination and Reverie, Trans. Colette Gaudin (Dalas: Spring Publication, 1987), 15.
[49] Alan Berger, Reclaiming the American West. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 209.
[50] Alan Berger, Reclaiming the American West. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 209.
List of Figures 45. Mapping of Re-Imagined Dounreay, Author’s own image.
“Imagination is not, as its etymolog y would suggest, the faculty of forming images of reality: it is rather the faculty of forming images which go beyond reality, which sing reality.” [48]
The narration of this dissertation has highlighted one question in particular – after centuries of industrial occupation and those inherent marks that are now scribed across all measures of the landscape, how might we go about re-imagining the post-industrial Highland site? Through the uncovering of Dounreay, what has been presented is a method of work that goes about answering that very question. Latent conditions in the ground fashioned by industrial processes are lost when current cartographies are employed. However, by adopting new modes of representation, one may re-learn through the map how they perceive these altered landscapes and as such we can begin to speculate on the possible changes that could be made to them. This proposed approach to mapping offers a critical resource for the re-imagination of the post-industrial landscape that is inventive, speculative and more appropriate to the layers of change that manipulated in. What exactly this re-imagination might be remains unanswered. These sites are experimental fields, which rather than being restored to their pre-industrial occupations should be speculated upon. [49] In this exploration of Dounreay, moments of juxtaposition and overlay in the drawn map and written word have highlighted some of these imagined futures. Presented within Mapping Archaeobotanics, the suggestion that Dounreay might become a form of seed bank is a pertinent thought. The observations and collections of Robert Dick is proof of a botanical past and within the contaminate grounds of the site, foreign species and ecologies may be tested to allow for other constructs of nature to potentially evolve. [50] Equally thought provoking, as discussed in Mapping the Ruin of Dounreay is the possibility of architectures that might hover over these ecological testing grounds, casting frames of shadow as they encourage and monitor these unfamiliar interactions. Alternatively, should the re-imagination of these sites put them back to industrial work then the future productivity of sustainable sources such as wind and water becomes more assured. As time repeats itself these systems and the structures that support them may cease to produce and the question raised by Spence re-emerges; will they sustain themselves as ruins within the landscape? In the example of Dounreay, its physical infrastructure and iconic DFR will not. The contaminate waste of its past is deemed so untenable within this landscape that out of its decommission will become a zone of exclusion for the next three centuries. This presents a different type of ruin though, a ruined landscape that may host a number of speculative futures. However, for other speculations, their own sustainability and usefulness must be considered within the historical context that informs our choices about land-use in the future. The altered landscapes presented in this dissertation are examples of an emergence of post-industrial sites across the Highland setting that reveal in their reordering of the ground the cultural systems that required and produced them. Bonawe, Kinlochleven, Sloy, Nigg and Dounreay are human interventions that were born out of necessity and although in certain cases that has gone, out of their duration they have been absorbed into the narrative of the environments they inhabit to create a new landscape condition. So much of Scotland’s heritage pivots around perceptions and values of nature and landscape vistas. Whilst the consequences of industrialisation can be considered as a cause to the demise of that heritage, if we were to adopt a cognitive method of drawing and analytical mapping of these landscapes, then the Highlands would become a place where new re-imagined grounds would be inaugurated. Indeed, this may be the modern innovation that unlocks the potential now inherent within them.
[Fig. 45 Mapping of Re-Imagined Dounreay]
38
Chapter Five
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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05
Mapping the Spoils of Industrialisation
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