Hot Dirt by Margot Shafran

Hot Dirt

Margot Shafran Design Thinking: Research and Design Methods SP17 Washington University in St. Louis Faculty Assistant | Malia Kalahele Instructor | Jacqueline Margetts

Hot Dirt

Margot Shafran Design Thinking: Research and Design Methods SP17 Washington University in St. Louis Faculty Assistant | Malia Kalahele Instructor | Jacqueline Margetts

Credit: US National Archives (208-N-43888)

CONTENTS

06 hot dirt

20 spectacle

34 west lake landfill

52 radiation and body

56 unbuilding

64 building half-life

90 sources

hot dirt St. Louis sits at the epicenter of 20th century chemical warfare. Along the banks of the Mississippi River, the Mallinckrodt Chemical Corporation processed uranium used in the Manhattan Project and for development of nuclear technology through the Cold War. The by-product of this process can emit radioactive energy for thousands of years. This project is an effort to understand and interpret the post-conflict landscape of nuclear war in St. Louis. It is an investigation into how we might remember and interact with a paradoxical past; a past of conflict between awe and fear, triumph and tragedy, discovery and destructiveness, through modes that both reveal and conceal conditions.

8 hot dirt

Hot Dirt // soil containing radiation. A term used by 1990 Mayor of Berkley Missouri, William Miller, in an interview with the New York Times (Schnieder, 1990).

The complex socio-political context of nuclear extraction, processing, and disposal has informed built spaces, environments, and greatly impacted the people living in its wake. This project proposal is an effort not only to reveal the radioactive environment in the region, but also investigate scars of an emotional and cultural nature. This is not an effort to solve the social, political, or environmental conditions that revolve around sites of nuclear waste. Instead, it is a promise to engage in an alternative dialogue, one of respect, and curiosity with the fallout of nuclear armament. This is a local condition with a global reach, of which the consequences are likely too large to fully understand in the moment, affecting the conditions of soil, water, and air, creating unfit conditions of habitation for biota. Photo by David Carson at the St. Louis Post Dispatch

10 hot dirt

In 1942 the Manhattan Engineering District created the first self-contained nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago. The uranium oxide used in this critical reaction was produced by the Destrehan Street Refinery and Metal Works - this later became Mallinckrodt Chemical Works. Afterwards the Manhattan Project contracted Mallinckrodt Chemical Works to continue to produce its enriched uranium. St. Louis was only one location in this assembly line of atomic production, but its position has had lasting effects in the St. Louis Region and the world at large. Between 1947 and the mid 1960s, waste from the Manhattan Project was under the care of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This waste consisted primarily of leached barium sulphate cake residue and was stored in North West St. Louis, now known as the St. Louis Airport Sites (SLAPS). In 1962 a private company bought the uranium and radium processing wastes stored at SLAPS by the AEC, and moved it in 1966 to the Hazelwood Interim Storage Site (HISS) at 9200 Latty Avenue. Due to change of ownership of this private company, much of the radioactive waste was sold and shipped to Canon City, Colorado. The rest, mostly leached barium sulphate cake residue, was diluted with soil and taken to West Lake Landfill, not as a waste product, but as a capping material between daily doses of home waste.

12 hot dirt

Movement of Uranium during Manhattan Project

Plutonium Production Hanford WA

uraniu m or e

Construction of Atomic Bomb Los Alamos, NM

Atomic Bomb Hiroshima + Nagasaki Japan

14 hot dirt

cr ud

m iu an r u

uranium ore Shinkolobwe, DR Congo Uranium Ore Extraction

Oak Ridge TN Uranium Enrichment Uranium Processing St. Louis MO

Based On: St. Louis Uranium Plantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (SLUP) Role in the Production of the Atomic Bomb, 1942-45, from St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 12, 1989, page 4. 15

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x 4.5

24.5

day

tes inu 4m 1.1 5 years x10 .33

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4 4 23 23 mmiu iu or n h t ti ac 234 ot pr ium n a ur

Radioactive // the physical property of elements that spontaneously emit particles by the disintegration of their atomic nuclei.

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yea

-2

o th

Half Life // a measure of how long it takes for a radioactive isotope to decay to half its original value.

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Uranium is the heaviest element of the periodic table with 92 protons. In nature uranium consists of two primordial isotopes, uranium-238 (92%), and uranium-235 (0.7%), with very small amounts of uranium-234. Like all other elements with atomic weights greater than iron (26), uranium is only naturally born in supernovae. Uranium decays by emitting an alpha particle. Uranium-235 is the only naturally occurring fissile isotope, and therefore exploited for its nuclear capabilities. As uranium undergoes decay by emitting alpha particles, it creates entirely different elements known as daughters. Uranium decays to become protactinium (91). Protoactinium too is radioactive and decays to become thorium (90). Thorium becomes radium (88). Radium becomes radon (86) and so on. Each of these elements has its own properties including its own half life. Uraniumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s final daughter, is lead. Lead is no longer radioactive, but is still toxic to humans.

16 hot dirt

Uranium (92 protons)

Lead (82 protons)

0 Half-lives

1 Half-life

2 Half-lives

18 hot dirt

yea

x 4.5

24.5

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tes inu 4m 1.1 5 years x10 .33

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x10

1.0

recorded human history

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1,0

yea

Architectural Half Life // the time it takes for half of a building to decay

According to architectural scholar Withold Rybczynski, architectural half life refers to the fashion of a building. How long a building is appreciated for, and in his observations, it is about 30 years. Perhaps, however, we can understand architectural half life instead as the time it takes for a building to decay. In order to do this, we must acknowledge that buildings all have an intended lifespan. We can alter this lifespan by either speeding it up, or slowing it down. To slow it down, we renovate and repurpose. To speed it up, we demolish and disassemble. In each case, the original building has been altered such that it is now a new state, with a new architectural half-life.

y ar

Given the complexities of addressing radioactive remediation, how can knowledge surrounding nuclear processes inform a method of making architecture through interrogation, exposure, and anticipation of a future state within the context of the nuclear landscapes?

spectacle Spectacle, an instrument â&#x20AC;&#x153;to the organization of regimes of perception, and to forms of collective experience, population management and social-ecological order that, in this case allow for abandonment and exposureâ&#x20AC;? (Kurpar, 146). There are two predominant methods of managing nuclear waste sites, the salvation method and a neo-liberal framework of surveillance (Krupar, 148). A salvation framework attempts to rescue the purity of the landscape through environmental cleanup. This includes the reintroduction of plants and wildlife in order to advantage environmental tourism. Alternately, a framework of surveillance works to manage the legacy of nuclear production into an infinite data dependent future. Through constant observation, testing, budgeting, supervision and regulation, these nuclear waste site sustain an economy of unlimited regulation. The induction of spectacle onto a site is a response tactic used to make sense of the sites violated by the prioritization of warfare over humanity and natural systems. Further, through the practices of monumentalization and memorialization, the transformation of nuclear landscapes to cultural landscapes create landscapes for consumption and concealment. Instead, these landscapes should be considered landscapes of complex socio-political histories that need to be further tested and explored by designers. These methods of spectacularization reduce environmental memory by concealing their pasts.

24 spectacle

Trinity Site, New Mexico First Nuclear Explosion Site The Trinity Site is the location of the first ever nuclear bomb detonation on July 16, 1945. Its location is within the White Sands Missile range, an Army Base for testing weapons for the DOD. The site is open to visitors two times per year. By restricting the sites availability to civilians, it further heightens this landscape as spectacle. It does this by increasing the disassociation of humanity with the gravity of the site by distracting visitors with the speciality of the visit. A small obelisk sits in isolation surrounded by desert with little indication of the destructed and destructive landscape it once was. This case study helps to understand an approach to nuclear landscapes where their significance is heightened through restriction of access, yet as a result, the gravity of the site is also disguised by the spectacle of exclusiveness. The approach utilized by Trinity Site in response to environmental memory is similar to the point of view of American photographer Peter Goin, who in his photographic book â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nuclear Landscapesâ&#x20AC;? explores the nuclear context as a landscape of desolation and expansiveness, one where the human is a foreign object. In doing so, he describes these landscapes through pictorial symbolism, evoking the fear inherent in these terrains. Through his archive of images, the use of photographic techniques helps to symbolize the destruction that occurred on the land, but objectifies them as no longer attainable to the human civilian. Instead they are archived through imagery only, accessible only through the pages of a book. This form of documentation is one way in which the memory of nuclear landscape remains, perhaps due to the inherent danger of radioactive exposure, it is the only way these sites can remain in the consciousness of memory. Left Top: www.wsmr.army.mil/fn/Pages/TrinityOpenHouse.aspx Left Bottom: Google Earth Aerial, Trinity Site Right Top: Randy Siner, The Salt lake Tribune Right Bottom: US Dept of Energy/ National Atomic Museum

26 spectacle

Warfare to Wildlife

Weldon Spring Conservation Area, Weldon Spring Missouri Nature // pure, separate, external Spectacle // a strategic ontology that arranges biopolitical relations regarding the separation of Nature and Human. Greenwashing of military land and the conversion into nature refuges, is an example of spectacle used as a biopolitical technique - ‘warfare to wildlife’ (Krupar, 2016). The “post military nature refuge has been used to...bury public criticism or annex environmental critique to military goals, and to foster ignorance of the biophysical socialization of risk and exposure” (Krupar 2016, 124). Nuclear landscapes such as Weldon Spring Ordinance Works “propagate the idea that such lands are now demilitarized and safe for public recreation and observation of nature” (Krupar 2016, 122). The result; consumption of nature, such that it becomes spectacle, and removes the political context of these landscapes. Concealment of site contaminants is further generated through offices of regulation and observation that create an economy of decontamination projects. In the frame of this investigation spectacle can be understood as the biopolitical separation between human and waste, as a method of rationalizing disposal through a denial of the grace condition. Warfare to Wildlife tactics generate landscapes displaced in place.

Credit: Schoenewies, Jessi. Weldon Springs Ordinance Works. Jan 19, 2013. Online Image. Flickr

concentrated material

displace

disperse

dilute

move

seperate

weaken

Clair McCaskill Senator D-MO 730 Hart Senate Office Building, DC

28 spectacle

Roy Blunt Senator R-MO 1000 Walnut Street, Kansas City, MO

Displacement // to move out of initial position, into another position. Potentially to be in a place it does not belong.

Dispersion // the action of distribution over a large area.

Dilution // the action making something weaker in force, content, or value.

Displacement is not Dispersion is not Dilution. What if nuclear waste had been displaced to these sites instead? How would their management been dealt with differently? I suspect with more urgency and vigor. To investigate where and how this nuclear waste could be displaced, I imagined a present where the nuclear waste was situated with immediate adjacency to significant stakeholders in the St. Louis nuclear question. Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Hazelwood, MO

Environmental Protection Agency + U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Office St. Louis, MO

30 spectacle

After Hiroshima elin o’Hara slavik A monograph of cyanotypes of Atomic Bombed artifacts from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The process of exposure is essential to understanding this photographic project. o’Hara’s work considers exposure to radiation, to the sun, to light, to history, and then also exposures made from radiation, the sun, light and historical artifacts from the Peace Memorial Museum’s collection. After Hiroshima engages ethical seeing by creating a visual of warfare, in order to confront the conflicting paradox of making visible the inhuman from the point of view of witness, artist, and viewer (elinoharaslavick.com).

Atomic Gardens + Gamma Garden Atomic gardening is a fad from the 1960’s where civilians were encouraged to experiment with atomic energized produce seeds for radiation-induced mutagenesis. Plants were exposed to radiation in the hopes they could generate larger, brighter, and more resistant fruits and vegetables to stress. This entrepreneurship came in response to a creed for peaceful use of atomic energy after World War II, with the hope that atomic breeding could be used to reduce global hunger. This initiative shows the possibility for citizen science on sites of radioactive material. Gamma Gardens on the other hand, are office test plots where plants have been exposed to radiation, therefore adopting a range of unpredictable genetic mutations. Typically, Gamma Gardens take the form of a circular field where plants growing closest to the center are most exposed to a radioactive source. Further away, plants are less exposed, and likely less mutated. At the edges, dikes were designed to contain the radioactive material, and limit exposure to organisms outside the dike. Caesium-137 is recommended for this type of testing due to its short half life of 33 years. (“Gamma Gardens & Caesium 137 – The Center for Genomic Gastronomy”) Left Top: Johnson, Paige. Brookhaven National Labs, New York 1958. Left Bottom: Institute of Radiation Breeding, Hitachiohmiya, Japan Right Top: Atoms for Peace symbol Right Bottom: Scherschel, Frank LIFE Magazine, 1961

34 spectacle

The Hibaku Trees Atomic Bomb Survivors. On August 6th 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima Japan. 170 trees survived the bomb. These are called the Hibaku Trees. Since 2006, artist Hiroshi Sunairi has been distributing the seeds of these Hibaku trees throughout the United States and Singapore, inviting people to plant and nurture the growing artifact. This is an act of remembrance and a memorandum of hope established through the on-going life of these trees. This project is a nod towards the slow process of healing after significant disaster. Now, the daughters, and daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daughters grow proudly throughout the world.

west lake landfill ‘’The dirt would fall off the trucks...there was waste all over Hazelwood and Latty (avenues). Sometimes if it rained, the stuff got so thick and sticky it looked like cow manure.” Skip Cothran, a forklift operator, told the St. Louis Dispatch | 1989 (“Building a Mountain of Radioactive Waste”)

As a consequence of the mismanagement of nuclear waste, the whole city is potentially a site of contamination. Workers at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Plant were paid per barrel to take away potentially radioactive refuse. Where this material ended up is practically invisible. Additionally, as the waste moved from the downtown site to SLAPS, the dirt was carried in open trucks, allowing the random dropping of materials along roadways throughout the city. As a result, the defined boundary around nuclear waste is a fallacy. Radioactive material likely exists along stream beds, in ditches, along roadways, and in people’s backyards. It’s imperceptibility through touch, taste, smell and site makes it mostly impossible to detect. How then can we respond to the problem, when it is invisible?

38 west lake landfill

Source Material

Mallinckrodt Chemical Works Plant Downtown, St. Louis MO Mallinckrodt Chemical Works was the first large scale producer of uranium oxide and uranium metal, both materials requested by the Manhattan Engineering District in the endeavor to create nuclear weaponry. The Mallinckrodt Chemical Company produced one ton of uranium oxide per day (1996 St. Louis Sites Remediation Task Force Report 2). This endeavour was one of particular danger, and secrecy. Workers were not aware of what they were making, and scientists who may have had some understanding were sworn to secrecy by the FBI. Possibility of material explosion and inhalation of radioactive dust particles were severe, but not a primary concern by workers or management. “If we had known as much about the adverse health effects of human exposure from processing uranium and being exposed to the resulting radioactive waste, would we have chosen a site in the center of Missouri’s largest urban population center to do the processing?” (1996 St. Louis Sites Remediation Task Force Report 2, 14).

St. Louis MO - Date Unknown: Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, Building No. 707, Destrehan Street between Hall & Wharf Streets, attached to Building No. 706, Saint Louis, Independent City, MO. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division 39

West Lake Landfill

Weldon Springs Conservation Area

40 west lake landfill

9200 Latty Ave St. Louis Airport Storage Site

Mallinckrodt Chemical Works Plant

West Lake Landfill

42 west lake landfill

9200 Latty Ave

St. Louis Airport Storage Site

Locations of reported rare Appendix Cancer St. Louis International Airport Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals SSM Health DePaul Earth City Hollywood Casino

44 west lake landfill

Mismanagement

West Lake Landfill, Bridgeton MO In 1973 this landfill site became contaminated with radioactive material when soil mixed with leached barium sulfate was used daily to cover over solid wastes. It was mixed in with household refuse, debris, and other soil and fill making up 146,000 cubic yards of radiologically contaminated medium. As such, radioactive material is located in the top 6 inches of the landfill, as well as between 7ft and 12ft below surface. This toxic mixture is situated within 28 acres of West Lake Landfill in two separate sections: OU-1 Rad Areas 1 and 2, and a narrow strip of adjacent property called the “Ford Property” or the “Buffer Zone/Crossroads Property.” (westlakelandfill. com, History page) In 1990, West Lake Landfill was placed on the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL). While the landfill has been closed since 2005, the site still acts as a transfer station where smaller neighbourhood trash loads are consolidated into larger loads and transferred elsewhere in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area, potentially collecting radioactive material and spreading it to other parts of the city.

Recent History of West Lake Landfill

Agricultural Land

1939

1950

1973

Limestone quarry and crushing operation.

Portions of quarry and adjacent area used for municipal, industrial, and demolition waste.

8,700 tons of leached barium sulfate from the Manhattan Project mixed with approximately 38,000 tons of soil

‘In Plane Site’ West Lake Landfill Aerial by Author, March 2017

The Encroaching Disaster

A smoldering fire at adjacent Bridgeton Landfill Bridgeton Landfill, immediately adjacent to West Lake Landfill poses another risk. Underground, a growing fire smolders. This fire is 60’ to 150’ underground, where there is no oxygen. It looks more like a “trail of hot, partially combusted material and a low-lying haze of gas.” (“The Bridgeton Landfill ‘Fire’ Explained (Updated)”) This fire can not easily be put out due to its depth underground, and unknown exact whereabouts. The degree of severity in relationship between the fire and the radioactive material at West Lake Landfill remains controversial. While the fire appears to be several hundred yards away from the nuclear waste, preventative measures are being taken by imposing 28 cooling points between the fire and West Lake Landfill. If the fire were to reach West Lake Landfill, radon and radium would likely be released into the air and dissipate northward with the wind.

46 west lake landfill

West Lake Landfill

Bridgeton Landfill

Underground Fire Operable Unit-1 Radiation Area I Operable Unit-1 Radiation Area II

Site Exposure Geiger Counter // An instrument to detect radioactivity in objects, people, plants, and dirt. Using this device you can measure ionizing radiation from alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays.

To understand the radioactivity occurring at these unbounded sites, I borrowed a Geiger Counter from Randy Korotev a lunar geochemist from Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Earth and Planetary Science. I am by no means a scientist, nor even a citizen scientist. Therefore, while my methods were deliberate, they were not scientific and limitations of data collected are inherent. At HISS (Hazelwood Interim Storage Site), radiation levels were highest. There, the site is insecure, and open to public entry, therefore, I chose to walk into the site 50 ft to take a reading. SLAPS and West Lake Landfill on the other hand are secured areas. In fact, at West Lake Landfill, after pulling up outside of the entry, an employee of Republic Services (the current owner of the facility) immediately pulled up next to me and started documenting my licence plate through images. Their intimidation tactic worked, and I left without taking a Geiger reading. How has secrecy and lack of trust inflicted harm on the situation? Are there policies in place to more tightly control contemporary hazardous waste disposal?

48 west lake landfill

SLAPS 0.0mR 0.0mR

0.0mR 0.0mR

0.0mR

HISS

0.2mR 0.0mR

West Lake Landfill

0.0mR 0.0mR 0.0mR

0.0mR

Ludlum General Purpose Ratemeter Model 3 with Pancake Probe Detector.

0.0mR

50 west lake landfill

Missouri River 100 Year Flood Plain 500 Year Flood Plain Operable Unit-1 Radiation Area II Operable Unit-1 Radiation Area I Spanish Village Neighbourhood SB 600 Buyout Radius (1.5 miles) Vacated Neighbourhood

St. Louis Lambert Airport Bus Stop Bus Line

52 spectacle

Surface/Subsurface Disconnect Warfare to wildlife sites, such as Weldon Spring Conservation Area, expose the division between surface and subsurface conditions. This is similar to the conditions at West Lake Landfill. While the site may not be labeled as a conservation area, the site is surfaced with urban forest - radoactive urban forest. To the eye driving by, it is a landscape rich with ecological diversity, appealing. While the site may look healthy, lush with vegetation, below surface are potentially lifethreatening substances. By greenwashing these sites it further disconnects the subsurface from surface. Initially this may be done with the intent to contain any radioactive residue, but in time, this subsurface is forgotten, and these sites are ripe for development.

radiation and body Human exposure to radioactive material destroys the body on a molecular level. When radiation collides with living cells, they become ionized. Since cells are mostly water (H20), radiation ionizes this molecule to form H+ and OH-. These are free radicals and are highly reactive in the body. Alternatively, the radiation can collide into DNA strands directly and damages it. Overall, critical cellular bonds and structures are disturbed which damages proteins and DNA in cells. To an extent, the human body can repair this damage on its own to an extent using antioxidants.

56 radiation and body

Free radical // to move out of initial position, into another position. Potentially to be in a place it does not belong.

Antioxidant // a substance that can safely interact with free radicals. Antioxidants are totally supplied through diet.

Due to secrecy surrounding and the mismanagement of radioactive waste in St. Louis, populated neighbourhoods such as Bridgeton, Hazelwood, and Berkley are exposed to increased radiation. If we consider the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works St. Louis Downtown Site as the source radioactive material, perhaps then we can understand the radioactive material at West Lake Landfill as the alpha particles of decay. West Lake Landfill can be understood as a free radical, something that has been moved out of its original position to a place it certainly does not belong. An architectural intervention that serves as an antioxidant is necessary. Perhaps, by designing a building that partners with the free-radical of West Lake Landfill, it can reduce the risk of the landfill; a necessary pairing to tame the unpredictable conditions of West Lake Landfill.

unbuilding To unbuild: the practice of strategic disassembly of existing parts and pieces, such that they can be reused and re-assembled in different combinations. A strategy to remove residents from an area of potential health risk. “Living in this area on a day to day basis is a lot of wonder on when is the ball going to drop when it’s not safe to come home ... If we walk away, we’re walking away from a huge investment,” said McCormick “If we stay, we are putting our lives at risk, if we try to sell to someone else I feel like that’s an ethical issue.” (Brieann McCormick, “Residents near West Lake Landfill See Hope in Proposed Buyout”)

Hazardous Waste Home Acquisition Program Missouri Senate Bill 600, Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal

“The first design decision is whether or not a building should even exist” (Easterling, 37) Senate Bill 600 modifies provisions relating to hazardous waste by creating the Hazardous Waste Home Acquisition Program. This program allows homeowners within a one and a half mile distance north, northeast, or northwest of I-70 at Exit 232A within the Spanish Village Subdivision to apply to sell their home for fair market rate to the Department of Natural Resources. (“SB600 - Modifies Provisions Relating to Hazardous Waste”) The bill continues as follows:

60 unbuilding

“Application criteria and timeline requirements for application criteria and timeline requirements for application decisions from the Department of Natural Resources are set forth in this act. In addition, this act sets forth an order of priority that the Department of Natural Resources shall follow when purchasing homes. Funding for the program shall be subject to appropriation to the Hazardous Waste Home Acquisition Program Fund. Under this act, if the Department of Natural Resources and the homeowner disagree with the homeowners’s appraisal of fair market rate of the home, the Department shall also perform an appraisal on the home. Concurrently, the Department and homeowner shall mutually agree upon an appraiser to perform a third appraisal. The fair market rate of the home shall be determined by averaging the fair market rate of all three appraisals. In the event that a party is dissatisfied by the averaged fair market rate, they may seek expedited review in any court of competent jurisdiction. Under this act, Hazardous Waste Home Acquisition Program costs shall not exceed $12.5 million. RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL DISCLOSURE (Section 441.236) - Under this act, any seller or renter of a premises that was contaminated with radioactive material, who knows that such premises was contaminated with radioactive material, is required to disclose such radioactive contamination to any buyer or lessee in writing. Any person failing to make such a disclosure shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.” (“SB600 - Modifies Provisions Relating to Hazardous Waste”)

Priority Zone Voluntary buyouts of surrounding 1 mile perimeter

Secondary Zone Eventual buyouts within 2 mile diameter of West Lake Landfill

Tertiary Zone Evacuation of entire devastation zone

â&#x20AC;&#x153;...methods for demolishing, imploding, or otherwise subtracting building material are not among the essential skills imparted to architects-in-training. With the belief that building is the primary constructive activity, the discipline has not institutionalized special studies of subtraction.â&#x20AC;? (Easterling, 7)

Unbuilding is a strategy of survival, beginning with the voluntary buyout within the first mile radius of the landfill, the atomic destruction zone, expanding out to a 3 mile radius.

62 unbuilding

Incremental Buyout

0 Half-lives Removal of building stock from the area to be reused in material stream.

1 Half-life Reuse of the building material to establish a center that acts a hub meteorically a nursery.

2 Half-lives Which can later dissolve, establishing a perimeter of like-minded structures, and programs, but fine-tuned for its individual public audience and context.

Building is not the only answer to an architectural question. Through an act of instigated Architectural Half-Life, the induced reduction of time required for the buildings within an area to decrease by half, we could begin to establish a subtraction, the disassembly of which could be re-injected into the material stream and become a reassembled concentration, and in time disperse to form a perimeter.

64 unbuilding

Design for Disassembly

building half-life Through design, we can create buildings that incorporate the inevitable decay of programmatic need. This can be explored through the notion of incorporating an architectural half-life into building practice such that there occurs a symbiotic relationship between the rate of programmatic decay and building decay. This speculation is in contradiction to the premise of adaptability, an architectural characteristic commonly cherished in contemporary practice.

Fun Palace | Cedric Price

Things Come Apart | Todd McLellan

68 building half-life

Fun Palace, 1961 Cedric Price The schematic design for a theatre where the audience becomes the characters, and through participation the environment changes. Due to its lack of fundamental building elements such as a roofs and walls, Cedric Priceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture became referred to as anti-building and was designed so that it could be disassembled and reassembled. Through his architectural exploration, Price showcased his belief that architecture should not control habitation, but instead architecture should allow for multiple possibilities. In Priceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, buildings are demolished, or transformed if they no longer serve their purpose.

Things Come Apart, 2013 Todd McLellan A series of prints that explore the deconstruction and reorganization of everyday objects. Through this exploration of everyday objects we can deter, that buildings too come apart. They are not stagnant objects, however they do take a lot of energy to construct and deconstruct. Perhaps, it an embedded disassembly were a part of the overall design from the beginning, this process could be less intensive.

Material Attenuation Capabilities Thickness of material able to attenuate 50% of gamma rays.

steel

brick

concrete

dirt

ice

wood

70 building half-life

8.82”

6.81”

3.31”

2.00” 2.20”

0.71”

snow

Attenuation // the reduction of the force, effect, or value of something.

20.32â&#x20AC;?

Gamma rays are the smallest wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. These rays are generated by nuclear explosions and radioactive atoms, produced during the decay of an atomic nucleus. Gamma rays are able to ionize other atoms and are therefore biologically hazardous. Gamma rays, unlike alpha or beta rays can penetrate any material, however, some material is able to attenuate gamma rays more effectively than others due to atomic density and mass. In this graphic, the material thickness required to attenuate gamma rays by fifty percent is shown. Like the decay of nuclear material, attenuation capability of material is also negatively exponential, meaning if you were to double the thickness of a material, it would attenuate the gamma rays by one quarter instead of another half.

Based on the U.S. Army Field Manual 3-05.70: Survival. Chapter 23.

Adaptive to alter conditions to suit a new purpose or condition

Reactive this is a reactive method of making architecture

Decay slow subtraction from the current condition to create a new condition

Emergent through an acceptance of inherent decay of building, it can incorporate opportunity for unknowable emergent conditions.

Displacement to enable decay of building, materials and programs must also decay. One way of decay, is the displacement of these materials and programs to other places.

To Decay Not Adapt

72 building half-life

Displacement: Strategy of Subtraction

re-assemblage of parts parts to be re-deployed negative space leftover from decay

diluted displacement

concentrated displacement

dispersed displacement

+200

+70

+46

+30

+23

+13

+11

74 building half-life

Decay Embedded into Assemblage

A building that decays in coordination with the varying lives of its programmatic elements. As programs are no longer needed, the building is disassembled accordingly.

Contingent Programmatic Futures radiation monitoring

household buyout

response

observation

marked landscape

household buyout

refuge response

observation

refuge

res

commemorate

76 building half-life

stability

response air control site cleanup radiation monitoring refuge temporary displacement disaster

pre-disaster

individual evacuation plan management resident buyout services

marked landscape

eresponse

memorial

memorialmemorial

ori

mem

marked landscape

mar

al al ori mem

ori

mem

withdrawal

sponseresponse

Initial Program

(6) 600ft Project Spaces - storage - workspace - team tables

(1) 1800sf Tribunal - Congregation space for 150 seated - public restrooms

(1) 1200sf Conference Space - to accommodate 20 people around conference table

(1) 1200sf Lab A - Scientist Space - storage - laboratory equipment - showers and change rooms

(1) 1200sf Observation Deck

(2) Lab B/C - storage - work stations - laboratory equipment

(1) 2400sf Lab A - Citizen Space - Gieger loan counter - work stations for individual work - storage - public restroom

78 building half-life

Operable Unit-1 Radiation Area I

Initial Project Site 68,000sq

citizen science home buyout evacuation dark tourism

monitoring resources site containment

remediation

air filtration

buyout services site containment

r S ch Mate

80 building half-life

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User Activity and Relationships In its initial state, this building is a citizen centre for information and aid. The US Army Corps will have a resource library staffed with a Buyout Officer available to help community members interested in leaving the vicinity of West Lake Landfill find new homes. During this time, the site will also act as a porthole into citizen science in urban radiation levels. With the help of active citizens, the US Army Corps can begin to map out radiation levels across the city, and across time. Eventually, the smoldering fire at Bridgeton Landfill will reach the hot dirt of West Lake Landfill thus disturbing this initial condition. At this point, the area must be evacuated, and the surrounding air filtered. In time, the fallout will dissipate, and radiation will be diluted.

marked landscape

Eventually, this area can be recolonized as a site of commemoration.

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In time, when the environmental memory of the site is forgotten, the land must be somehow marked as dangerous for future populations.

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Material Decay as Means of Spatial Transformation

82 building half-life

Formwork is an integral part to pour in place concrete construction. If the formwork were wood, there is an opportunity to leave the formwork in place throughout the life of the first state of building. When necessary, the wood can be burned away to reveal the construction assemblage. In this way, aperture, can be exposed.

A Material Evolution

84 building half-life

Using this method of construction can allow for variation in what formwork is removed upon concrete curement. Space can open up to form larger spaces in various combinations to accommodate anticipated programming.

Bruder Klaus Field Chapel Peter Zumthor This structure began with a wigwam made of 112 tree trunks. Once these were in place, layers of concrete were rammed and poured over top the woodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outside surface. Each layer was about 20 inches thick. Once the concrete had fully cured, the wood framework was burned such that the whole wooden structure was burned away, leaving the concrete hollow and charred. To facilitate this method of creating space, the structure is open to the sky, allowing smoke from the fire to escape. The result is a very dark cavernous space in which a visitors attention is drawn up towards the light of the sky above. This aperture is not protective against the elements, both sun and rain permeate through the opening into the space affecting ones experience. The floor is also dark, made out of molten lead (i.e. a material that attenuates gamma radiation very effectively due to its high density). Left: unknown Right Top: Samuel Ludwig Right Bottom: Samuel Ludwig

Cycles of Disturbance

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succes

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distu rbance disturbance

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also an ecological cycle

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88 building half-life

abandonment

war colonization

ake

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succesion colonization

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disturbance colonization

colonization

succesion

ster

disa

pre-

monitoring resources + citizen science

buyout services

ster

disa

transport storage

temp.refuge services

cleanup base site

Building Half-Life with Program Changes of State

90 building half-life

ilit

stab

commemoration

draw

with

marked landscape

Through the architectural process of building half-life, how can I facilitate change in programs and users on a site of uncertainty?

92 building half-life

Sources

“‘Anti-Building’ for the Future: The World of Cedric Price | St. John’s College, Cambridge.” St. John. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2017. “Backyard Atomic Gardens of the 1960s and Their Undocumented Legacy.” Messy Nessy Chic. N.p., 2 Oct. 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2017. “The Bridgeton Landfill ‘Fire’ Explained (Updated).” Waste360. N.p., 20 Oct. 2015. Web. 3 Apr. 2017. “Building a Mountain of Radioactive Waste.” Tor Hoerman Law. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2017. Crary, Jonathan. Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture. The MIT Press, 1999. October Books. (72-79) Easterling, Keller, Nikolaus Hirsch, and Markus Miessen. Subtraction. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014. Print.Engler, Miriam. “Post-Nuclear Monuments, Museums, and Gardens.” Landscape Review 9.2 (2005): 45. Print. “Gamma Gardens & Caesium 137 – The Center for Genomic Gastronomy.” N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2017. Goin, Peter. Nuclear Landscapes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1991. Print. Creating the North American Landscape. Kaushik. “A Pile of Nuclear Waste Now a Tourist Attraction in Weldon Springs, Missouri.” N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2017. Krupar, Shiloh. “The Biopolitics of Spectacle: Salvation and Oversight at the Post-military Nature Refuge.” Global ReVisions. Ed. Zahi Zalloua and Bruce Magnusson. : University of Washington Press, 2016: 116-153 Kruse, Jamie, and Elizabeth Ellsworth. “Look Only at the Movement.” Places Journal (2013): n. pag. placesjournal.org. Web. 30 Jan. 2017. “Residents near West Lake Landfill See Hope in Proposed Buyout.” FOX2now.com. N.p., 12 Jan. 2017. Web. 3 Apr. 2017. Rybczynski, Witold. “The Half-Life of Buildings: Are”great” buildings still great forty years later?” Wharton Real Estate Review SP (2008): 1-10. Saum, Steven Boyd. “Accidents Will Happen: Lessons on Honey, Smoked Pig Fat, Atomic Disaster and the Half-Life of Truth.” Places Journal (2012): n. pag. placesjournal.org. Web. 30 Jan. 2017. “SB600 - Modifies Provisions Relating to Hazardous Waste.” N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Apr. 2017. Schneider, Keith. “Mountain of Nuclear Waste Splits St. Louis and Suburbs 888>.” The New York Times 24 Mar. 1990. NYTimes.com. Web. 28 Jan. 2017. “The Bridgeton Landfill ‘Fire’ Explained (Updated).” Waste360. N.p., 20 Oct. 2015. Web. 3 Apr. 2017. “The Center for Land Use Interpretation.” N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2017. Tamari, Tomoko. “Metabolism: Utopian Urbanism and the Japanese Modern Architecture Movement.” Theory, Culture & Society 31.7–8 (2014): 201–225. SAGE Journals. Web.

94 reference

Lexicon Alpha particles - electron emitted by radioactive decay of substances, the helium nucleus emitted by an atomic nucleus (consists of two protons and two neutrons) Beta particles - high energy, high speed electron emitted by radioactive decay. Biopolitics - concept used to examine the strategies and mechanisms through which human life processes are managed under regimes of authority over knowledge, power, and the processes of subjectivation. Inert gas - gaseous element that usually does not undergo any chemical reactions under certain conditions Fissile - material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission chain reaction. Gamma Rays - smallest wavelengths of electromagnetic spectrum generated by nuclear explosions and radioactive atoms. Produced during the decay of an atomic nucleus from a state of high energy to lower energy, able to ionize other atoms and are therefore biologically hazardous. Half Life - the time it takes for a radioactive isotope to decay to half its original value. Harbinger - a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another. Memorandum - a note or record made for future use. Metabolism (architecture)- Post WWII Japanese architectural movement that fused ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological growth of the city Noe-liberalism - ideology that supports an economy of individuals to form a free-market through policies such as privitization, free trade, and deregulation. Ontology - the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being/a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them Spectacle - a visually striking performance or display. “Instrumental to the organization of regimes of perception, an to forms of collective experience, population management and social-ecological order that, in tis case allow for abandonment and exposure” (Krupar, 146) Subjectivation/Subjectification - a philosophical concept coined by Michel Foucault and elaborated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. It refers to the construction of the individual subject. The concept has been often used in critical theory, sometimes with Louis Althusser’s concept of interpolation. Superfund Site - land identified by the EPA as a candidate for cleanup because it poses a risk to human health and/or the environment due to contamination by hazardous materials. These sites are placed on the NPL.

AEC - Atomic Energy Commission DOD - United States federal Department of Defense DOE - United States federal Department of Energy EPA - United States Environmental Protection Agency FUSRAP - established by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clean up sites contaminated because of nuclear weapon and energy programs HISS - Hazelwood Interim Storage Site (9200 Latty Avenue) NPL - EPA Superfund National Priority List SLAPS - St. Louis Airport Project Site WSOW - Weldon Springs Ordinance Works 96 reference

The Hiroshima A-bomb blast, photographed by the US military on 06 August 1945. EPA/ Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

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