In the current geopolitical climate, where Arctic nations are at the brink of conflict in their pursuit for influence and resources, mining has acquired a political character, establishing a delicate equilibrium between resource claims and the protection of the territory. This equilibrium is manifested in the Svalbard Free Zone, where all nations are free to make use of its resources, yet the presence of Norwegian population, and mining as raison d’etre of inhabitation, has acted as the entity of governance and ambassador for the best interests of the region. Nonetheless, with the ongoing end of coal mining in Svalbard, and the demise of Norwegian presence in the archipelago, the ‘free zone’ will face a state of uncertainty, vulnerable to the interests and disputes amongst the Arctic nations. As the ‘free zone’s’ uncertainty threatens the stability of the entire region, mining waste becomes a glimpse of hope towards a new form of political representation. While the Arctic communities face the havocs of such waste, its potential reuse makes it a novel resource and a chance for cooperation to counterbalance both its environmental effects and the political crisis that is about to unfold. Hence, the Embassy of Waste is a political manifesto that introduces the recollection and recycling of mining waste in the decaying mining community of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, in an attempt to become a novel tool towards the governance and self-sufficiency in the region.

The project emerges from the acknowledgement of the growing phenomena of archive fever (Derrida, 1995). Driven by the need, obligation, desire or simply possibility to store a growing amount of both - physical objects and digital data, and encouraged with a constantly increasing capacity of digital media storage - we keep on gathering more. Often unconsciously or with little curation of the collected content, we keep on creating a limitless cloud archive, that has an overwhelming physical presence that takes over hectare after hectare of land. Huge, anonymous, dark and hot space, placed in a remote location – that is a typical data centre. Blending into the neighbouring storage halls is easily omitted and stays hidden from the public sight. Data storage came a long way from the representative architecture of banks, archives and city halls to a unit defined storage facility. Therefore, one may say that data centre is a continuation of the typology of storing and archiving. And a storage type that emerges is an opaque container defined by the size of a stored unit - server. These content defined buildings, technical as they are, allow for almost no human presence, but do potentially manage through their sheer size to organize and control the context they inhabit, the territory. One cannot underestimate their urban impact. Current trends in technology, among others, the Internet of Things and a growing amount of latency dependent applications will generate a need to introduce data into the cities. That gives a unique opportunity to redefine existing data centre typology. Even though data is already fully integrated and present in our lives, we rarely acknowledge it. What is more, due to a lack of understanding of data flows we are often excluded from the discussion on the degree of its presence in our lives or surveillance. The proposed project, is a gesture that brings data, technology, citizens and urban context together, emphasizing interconnections and interdependence of all aforementioned. This way introducing one of the most significant elements of our infrastructure physically into the culture, giving digital data a physical weight and interface. Creating friction between public and private, human and machine – that are completely dependent on each other and cannot function without the other.

Within the main geographical contexts of the North Sea and the Scheldt estuary, the Doelpolder area stands out for the conflictual relationships between human settlements, environmental crisis, and man-made infrastructures, which are all paradigms of the so-called Anthropocene era. The site comprises the village of Doel, the natural reserve of Saeftinghe, the nuclear power plant of Doel and the largest dock of the Port of Antwerp in a 2 km long prone-to-flooding area, which is currently facing some anthropic phenomena such as pollution, infrastructural expansion of the harbor and dismantlement of the nuclear power plant. In its process of northbound expansion at the expense of the estuarine territory and the polder-land, the Port of Antwerp has turned Doel into a ghost town by means of expropriation and economic pressure, while the flora and fauna of Saeftinghe are endangered by the alteration of their brackish habitat caused by pollution and water level rise due to both infrastructural growth and climate change. This everlasting dichotomy between natural and anthropized processes poses here the dualistic problem of extinction/preservation and if/how can architecture depict a self-healing survival scenario for this specific site in the Post-Anthropocene, attempting at climate change mitigation and nature metabolism at the same time. The project first addresses the aforementioned issues within a regional strategic and energetic plan which foresees the “de-polderization” of the area, its transformation into a controlled tidal zone for soil and water recovery and the simultaneous expansion of the natural reserve. Moreover, the thesis wants to takes a position regarding the future re-use of (parts of) the nuclear power station starting from 2025 (the date Belgium is supposed to start the phase out of nuclear energy). On the architectural scale, the building here implemented is a “knowledge ark” with laboratories and academic-related spaces, a facility which can exploit not only the world-level Port infrastructure for an optimized logistic (coldchain) but also the proximity of the natural reserve and the former agricultural vocation of the area. This repository building consists of a seed vault and a frozen zoo for the conservation of species through cryopreservation technique, but most importantly is an architectural object designed to resist or accommodate time and territorial transformations, for guaranteeing a possible rebirth of both nature and culture. To do so, the architecture imagined for the Doel site is physically linked to the water-level-rise process. When/if the level of the Scheldt rises above 2 meters (worst case scenario), the whole area will be flooded and any human survival unlikely. In these circumstances, the water will trigger the self-destruction of the facility, spreading the seeds contained in the vault all over the area and thus favouring the rebirth of nature in unpredictable climatic conditions. In the end, the Seed Vault/Frozen Zoo constitutes, like Doel, the nemesis of the Port but, also like Doel, will eventually evolve into a ruin in case of loss in the fight against, pollution and climate change.

Infrastructure, industry and extraction have greatly reshaped the North Sea over the last five decades. These specific elements played and still play a vital role in the growth and evolution of the North Sea and its adjacent countries. Among all the fishing and oil industry have become highly governmentally influenced machines and are imposing structural injustice on those in contact with its multi scalar impact. Both industries appear seemingly very different from each other however, both take part in the imposition in terms of pollution, territorial claims and impacts on identity and culture. This role has its direct effects on people closely linked to these systems, but also to those far beyond the boundaries of the North Sea. Their lives forever changed, with a low possibility to ever act against. One of the main reasonings behind this imposing role are the detached positions of these industries in relation to their territorial specificities. The lack of integration in terms of site specific entities such as climate, flows and culture are enhanced by its alienated and detached appearance directly result in the separation of man, machine and territory. Unfortunately, these industries are currently indispensable for our present-day lives, without them we couldn’t live as freely and developed as we do now. To act against the structural injustice imposed by the industries a new type of industry must be introduced and by means of it an energy transition. Allowing for maintaining benefits, yet without the imposed disintegration known from our current state of existence. The duality imposed by these industries is clearly notable in Bergen, Norway. Being Norway’s largest centre of sea based extraction, production, transportation, research and education Bergen has greatly benefitted from the extraction of oil and fish however always correlated by strong cases of structural injustice. On the other side of the industry stands Bergen’s unique landscape and its territorial specificities unlike any other city surrounding the North Sea. Together they embody a topography of chance suitable for this new type of industry, which is set to initialise an integrated and coalesced energy transition. Its result is a new approach to an equilibrium between all related subjects and objects, while providing a bodily experience embedded in and exposed to territory, flows and machine. The new type of industry entails a series of interventions linked to a multi scalar energy transition in terms of production and utilisation by means of direct linkage between man, machine and territory. The proposition consists of three main elements: a hydrogen production facility, a fuelling station and a bath house. Each individual element plays a critical role in the integration and coalescence of production, flows and territory to create an integrated and sustainable energy transition. The hydrogen production facility as the manifestation of integrated production and service to the city by means of both product and waste. The fuelling station as the long term solution and the possibility of reterritorialization of fjordic waters by local fishermen. And lastly the bath house as a social proposition of full process exposure, tangibility and integration. These elements make various appearances ranging from: the uncovering of present-day systems to the management of site specificities, use and enhancement of cultural aspects and the utilisation of clean energy and waste. Furthermore, a moment of reflection on the self and the structural injustice imposed by the governmental machines which we currently heavily rely on. Together acting as a statement of minimal intervention to maximise territorial use and therefore the activation of structural justice by means of integration.

While technological development and the rising Second Machine Age are already firmly affecting the notion of labour and the consequent disposition of our cities and territories, the remote island of Hammerfest, in the Arctic regions of Finnmark, prefigures the conditions for a radical rebirth. The full extents of automation, resulting in a post-labour organisation of economy, envisions the return of the homo ludens and enhances play as fundamental base of the new society. The explosive decentralisation of production and distribution suddenly wipes out the city, the core centre of our consumerist lives, and promotes the return to the landscape, where new pillars of society are established. On this island of utopian playground, individuals are now fully capable of engendering the shape of their existence, clustering around the ludic elements and interacting with each other in playful activities, while machines take care of their fundamental needs. Among the elements, the Theatre represents the highest form of play and, therefore, the most essential component of public life. Facing the growing automated port and the perished city, the machine of the theatre is a bridge between land and sea, on the particular conditions of a site that constantly changes under the cyclical variations of the tide. In front of the spectacle of automation, what humans stare at is the activity that has been taken away from them, the agency of their actions. A new kind of theatricality is therefore needed. Since the demise of labour invests anyone with the possibility of becoming actors of the play, the sense of spectatorship itself is questioned. Far from the optical relation of the theatron (sight), that has so far embodied its cornerstone, the theatre has now to be subjected to another relation, suggested by the word drama (action), thus endowing the becoming performative of production. The Theatre of Automation is therefore a social endeavour, aiming at bringing the theatrical performance to the level of a collective form of life, where the role of the spectator merges with the one of the actor. In other terms, the machine of the theatre takes active part in the transformation of the site, unfolding and accelerating the artificial manipulation of the territory at the hand of technology. As an act of formation, first, of physical, cultural and ultimately of political nature, the Theatre measures the pace of changes, interpolating the urgency of human artifex with the rhythm of natural systems. When climate change and sea level rise will set the eventual limit of the Machine, interrupting its floating dance on the tides, the Theatre will come to its final act. Rich with the collective memory of the site, it will close its stage and set sail towards new destinations, bearing the paradigm of a new society, on the threshold between human, machine and nature.

Through researching information flows and their territorial footprint around the North Sea, we observed that the global production of data and its subsequent surveillance is growing. The data emerging out of the health sector (Health data) is today leveraged to speculate on its potential futures and processes. Namely, its physical, technical and social requirements can be forecasted in order to mitigate its territorialisation as redundancies and opportunities can be observed. However, future trends in healthcare are always fluctuating, calling for flexibility within projected future scenarios to cater to changes in population health and technology development. In a parallel line of inquiry, in the context of the North Sea, a probe is set on the relationship between healthcare and the sea. With the coast becoming a therapeutic landscape, the project’s objectives outline the equalisation of digital and natural infrastructure as means of treatment. In marrying the latter to future medical trends such as automation, the proposal results in an acute, modular and semi-automated treatment facility (medical village) nestled within a coastal territory for healing. With the evolved understanding of healthcare, the research re-asserts that the notion of cure and care has expanded into the idea of well-being and continuous care. Therefore, like a feedback loop, the reconfiguration of the architectural typologies needed in healthcare inherently redesign our approach to it.