Inhabiting the Uninhabitable: Post-nuclear Cofrentes, 2056

Abstract

In a future scenario where nuclear energy has been the globally accepted solution to solve the energy crisis, an accident happening in the year 2056 obliterates any hopes for humanity's future on the surface of the Earth.
This graduation project narrates an evolutionary exploration of unconventional ways of living in a post-apocalyptic scenario in which architecture becomes the central element that creates a bond between the radioactive environment and the living systems.
The architectural intervention is defined by three main intentions: the first one is the solver of conflicts between the radioactive context and the villagers. The second one is the inducer of environmental self-sufficient practices as a more sustainable approach to the use of the resources of our planet. And finally, the third intention is to give continuity to the communal and territorial systems existing in the area before the accident, creating a dialogue between pre-nuclear and post-nuclear Cofrentes.

In this architectural narrative, the project builds on an evolutionary process that grows organically answering to the societal needs and resources available in the radioactive context. From the moment of the accident until the present day, the project evolves from a post-apocalyptic phase characterized by the use of scavenged materials and rudimentary constructions to a self-organizative phase, which applies the research findings explored during the first period of the graduation studio, initiating a more technological design.

Post-nuclear Cofrentes exposes through the power of architectural
imagination, the ever-present potentiality of a nuclear-dystopic event, a reality we might live to see.