Waste Metal Repository for Adaptive Reuse

Johannesburg is defined by the commodity of gold. In order to obtain the precious metal from the earth, a previously vigorous landscape was wounded and carved in order to extract the gold particles. In the wake of this landscape stripping, the carved-out earth was displaced from its origins and placed into mountainous landfills known as mine dumps.

The primary concept behind this research proposal is examining and architecturally addressing the historical, environmental, and social effects of the mining industry on the Johannesburg landscape. The industry has created a sense of wounds within the landscape in its attempt to extract the finite commodity of gold – translating a previously rich and abundant landscape to one of industrial waste and abandonment. This proposal aims to identify toxic waste translating ruination through repurposing, while simultaneously remember and in some cases showcase the wound formations prevent the erasure of history. The mine dumps in essence are the removed earth caused by underground mining. Mined particles known as pyrite become toxic upon oxidization. When they come into contact with water and air a sulfuric acid leaches out contaminating air, soil and water. The toxic contamination of water from the mining industry is known as acid mine drainage which is affecting, plant and animal life thus creating a drastic concern to the water supply. The project aims are multifaceted. The first aims to attach to an existing acid mine drainage waste water treatment plant and revaluate how that waste can be repurposed into a new resource that would be taking a destructive substance such as acid mine drainage and extracting the metallic potential. This in turn translated programmatically into a metal exchange plant and waste metal jewellery school in which metal could be extracted, cleansed, and reused. In order to propose this program. The second and primary aim of the project is to focus on the impact of mining as a memory and create a physical and visual storage of all the activities that occur below ground and dissolve over time. This creates the primary program known as the repository. The term in essence explains the physical store of natural materials, which determined the name of this museum, archive typology. The repository aims to hold open the wounds cause by mining showcasing how the landscape has been stripped and appropriated.