Manhattan Redux

Over the three semesters from the spring of 2011 through the spring of 2012, the Manhattan Redux and Paducah + studios have been working as Atomic Cities Research Teams, which in turn are a part of University of Kentucky College of Design’s (UK CoD’s) River Cities Projects.

The Spring 2011 Manhattan Redux studio took on the tremendous challenge of developing a 150 year scenario plan for one of the most contaminated top-secret sites in the nation’s history, the Padauch Gaseous Diffusion Plant(PGDP). The site, which has been the point of origin for fissile materials bound for both energy and defense for the last 60 years, consequently has a nearly five mile long heterogeneous plume of contaminants running beneath it. Slated for closure in the near future, the PGDP has been the primary generator of the regional economy for over half a century, initially providing tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. Closure will eliminate the 2,500 employees that are left. Still, there is tremendous uncertainty regarding the plume that lurks below. The Manhattan Redux studio refused to be disheartened by this somewhat overwhelming scenario, and instead channeled the audacity of original Manhattan Project scientists by proclaiming that instead of the region’s demise, the plant’s problems are indeed the solution. The studio proposed an economy generated by the serious undertaking of cleanup, and built a first-ever 1:350 scale model of the site and plume itself. The model is intended to provoke conversation and debate among scientists, and to communicate issues to the public, all with the hope of stimulating progress toward resolution of aquifer and ground contaminations, enabling regeneration of the site and region.

The Fall 2011 Paducah + studio started with the Manhattan Redux studio’s conclusion that the problem is the solution. The studio was organized into three groups, each related to one another in multiple ways.  In this way, a networked set of processes was proposed. The Paducah + group considered Paducah’s particular issues through an analysis of nine global cities, each with toxic concentrations similar in size or virulence to Paducah’s plume.

This group considered Economic, Environmental, Energy and Education (the four E’s) as parameters essential to the health and growth of any community, and they are proposing a methodology for the regeneration of these towns through alignment and equilibration of the four E’s. The Radical Remediation team researched remediation methods and also proposed a demonstration. The proposed treatment facility for the site will be based on a local knowledge of the infrastructure, dependent upon local labor, focused on a local problem, but also generating intellectual capital and technical innovations exportable to the world. The Radical Remediation group is proposing remediation techniques at the nexus of biotech and robotics – interrelating freely across humans, things, technology and nature. Rather than propose a typical plan, or planning guidelines, the site team is proposing performance specifications for operations at the site that might successfully generate continued stability and growth, across Energy, Environment, Economy and Education – seen as the essential building blocks of a healthy community. The site team’s work is interrelated with the macro-economic principles proposed by the Paducah + group, and the regenerative potentials found in the Radical Remediation group.

The Spring 2012 semester’s task was to gather all of the materials developed in the first two semesters and coalesce them into a thoughtful, concise, provocative and hopeful story. This story will be presented in several venues, including: the National Citizens Advisory Board meeting in Paducah, attended by representatives from all 200+ DOE legacy contaminated sites across the United States, the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research Exhibition on April 27, where various State and Local officials were present, and as part of UK CoD’s River Cities Project at the International Architecture Bieannial Rotterdam (IABR) opening on April 18 – attended by over a 100,000 planners and designers from every country in the world. The studio’s optimum outcome would be to successfully link all of these venues with the idea that – The Problem is the Solution.