The analysis part presents the research as a link and continuation of the theoretical concepts and findings. The logic of extraction and its consequences are analyzed in detail in order to set up a position for the design interventions both on large and small scales for the region of the Ptolemaida mine.
Extraction
Lignite extraction relies on the logic of reallocation. It involves the processes of excavation, transport, and distribution. During its operation, it reshuffles various layers of soil from vertical order to horizontal arrangement of the overburden. Sediment that can be used as fuel is approximately 27% of what is being excavated. To provide enough fuel for the combustion, the Ptolemaida mine operates on 3 shifts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Expansion and displacement
Throughout 66 years, the industry has occupied an area of over 17,000 ha, changing the landscape of the Ptolemais Basin. The hinterland became the size of a large urban agglomeration. The mining operations extracted over 8.5 billion cubic metres of rocks and produced more than 1.7 billion tons of lignite. Extraction and landfilling create a crawling void, slowly taking over the land.
The city / non-city relation hollows out social and cultural factors. Due to sprawling mining operations, PPC, the company responsible for energy production, has been relocating villages sitting on the deposits. With the first operation in the period of 1972-1976 till today, the company has internally displaced over 5800 inhabitants of six villages, with the next two waiting for relocation. Slowly absorbing lands of agriculture and living, mining activities are displacing large communities to new locations. Descendants of victims of population exchange from the 1920s are forced to share a similar fate. The impact of extraction leaves no opportunities for residents not willing to leave their homes, who are being deprived of the electricity and water supply.
The point of exhaustion
The closure of mining activities does not stop the consequences. The exploitation of the land has numerous environmental impacts, including modification of morphology, topsoil removal, fly ash production, radiations, surface run-offs, water contaminations, and concentration of toxic substances in soil and water.[1] As a consequence, the region suffers from changes in hydrological patterns, loss of wild animal habitat, water pollution, air pollution, irrigation problems, aquatic life disturbance, and general life quality degradation.[2] The most significant effect is related to the combustion processes of lignite, heavily polluting the air and contributing to the greenhouse effect, as well as rising cancer cases in the region by 16 per cent since 1950.[3]
Mining activities left the land scarred. Many villages are under the threat of landslides. Several of them already happened in the past. The biggest one, in Anargyri, moved 80 million cubic meters of soil, leaving the neighbouring village unsafe and dangerous and, therefore, displaced. The aquifer that influences the mine and is exploited by the pumping wells is in the Neogene and Quaternary sediments and lies above the lignite layer. The water-bearing formations, which affect the mine works, are the permeable sands and sandy layers of the yellow and green-grey series. In a simplified approach, they form two independent aquifers separated by clayey and marly material. However, on a large scale (in the scale of the whole basin), they are connected hydraulically due to faults bringing in contact with the permeable layers or due to diminishing the thickness of the impermeable layers. In order to extract lignite, the waterbed in Ptolemais is lowered. Extensive pumping takes place; approximately 8-10*106 m3/y are drained out for the dewatering of the open pit. Water from the sumps is also pumped out of the mine (6- 8*106 m3/y) and is discharged to the Soulou stream or used for covering irrigational needs. In total, 43835 m3/day of water is pumped out of the mine, which is the equivalent of 17,5 Olympic swimming pools. This changes the hydrological pattern of the region.
After the mine closure, water will no longer need to be pumped. This will result in the waterbed reaching its original level, flooding parts of the mine. The raising of the groundwater table poses a threat to the region of the Ptolemais Basin. Contaminated with heavy metals, landfilling zones will be flooded after the mine closure. Due to the lack of sufficient impermeable layer, this may result in polluting large underwater aquifers, affecting the surrounding region.
Hinterland in transition
To answer the question “what after?” the project embraces the process of the transition, by embracing the temporal processes that naturally affect both the environment, as well as the architectural interventions. The goal of the project became a preparation for the continuous, dynamic evolution, which is capable of continuous adaptation. Therefore, the design focuses on identifying points of intensification, how the necessary steps could be integrated into existing conditions, and what change would bring over a long time.
Hinterlands should remain in a state of flux but in a more balanced, and less profit-oriented manner.
Hinterland in transition looks into critical steps to prevent it from continuous decay and decline. The landscape remains the landscape of production, but it needs to reinvent itself into a collective system of public works that supports the economy, being a polyfunctional infrastructure. This approach has the intention to transform a mono-functional industrial structure into a multi-layered, urban-ecological system, and integrate waste, water, transport, food, and energy.
Proposed interventions highlight certain aspects, their influence is acupunctural, highlighting certain moments as points of intensification. By doing this the project touches a particular place at a specific moment, becoming a point of ignition. However, this is the first step. In contrast to the paradigm of the speed of technological acceleration, the effects of future transformation will be slow and subtle, requiring the active and sustained engagement of long-term partnerships between the inhabitants, and public sectors, with much greater attention to various visible and non-visible layers.
[1] Pavloudakis F., Roumpos C. (2004) Evaluation of Land Reclamation and Environmental Protection Strategies in Open-Pit Lignite Mines
[2] ibid.
[3] Costa L. (2020) Ptolemaida – life in the shadows of a coal mine