... THIS STUDENT PROJECT
08. February 2012
Placing the Footprint of Oil is a master´s thesis project from the Department of Architecture & Design, Urban Design, Aalborg University. The project was developed by Marion Højris Jensen, Ida Sofie Gøtzsche Lange and Jacob Bjerre Mikkelsen during the fall of 2011. Associate professor, Lasse Andersson was the group´s main supervisor.
PLACING THE FOOTPRINT OF OIL
Background & motivation
The oil industry has dominated the world for the last 150 years. It has brought
economical growth and technological advances but also resulted in war and environmental
pollution.
These years oil production is peaking and new technology is creating alternative
energy sources. This shift causes plenty of physical structures from oil extraction
and oil production over oil distribution to oil purchasers and oil decomposition
to be redundant, now and in the future. Amongst structures left over from the
oil industry 600 offshore rigs in the North Sea are to be decommissioned within
the next 30 years.
Placing the Footprint of Oil is a project that gives an alternative to the current
plan for decommissioning oil rigs from the North Sea by retrofitting the platforms
in Esbjerg, more specifically on the site named ‘EsbjergStrand’. Throughout the
project the conception of place and places in transition are discussed and used
as argumentations in the design. With emphasis on the architectural and structural
qualities of oil rigs, the industrial identity of Esbjerg and the site specific
characteristics of Esbjerg Strand, a new place which unites the invisible ‘Oil
World’ and the ‘Everyday World’ has been founded.
The new place facilitates three groups of stakeholders – the decommissioning
industry in Esbjerg, the citizens of Esbjerg and the tourists in Esbjerg. The
adaptation and physical design stem from the words flexibility, variety and mediation
in relation to the needs of the three groups of stakeholders. The project is described
through three themes:
“Encounter between ‘Oil World’ and ‘Everyday World’”, “Oil Rigs Relating to Context”
and “Context Relating to Oil Rigs”.
These themes address the conception of a place in transition. The retrofitting-project
in Esbjerg is challenging the conception of place by placing the footprint of
oil.
PROJECT MOVIE CAN BE VIEWED
HERE