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Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures: A Sustainable Future for Crumlin Navigation Colliery

Part 2 Project 2022
Valerija Slahova
Rowan Luckman
Niamh Rhiannon Thornton
Rose Nicholson
Emily Rose Chance-Hill
Madeleine Gabriella Rogers
Alexander Donald Hossack McCormick
Jordan Charlie Grady
 Cardiff University | UK
‘Carbon Pasts, Low Carbon Futures’, focuses on collectively creating a vision for the sustainable future for the best preserved colliery complex in South Wales. Our work consists of a variety of options that have explored innovative and low carbon ideas, within the context of listed buildings provoking an exploration into conservation philosophies and promoting adaptive reuse.

Student projects, by their nature, are always at the risk of being removed from reality. The real-life brief, collaborative working, along with the site visits and interaction with the local community, has afforded such a rewarding and impactful thesis project, culminating in a public exhibition on site.

The chance to exhibit our work in the context of the site was extremely inspiring. Being able to engage with the residents of Crumlin and the local council within this post-industrial landscape helped to create a wonderful visual and contextual link to our proposed alternatives for a low carbon future, that address the climate emergency. It has been an exciting challenge that has created proposals that are both collaborative contextually and yet independent to each student’s interests. It is hoped that these can provide inspiration for both the local community and the wider Valleys Region.

Tutor(s)
Christopher James Whitman
2022
Collective visions. Groupwork, including studies of historic and current context, informed feasibility studies that were then presented to real stakeholders at an on-site exhibition.
The site was surveyed by a group of three students and translated into both Revit and SketchUp models as an initial baseline for all.
Visualisations and reinterpretations of the vast underground colliery workings, of excavated tunnels, perforating shafts, twisting seams and veins of coal.
Risks and opportunities were analysed by another team and shared, to further understanding of the site in the early design phases.
Feasibility studies explored different user groups, considering both human and non-human inhabitants, respecting the rich biodiversity that has colonised the post-industrial site.
A variety of programmes for the site were developed, focusing on the circular economy and low carbon industries, such as storage facilities for renewable power.
Strategies for engaging with the existing fabric included sensitive interventions allowing adaptive reuse and a continuing narrative.
Others undertook a greater degree of new construction, whilst still respecting the historical context and drawing on the unique language of the site, both geological and manmade.
The work culminated in an exhibition within the semi derelict Power House on the site, where the local community, politicians and policy makers were invited to view the visions.
Exhibiting on-site was an inspirational experience for all involved, and it is hoped will have a lasting legacy for the local community and the wider Valleys Region.
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