Archinect - News

Chernobyl’s nuclear “sarcophagus” to be dismantled

2019-08-19T07:00:00-04:00

Workers are taking down Chernobyl's "sarcophagus," once meant to keep the reactor's radioactive materials locked inside, before it falls on its own accord. The dismantling will begin after the New Shelter Containment (NSC) is in full working operation. Currently, the NSC controls part of the confinement. Earlier this year, the European Union handed off control of the NSC to Ukraine.

The steel and concrete containment structure, hastily erected following the nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl power plant in 1986, is being replaced by internationally funded and coordinated effort. The new shelter, a €1.5 billion complex considered to be the largest work of movable architecture in the world, has been in the works for several years.

Plans call for the old “sarcophagus” to be fully replaced by 2023.

The enclosure to dismantle Chernobyl's nuclear reactor is complete

2016-04-07T13:07:00-04:00

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On April 26, 1986, technicians conducting a test inadvertently caused reactor number four to explode... Reuters reports that a huge recently-completed enclosure called the New Safe Confinement—the world's largest land-based moving structure—will be “pulled slowly over the site later this year to create a steel-clad casement to block radiation and allow the remains of the reactor to be dismantled safely.”

Although it sounds like an early aughts indie band name, the New Safe Confinement structure over Chernobyl's reactor number four is finally complete, constructed at an estimated cost of €1.5 billion. Meanwhile, neighboring city and officially uninhabitable Pripyat has become a hauntingly photogenic ghost town, as captured in these photos:

For what else is going on in Chernobyl:

Call for applications- Unknown Fields design workshop in Chernobyl and Baikonur Cosmodrome

2011-05-17T20:27:31-04:00

Liam Young and Kate Davies, leaders of the Architectural Association’s award winning Unknown Fields Division, have announced an international recruitment drive for their new annual nomadic studio which will run from 11-22 July 2011. Applications are open to all and you can sign up now to join them on an extraordinary design research expedition through the unknown fields that lie between nature and technology. Participants will collaborate with a collection of international artists, photgraphers, filmmakers, writers and workshop partners Phillips Technologies Design Probes, Volume Magazine and Storefront for Art and Architecture to develop projects and produce an annual publication and touring exhibition. This year to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s Baikonur space launch the workshop will travel on a cross section through landscapes of obsolete futures from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, through the Ukraine and the C...

Nuclear bunker looks like a... nuclear bunker, say architects

2011-04-26T12:05:33-04:00

While the project is clearly a feat of engineering, architects couldn’t help but comment that it lacked a certain architectural flair.