Radiation City

︎︎︎ Possibility of living in a nuclear-contaminated city

Final thesis, Department of Architecture, THU
Instructor: Guan-Hung Liou

Taiwan is a small island in the earthquake zone, which don't have much land to make a proper urban zoning plan. There are four nuclear power plants in Taiwan, three in the north and close to our capital city. If a large scale earthquake happened, there is an opportunity to repeat the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. The population living in a radius of 30 kilometres from the No.1 and No.2 nuclear power plant is as high as 500,000. It has become a presence on the island that everyone needs and fears at the same time. Since the speed for radiation density accumulates to a fatal degree is faster than people’s retreat. It is worth thinking if it is unavoidable for some citizens to live with radiation, what is the possible living situation for them could be?

Existing buildings in Taiwan now are mainly made of bricks or RC, which only provide 70% of protection against radiation. Coupled with the inability to connect with the outside world, it causes psychological and physical stress for victims to live long after the rescue arrives. I propose we place a large number of small size protection units in the city for residents to move to designated refuge areas like a fire department or a police station where has people who control order when the disaster happened. Victims can live together to pass the transition period of the government to re-control the situation.

The units were originally scattered in the city for the occupants for various use. When the disaster occurs, people scroll them to the designated shelter. Gathering and stacking them to form a new society. At this time, some privacy units began to transform into public function units like a discussion room, reading room, prayer room, small greenhouse, storage room, etc. The key to survival is to be able to take refuge in the first time. Isolated from the nuclear radiation and survive until rescue arrives. One single unit can only make 3-4 people survive for 10 to 15 days when food storage is sufficient. So they need to search for other survivors to form a small society to share the resources like rearranging space functions, manpower allocation. Connecting to others also solve people's basic mental stress problems.