Museum of Lost Volumes by NEMESTUDIO (2015)

Mete Sonmez and Neyran Turan (NEMESTUDIO) are architects and teachers whose practice focuses on the relationship between geography and design “to highlight their interaction for new aesthetic and political trajectories within architecture and urbanism“.  The office NEMESTUDIO produces works ranging from speculation to building design. Here we publish an interesting project entitled “Museum of Lost Volumes“, a speculative fiction rendered in a convincing black and white, about the indirect consequences of sustainability over Earth’s geologic strata. The style of the beautiful axonometry drawing below reminds that of artist Jamie Mills that we published some time ago here on Socks.

 

MUSEUM OF LOST VOLUMES (2015)
Project Team: Neyran Turan, Anastasia Yee, Melis Ugurlu

Once upon a time in the Zero-carbon Hedonistic Era, the entire world was finally sustainable. Clean-energy technologies were abundant and ubiquitous. Large quantity of energy-efficient light bulbs, wind turbines, electric car batteries and solar panels would come with a price, however. Since all of these clean-energy technologies relied on Rare Earths, a group of seventeen chemical elements and their abundant extraction from the earth’s surface, significant worldwide increase in their demand led to the scarcity of these minerals. Nearly all of the Rare Earths were discovered in the 19th century but their use mostly proliferated in the Zero-carbon Hedonistic Era because of their association with green technologies. Not alarmed by the possible tragic outcomes of the further mining of these minerals, the world celebrated their delirious consumption with more car batteries and solar panels until very little of these minerals were available. Soon after the depletion of this precious resource was officially announced, in an attempt to prevent major geopolitical conflicts, United Council of Rare Earths was established to promote international co-operation regarding this matter.

In its inaugural meeting, the Council members drafted the text of the Declaration by the United Council of Rare Earths, which was signed by all countries. After a long meeting, the unanimous vote was held to ban further Rare Earth mining and to build a museum that would house and preserve remaining Rare Earth mines of the world, and would carry their legacy to future generations. The museum was named as the Museum of Lost Volumes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All images and descriptive text © NEMESTUDIO.