THE CAMDEBOO SOLAR ESTATE
Abstract
In an age of dramatically rising population, diminishing fossil fuel resources and the alarming and all too visible consequences of climate change, the Camdeboo Solar Estate looks to provide an alternative energy strategy and agricultural resource for South Africa’s burgeoning cities and rising energy demands. Located in a remote municipality in the semi-arid environment of the Karoo, its array of CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) plants are hybridised with the long practiced technique of terraced farming to enable a bountiful and economically prosperous wine production industry. The masterplan arrangement, its axial pathways and internal orientations are calibrated to the positions of the celestial objects within our solar system at the time of opening, 2050. The proposal embeds a new economy of solar tourism within the region, where agriculture, energy production and celestial movements become entwined and experienced as a new form of urban / territorial restructuring at a both a landscape and building scale.
Process
The project continued the work from semester one’s Camdeboo Solar Park project, where infrastructural mapping and irradiance data was further explored - alongside the cultural, economic and social conditions within the Camdeboo Municipality. The brief was developed to address pertinent issues for both South Africa and the Camdeboo, namely: the agricultural difficulties faced in the Karoo’s semi-arid environment, the high unemployment levels and low economic output of the local region, and the importance of the tourist industry to the Camdeboo Municipality. The Adam’s Calender landscape of Mpumalanga provided a precedent to entwine the ancient practices of terrace agriculture, astronomy and solar observance, with the modern day technologies of solar energy harvesting, and embed a more transcendent celestial relationship within the substantial and long lasting masterplan proposal.
Thorough modelling and analysis was conducted into the celestial constellations of South Africa’s night sky, their scale and orbits, and the cyclic timings of significant solar events at the sites precise location. These factors would determine and embed themselves throughout the proposal - from the major axis and arrangement of the CSP masterplan, to the micro alignments of the walkways, buildings, and their astronomical instruments.
Outcome
The project considers and works with a range of transforming programs and time scales.
Opening in 2050, the Camdeboo Solar Estate begins operation as an array of CSP plants, harvesting the high levels of received solar irradiance to alleviate South Africa’s rising energy demands and waning coal reserves. The installed energy and water infrastructure of the masterplan initiates a viable and fruitful agricultural landscape for the growing and harvesting of grapes, in order to revive the once near extinct wine making industry of the Karoo. This landscape of energy and wine production begins to supplement and enhance Camdeboo’s existing tourist economy, inviting a new industry or ‘solar tourism’.
After the 60 year life expectancy of CSP apparatus expires, and the predicted advances into more improved renewable energy sources are achieved, the energy infrastructure is de-constructed, and the estate remains operating as a series of vineyards. By 2200, the plants building materials and functions have deteriorated, and the process of decomposition commences. The harsh environment and climatic elements of the Karoo begin to take their toll, as stonework and structure starts to fail. By 2500 the progressive sinking of the inner core walls begin to reveal the astronomical instruments concealed within. As the building’s ruins reconfigure and settle, the alignments of the Adam’s Calender are finally unveiled.
In the long distant future, this now ancient ruinous landscape is rediscovered. The mysterious constellations and orientations of its arrangement are again reinterpreted, to reveal the intricate relationships between its lost functions of energy, agriculture, and our place within the cosmos.
Opening in 2050, the Camdeboo Solar Estate begins operation as an array of CSP plants, harvesting the high levels of received solar irradiance to alleviate South Africa’s rising energy demands and waning coal reserves. The installed energy and water infrastructure of the masterplan initiates a viable and fruitful agricultural landscape for the growing and harvesting of grapes, in order to revive the once near extinct wine making industry of the Karoo. This landscape of energy and wine production begins to supplement and enhance Camdeboo’s existing tourist economy, inviting a new industry or ‘solar tourism’.
After the 60 year life expectancy of CSP apparatus expires, and the predicted advances into more improved renewable energy sources are achieved, the energy infrastructure is de-constructed, and the estate remains operating as a series of vineyards. By 2200, the plants building materials and functions have deteriorated, and the process of decomposition commences. The harsh environment and climatic elements of the Karoo begin to take their toll, as stonework and structure starts to fail. By 2500 the progressive sinking of the inner core walls begin to reveal the astronomical instruments concealed within. As the building’s ruins reconfigure and settle, the alignments of the Adam’s Calender are finally unveiled.
In the long distant future, this now ancient ruinous landscape is rediscovered. The mysterious constellations and orientations of its arrangement are again reinterpreted, to reveal the intricate relationships between its lost functions of energy, agriculture, and our place within the cosmos.
