Eyecon, re-use of an offshore oilrig

Eyecon, re-use of an offshore oilrig

Griffioen, C.M.

Nottrot, R. (mentor)
Olsthoorn, B. (mentor)
Van Dooren, E. (mentor)
Van Dorst, M. (mentor)

Architecture

2006-03-26

This MSc-dissertation is the result of a fascination for industry and its impact on society. Industry is something that has inspired me for some time now. Industrial elements have something magical about them: their size, the way the structures are tangled together, the design, the process, the production, the products they create and the image. These structures are the model of the Industrial Revolution and therefore have grown out to be the building stones for modern society. They have an impact on the lives of millions through their presence in our landscape, the work they provide and by producing billions of products every minute. We now look at industry not as an enhancement of our society but as a down fall to it. The decaying factories which are no longer in use are being left to become ruins. Creating grey and miserable landscapes in area's which used to be economically prosperous. They bring environmental hazards, political discussions and costs. But then imagine that once these factories where welcomed in every town, because they brought change and prosperity. By re-using industry I want to take away the negative image and despair of it by giving it back to the public in the form of something that brings hope, by giving it a new function which will catalyse the same change and impact industry had on society so many years ago and still has. As I said before industry has something magical about it, one of the most magical of all in my opinion are oilrigs. These colossus standing in the middle of the ocean, they are bigger than life creating an own world, they are islands of industry. During a congress about offshore engineering conducting interviews as a part of my methodology of my research process I met Offshore-engineers that were debating the future of these structures. Currently these structures are under a lot of stress. Fossil fuels are getting scarce, wells are drying out and a lot of the structures are no longer feasible. In the coming ten years, hundreds maybe even thousands of these structures will be taken out of the production process. To grasp the scale: in the North sea alone there are 250 oilrigs. This will create a big economical strain on the oil companies, because of most of these structures where build before 1995 (Brent Spar) meaning that the costs associated with dismantling have not been included in the assessed lifetime costs of the rigs. These facts create a financial gap of billions of dollars. Oil companies are now working on solutions to (partly) re-use these structures, but they mainly stay in fixed on ideas which are affiliated with energy. The goal of my project is to create a catalyst by reusing this single oilrig. The intention is to show that these structures can be a challenge to the re-use process, something different maybe even world changing. My hope is that this project will trigger society to think about what can be done with these beautiful structures. So that maybe one day all these old reminiscent structures will be re-used with a new purpose maybe creating whole cities on the ocean.....

re-use

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:fb83e884-77d5-4228-ac16-df1a66758fcb

TU Delft, Architecture, Architecture

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2006 Griffioen, C.M.