Theo Clarke Y5
Hijacking the Elan Valley Hijacking the Elan Valley leverages the existing rich hydrological landscape of the Elan Valley reservoir system to impose an additional infrastructural energy buffering stratum across the vast watershed. The proposal seeks to avoid the contentious historical implementation of the reservoir by supplying both the needs of the nation and the immediate rural context.The project questions our relationship with water and the infrastructures of control and manipulation associated with it. A Buffering Village becomes the manifestation of the consequences of a carefully orchestrated pumped-hydro system; a series of diagrid mounds wait in suspense for a weekly torrent to erupt across the landscape, creating pockets of defensible space for inhabitation and leisure whilst simultaneously promoting attritional drag. The newly forged landscape becomes a place to experience the extremes of white-water rapids passing below your feet whilst attending to your allotment before a game of lawn tennis.
