Pearl Chow Y4
Snowdonia Plant-nation proposes a paper mill with integrated housing for e-commerce giant Amazon, set within a carbon offsetting tree plantation in Wales. It experiments with themes of exploitation and co-dependency between the urban and the natural, the power dynamic between the money-hungry and the carbon-hungry. The central thesis of the proposal is rooted in a BBC article which found that mature trees contribute little if any to reducing carbon emission and would be more effective as construction material. The paper mill serves as a pioneer project in exploiting/maximising use of locally sourced timber sourced from the surrounding forest and its derivatives produced as by-products during the cardboard-making process. The resource for long-term maintenance and part replacements will be infinite as long as the mill remains operational. In response to Agnes Denes early social projects, the proposal offers up 'careful' exploitation without reckless disregard as a potential answer to the question she posed regarding power, it is neither here or there, neither you or I but rather must exist as a calculated compromise, exerted and executed under mutual retainer.
