Solum

As more and more effort is put into digging for geogenic materials, critical substance levels in the earth are being reached. Under the working title ‘Solum – generous sediments and rare loads’, SustainLab is tackling the complex question of what kind of ground we stand on. From a geoscientific perspective, ‘solum’ refers to the soil body. We understand it as both a material and a complex system. It is a habitat, a source of raw materials, a place of return, a producer and product, a foundation and an archive. 

Against the backdrop of changing material flows and the increasing anthropogenic influence on terrestrial soils, we posed the following design question for consideration in this residency:

What are the alternatives and ways to sustainably manage local sediments? 

The task was to

1. develop a selected location as holistically as possible in terms of its geological characteristics and use. This was to be achieved through documented visits to relevant accumulation/mining and production sites, the collection and categorisation of material samples, and interviews with local stakeholders, among other things. The calculation results were mapped.

2. to develop concepts and ideas based on a soil-specific problem that highlight design options for a sustainable (or more sustainable) use of local sediments and to present these as a scenario. Part of the design work involved building a ‘tool’ that can be used in the processing or examination of the selected material.

3. To scrutinise their own project in the form of a critical review, classify it scientifically and make it accessible to others as documentation.