BASALT BUILDING MATERIAL RESEARCH LABORATORY

Today, mining sites like quarries, are perceived as places of degradation. Since quarrying is an inevitable and irreversible process on the territory, What happens to a quarry after its exploitation? The project attempts to establish a relationship between seemingly fragmented terrain of the basalt quarries located on the south of world heritage site of champaner for the architectural and landscape restoration of the basalt. The aim of the project is recover these places to enhance landscape and local materials, the purpose is converting the quarries into cultural spaces and experimentation areas. 
The intervention is located within such a spectacular place, one of the key emphasis was to respect and celebrate the site, while providing visitors with a unique experience. The project intends to disappears into the landscape of the existing quarry. The proposal provides a new program that is visible from every point but it blends with the surroundings making evident the particularities and contrasts between nature and a man made structure but avoiding an imposing structure in the site. 
A raised pathway perpendicular to the quarry allows The cliffs, fragmented rocks, water-body, vegetation to be looked as landscape resources to be integrated into the design, and on the basis of which, space shaping, vegetation restoration, paths and viewpoints position are thought of. The site is characterized by the presence of a large variety of flora and fauna. The approach aims at respecting the existing natural “unevenness architecture” of the quarry, using basalt blocks obtained from the site, Interventions focus on creating and connecting new functional spaces, which can be used as laboratories and services for the scientific research of basalt manufacture. One of the important elements of the project are hiking routes that will be converted in new accessible pedestrian paths to connect the quarry site.