Silica Valley

The Silica Valley master plan concept envisages the ongoing transformation of the Sibelco Quarry site into a dynamic landscape exploring and exposing past, present and future.

This is a stratified landscape, which extends deep below the surface and consists of complex geological formations containing natural resources such as coal and silver sand. It is also a landscape shaped by mineral exploitation where huge quantities of material are constantly shifting and a system of conveyors and structures.

A new topography has been created of plateaus, heaps, hills as well a series of lakes revealing the groundwater and creating new opportunities for both man and nature to colonize. The landscape may be regarded as palimpsest of time from the Carboniferous to a new geologic epoch of the Anthropocene in which humans alter the planet sufficiently so that landscape processes are being reshaped by human interactions. In other words; a shifting site, not a monument but an ongoing experiment.

For the future of the site it important to orchestrate some of the large scale transformation of the site such as the shaping and location of the quarry lakes; the formation of a new landmark steenberg and the creation of a woodland framework. The large scale / long term can be combined with the small scale/ short term. The latter acting as catalyst –sometimes ‘agent provocateur’ - to initiate change and facilitate public participation.

Our vision for the Silica Valley may facilitate future enterprise; in first instance this may be a spin off of the (high-tech) silver-sand product to attract companies closed to its natural resource. Providing energy utilizing thermal mine-water heating as well solar panels may act as incentive for new industries such as hydro pond glasshouses.The site will be manifest as an object of nature and a subject of culture. Of course, the site is all about Place, Memory and Nature but also we believe about Space, Time and Technology! We were excited to see that the mining history in South Limburg also promoted a heroic sense of progress and embraced a unique breed of local modernism. We like to envisage our project as part of this heroic tradition.

“The long-held barriers between nature and culture are breaking down. It’s no longer us against Nature. Instead it’s we who decide what nature is and what it will be. In this new era, nature is us” (Crutzen en Schwägerl 2011).