Iron Island

Like the wonders of the ancient world, great industrial archaeologies carry a fascination of abandonment, of that mammoth and sublime melancholy that makes them magical in their own ruin and decay. 

The old industrial buildings are titans of concrete and steel that rise in the landscape devoured by vegetation and time, as if they were carcasses of immense ancient monsters that inhabited the world at different times, spawned by a different civilization. 

Of all the industrial archaeologies, some of the most suggestive are surely the offshore oil platforms. They are the heirs to a development race that imposed man’s right on nature, like ancient titans. 

Today, these platforms live out their exile abandoned to the rust and oblivion of the sea. The issue of decommissioning such machinery entails legislative vacuums. This is because internationally there is no unified and compelling vision about the future of these facilities. 

Yet, while on the surface legislators are deciding which is the best action to take, something surprising has happened in the deep sea, unforeseen by the engineers who developed such machines. 

The platforms have become a treasure chest of biodiversity, almost as if they were artificial coral reefs, which have turned into a refuge for countless marine species once the man left.

One of the symbols of environmental violence is now the bastion of environmental protection. 

Then, is it right to plead the very expensive cause of its removal? Or can such platforms rather find new meaning in the age of decarbonization and environmental sustainability? 

These are the questions of Iron Island, the competition by Manni, CNR-IRBIM, and YAC to write the future of ancient oil platforms.

Off the Italian coast, specifically in the northern Adriatic Sea, there are numerous offshore platforms. 

Since they had been installed on a small sea, they are well suited to becoming the first model of virtuous transformation and redevelopment of these steel and concrete islands. 

YAC thanks all the architects who will take up this challenge.