Reimagining Satsop: Future Life for an Industrial Ruin

Abstract

As a strange and alluring artifact of abandoned industry, the Satsop Nuclear Plant has been represented and re-represented by many. This never finished industrial ruin is irreversibly tied to the optimism of 20th century nuclear technology and the project’s subsequent failure, trapped in a state of tension between permanence and decay, the future and the past. Reimagining Satsop examines the site’s entangled histories and questions how this disregarded industrial artifact can transform for future utility. This thesis explores imagination and transience within stigmatized abandoned structures, highlighting the power of perception and the role of architecture in constructing layers of physical strata and collective meaning.