Phytodepurator oasis

The project proposes a new treatment for the wastewaters produced by mining processes in the Atacama Desert. Through different systems, these waters support the social and ecological consolidation of the Pampa Austral tailings dam, in large-scale agricultural activities and the development and maintenance of green spaces of Diego de Almagro city.

The proposal responds to the productive, social, and ecological activities that are possible to develop using the water in the Pampa Austral tailings dam. The project develops a system of chain production designed around the treatment of contaminated waters and it shows that the possibility of using this water increases considerably by just cleaning a small part of the pollutants. This would allow the development of various activities around the dam such as agriculture and new urban green spaces. The water treatment process uses phytodepuration techniques on a series of semi buried plant filters, located on the dam’s bay. By using these kind of filters, the ecological activities of the dam are enhanced, increasing its vegetation cover, strengthening the already exceptional microclimate and improving the ecological succession over time, consolidating the birth of a new Oasis. The Oasis programmatic activation strategies consist on a promenade in between the filters and the dam’s bay following the path of the main canal that collects treated waters. This, allows the development of various leisure activities around water such as tourism by letting the visitor experience the exceptional sensorial qualities produced by water in the middle of an extreme arid climate. The project incorporates essential elements used in the treatment of water such as filters, canals and water accumulation infrastructure, for the construction of a habitable place that values water, making industrial processes visible to educate visitors and also generating consciousness about the highly contaminating process of copper mining. Through the proposal, a new symbiotic system is established, which brings together productive, ecological, and social aspects, generating a circular chain of processes and activities that sustains its development over time and re injects clean waters into the Atacama hydrological system.