The world today is littered with a new typology of site: nuclear wastelands of the Anthropocene. These sites are often left abandoned and forgotten, along with the mistakes that were made to create them as well as the people that suffered. This project in Pripyat, Ukraine (the Atomgrad designed for Chernobyl), created a site of the Symbioscene, an era beyond the Anthropocene in which there is a sustainable relationship between humans and nature.

This proposal culminates in a 265-year reconstruction of the Place of Culture in response to the site simultaneously being a sci-fi ruin and a lost home. This new community centre utilises mycelium as a process of radiotrophic cleansing. These are cast into the ruins before their slow deconstruction. The building physically manifests the presence of radiation as its mycelium walls grow and the safe zone is restored once its paper skin is shed.

The design outcome acknowledges the tragic events of 1986. Through the process of casting mycelium ghosts the design creates a palimpsest of memories. A rebirth of the nuclear landscape has emerged; a view into the Symbioscene.