In light of the energy transition, the Chavalon power plant is a ruin that bears witness to the decentralization of power production in Switzerland, and a case study of ten infrastructures from the 20th century that will be obsolete over the next decades. Built in 1965, closed down in 1999, it was then purchased specula-tively in 2017 at a guaranteed price of destruction by the company Group. Since then, the site has come to a standstill due to the municipality’s opposition to developer projects despite its limited means to take care of the site.

DIS/ ASSEMBLE investigates the old power plant as what is commonly referred to as a Negative Common* - a negative resource our generation will inherit. The project’s priority is to offer a vision highlighting our shared responsibility for the site; by proposing its progressive dismantling, re-use, and care. Being about process and interactions, a sensible itinary for its end-of-life is organised with a gradual return to nature, as promised in 1965. 

The site opens to the public, sanitation and decons- truction begin and the main vacant building is trans- formed in a re-use center processing and storing the material on site. In this operation, the specific moment of the boiler’s dismantling leaves the facade of the re-use center open and makes room for an architectural gesture: a temporary facade in re-used steel that be-comes the mediator between the worksite, the public, and different educational programms. A monument to deconstruction and visual indicator of the unmaking, remaking and maintenance of the growing park.