Raymund Vista

A Repository Reconstructed

This thesis investigates how digital media can be used to document and critically reconstruct contemporary sites of industrial extraction, focusing on the S11D Mining Complex in Pará, Brazil. The project positions itself as a form of documentation: designing modes of representation, reconstruction, and critical engagement.  

Drawing on the typological neutrality of Bernd and Hilla Becher and the stylized environmental critique of Edward Burtynsky, the project situates itself between realism and abstraction—constructing site-specific facts that oscillate between the found and the fabricated. Influenced by Michael Young’s notion of the “aesthetics of doubt,” the work employs parafictional strategies, not as a central theme but as a critical tool. Ultimately the thesis aims to expand the role of architecture in mediating territorial knowledge, using digital reconstruction to reveal the political, environmental, and social dimensions embedded in the site. 

The work unfolds through two complementary components: a physical archive and a digital film. The archive is a bound, tactile object that compiles maps, diagrams, technical data, and records. While many of these materials are drawn from real sources, others are selectively altered, redrawn, or recontextualized. The visual language remains consistent, echoing the authority of institutional and corporate records, but small contradictions and irregularities reveal the constructed nature of such documentation. 

The digital film functions as an immersive reconstruction of the S11D site in the present day. It rebuilds the mine’s territorial, infrastructural, and material presence. The film is not intended as a transparent or objective record, rather, it frames the site through a controlled visual language while allowing moments of friction and dissonance to surface.