Reading nuclear landscapes: A global typological investigation of nuclear power plant sites

The global nuclear industry is entering a phase of widespread decommissioning of aging nuclear power plants (NPPs). New planning approaches are needed to prevent these sites from turning into persistent brownfields by transforming them into meaningful post-nuclear spaces. As a prerequisite for any widely applicable NPP transformation strategy, this paper presents a global typological investigation of the spatial expression of NPPs based on a systematic analysis of aerial and online imagery. The investigation reveals the compositional and configurational complexity of NPPs as a key challenge for redevelopment, questioning if conventional transformation approaches focusing on the reuse of individual buildings or site assets are suitable for NPP sites. Instead, the results show that a ‘landscape reading’ of NPPs—looking beyond site boundaries at the wider landscape context—is crucial to understanding these spaces in their full complexity and spatial form.