SOL 2012 survival project

SOL 2012 Survival ProjectThe SOL library in the high mountains of Spain will preserve backups/copies of scientific and cultural achievements important to mankind. SOL will aim to safeguard important world culture and literature from future natural and man-made calamities. In the event of a global crisis, the SOL archivists will be prepared to reintroduce lost knowledge. PROJECT 2012 - SOL 2012 survival projectThe Mataha Foundation calls upon people to become archivist of SOL.
The aim of the archivists is to ensure the continuation of human culture.
The archivists pursue this goal by realizing and preserving SOL in the transition period leading up to and beyond 2012 in a sustainable way. SOL2012 - MISSION STATEMENT - SOL 2012 survival projectSOL is a project organized by the Mataha Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 2009 to support archaeological excavation of the labyrinth of Egypt. The Mataha Foundation’s mission is to ensure the continuation of human culture. The organization contributes to this goal through research, preservation work and the promotion of art, science and spirituality. The Mataha Foundation pursues this goal by realizing and supporting holistic projects that draw on knowledge of the past and present to enhance the prosperity of future generations. To fulfill its mission, the Mataha Foundation is dedicated to realizing the SOL project, a continuously staffed “culture ark” in the high mountains of southern Spain. To embody a global statement, the SOL research facility will preserve records and copies of scientific and cultural achievements important to mankind. SOL will aim to safeguard important aspects of world culture from future calamities, both natural and man-made. In the event of a global crisis, the SOL station will be prepared to reintroduce lost knowledge, and even help to re-establish and re-found society. SOL will be a long-term and international project: an underground repository where heritage material can be stored safely in optimal conditions, not only before and during, but also after a possible apocalypse. It will seek to record and continuously update the essence of human culture in its many forms. It will in no sense be a time capsule, but will rather be an updated record of life on earth in its broad spectrum of: art, science, technology, spirituality, history, philosophy, and all that constitutes the sum of human culture. The station is envisaged as being situated in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, and is designed to house thousands of books, documents, pictures, and even cultural artifacts from all over the world. It will be built to withstand catastrophes such as earthquakes, abrupt climate change, nuclear war, asteroid strike or potential events such as a pole shift. SOL will offer secure storage in its vaults to records held by libraries, universities, institutes and philanthropists. The vaults will have a more or less infinite life expectancy. The books will be stored as a backup copy in case the original collection is lost for any reason. In other words, the station will act as a safety net, enabling any lost library or collection in the world to rebuild from SOL records.Today there are thousands of libraries around the world; but all are in geographical, environmental or urban locations that may potentially be hazardous. When SOL is built, it will be one of the most isolated and secure libraries on the planet.The archivists, a group of skilled individuals accompanied by their families, will maintain SOL’s monumental archive and daily work. The SOL archivists will function as a sustainable, ecological, off-grid community. They will contribute to the preservation of the environment, and have the capacity to be self-sufficient at times of prolonged upheaval. The SOL facility will stand as a visible and inspiring symbol of our human aspirations, promoting art, science and spirituality by offering research residencies, workshops, courses and training that emphasize environmental awareness as a core theme.SOL2012 - VISION - SOL 2012 survival projectApocalyptic ideas and expectations have shaped the world as we know it in profound and enduring ways. In the Early Modern era, a deeply eschatological set of ideas proved instrumental in enabling people to see their world through prisms other than that of religion. On many occasions in the past, the apocalyptic mindset has proven to be of great value as a catalyst for traditional spiritual, political, social and scientific development, helping to advance humanity’s evolution. The apocalypse underwrote the Reformation in the 16th century, the English Revolution in the 17th century, and the American Revolution in the 18th century; and hopefully will also promote a Green Revolution in the 21st century. Ongoing manifestations of apocalyptic conscience have in the past informed and strongly affected culture, making important breakthroughs possible in both science and art.Most surprisingly, apocalyptic expectations played a catalyzing role in creating secular culture - arguably the signal achievement of the post-medieval West. Apocalyptic visions demonstrably acted as an agent for change in the past, and are probably the only way to really change things today. The apocalyptic idea is the manifestation of our subconscious will to change. Today the apocalyptic topic is with us as never before. When billions of people world-wide are contemplating the end of the world, then we know that change is imminent. We can only survive the future by taking action now. With increasing awareness of the very real threat of a pending climate catastrophe goes a realization that we are not exactly innocent when we consider the causes of such catastrophe. We cannot, therefore, blame divine providence, fate or natural forces. We know that we cannot change the world alone, but this does not mean we can ignore our responsibility as individual human beings. Instead of hiding behind governments or the global capitalist system, we can act now in a way that will allow us to face our descendants with good conscience. SOL’s vision is that confrontation with the future is the only way to make people aware, to make people care. SOL has no desire to wallow in doom and pessimism, but instead wishes to question our idea of a catastrophe. What is its significance for philosophy, art and science when we shed the light of the future on it, and when we compare it to the shadows of the past? Does this vision paralyze us with fear, or can we see it as a salutary release? Do we have a death wish, or do we simply see pending catastrophe as a great excuse to embrace hedonism in the here and now? Does it offer us the illusion of inevitable downfall or does it force us to act and take responsibility before it is too late? SOL is envisaged as the best way to confront the most crucial aspects of the contemporary world. SOL will not only be a medium to preserve, communicate or inform, but also a message to the world; or rather a multiplicity of messages that, in the light of potential apocalypse, will have an intensity and concentration sufficient to make humanity aware of its impact on the future. SOL unequivocally aims to counter materialism and consumerism, and nurture the realm of the spirit.If we want to survive in future we must ultimately decide to take care of ourselves and not count on “the system” to help us. SOL will contribute to this impetus by activating the forces that characterize life itself: cooperation, altruism, beauty, synergy and love. The message of SOL will reflect the scope of human vision.SOL2012 - DESIGN - SOL 2012 survival projectThe SOL station’s design is completely holistic, from the overall SOL project concept to its architectural and financial modularity. A tremendous effort has been made to think of every conceivable incident that SOL and its crew could face in all types of situations. Experimentation with many architectural concepts and geometrical shapes was undertaken before finalizing the SOL station’s design.SOL will basically consist of an above- and below-ground level.
The above-ground building will be a hive of industry, serving the public and daily functioning of the station. It is here that the archivists and residents will live and work, and where workshops, courses and training will take place. The upper part of the facility will be connected by a tunnel to the below-ground center of SOL, where the library will be housed. The lower part of the SOL station will be designed to meet the highest standards for preserving books and providing a living environment for the archivists at critical times.SOL will consist of a concrete dome 18 meters in diameter located at the center of the underground station, and surrounded by a series of modules.
Throughout history, the dome has been the architectural form of choice wherever emphasis is placed on a structure’s efficiency and strength. From the simple igloo sheltering Arctic hunters during the ravages of a blinding storm, to the awe-inspiring magnificence of the Pantheon in Rome, the dome has been used in every culture, on every continent, as one of man’s most versatile constructions.The SOL dome will be built using the technique of sprayed concrete on an inflated airform (Monolithic Dome™). The dome will have two air-conditioned floors: one for the library and one for the community. The lowest level will have a sprung floor and double-height shelving, offering space for hundreds of meters of compact bookshelves. The underground repository design will facilitate long-term preservation of organic library materials by integrating a range of environmental controls. Key environmental factors include temperature, relative humidity, pests, pollutants and light exposure. Particulate and gaseous pollutants such as soot, ozone, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides can cause dust, soiling, and irreversible molecular damage to materials. Pollutants are exceedingly small and not easily detectable or removable. Special filtration systems in the building’s HVAC will be installed as constant defense both for the books and the archivists.
The Mataha Foundation’s concerns about the impact of climate change on the management of cultural heritage objects has prompted its research efforts to integrate alternative climate-control methods and strategies to replace or supplement traditional high-energy consuming HVAC systems, along with passive conservation techniques such as simply going underground.

The book collection will be archived by means of a special card-index library classification system, the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) developed by the Belgian bibliographer Paul Otlet at the end of the 19th century. The documents classified by UDC may be in any form. They can be literature, i.e. written documents, but may also be in other media such as microfilms, video and sound recordings, illustrations, maps, as well as art objects themselves. The advantage of this system is that it can be infinitely extended and enlarged.
The community floor above the library will be used as the public space. The ceiling of the dome will operate as a planetarium, with the capacity to depict all kind of night skies in virtual reality, and also dawns, sunrises and sunsets.The community floor will be equipped as a living environment to accommodate the permanent crew of around 25 people in a relatively normal lifestyle for approximately 2 years, without exiting the station. SOL will be able to operate off-grid and completely independently of any local community services. The SOL dome will be the heart of the station, connecting multiple polyvalent living modules to the dome. The circular shape of the modules allows them to act as true pressure vessels with resistance to high external pressure. These 8m-diameter modules will be mechanically connected to the central dome by tunnels. The tunnel connections between the dome and the modules will have seismic joints to allow movement during ground shock from either earthquake or overpressure from a nuclear weapon. The modular design makes it possible to add modules to the dome in accordance with available resources.Up to 8 modules can be connected to the dome to reach its full construction capacity. Every module will have its own power supply, storage space, battery chargers, air filtration etc. These living pods plus the dome will provide fail-safe replication (redundancy) in all systems.
In the case of a crisis situation with prior warning, the fully realized SOL station can accommodate a maximum of 150 people. According to findings from the fields of sociology and anthropology, this size is considered to be the maximum feasible social network.The modules will be able to store large cans to meet a 2-year food requirement. The cans can stacked below the wooden floor and will need to be systematically arranged and re-supplied. Every module is also able to hold jumbo rolls of toilet paper and all other items required for prolonged shelter duration. Partition walls can be constructed inside every module, to make private spaces according to the relational and familial requirements of the persons living in the modules. This will also allow storage to be organized and rationed to each person or family.The modules can also be modified to fulfill specific community purposes, such as housing a generator, greenhouse or livestock; or to function as theater, sanitary facility, kitchen or hospital pod. The hospital pod will be able, for instance, to provide professional medical and dental services for all the community members, temporary residents and locals.Each SOL module will have 2 hinged, watertight hatches: one to isolate each module from the dome, and one outdoor exit hatch in the event of an internal emergency. On top of the exit hatches, small eco-shell pods will be built or geodesic tents erected to house residents.The underground dome’s main entranceway will be accessed by a 45-degree staircase, and will be equipped with NBC air filtration systems to provide fresh breathing air for 150 people congregating in the dome.
The SOL station will function solely with renewable energies to limit its carbon footprint as much as possible. To this end, the energy used by the station will be obtained from windmills and solar panels. Its passive heating/cooling and waste-water recycling system, as well as its use of low-energy appliances, will make it a particularly energy-efficient complex.Water distribution at the station will be managed very carefully. It will be distributed and managed frugally, and it will be also reused after treatment. 100% of used water will be recycled at the station, 75% of which will, after each treatment, be reused for showers, toilets and washing machines. This will be done by a filtering system that treats all the waste-water produced at the station. All solid garbage will be shredded and compacted for storage in metal drums, and taken away during re-supply operations.The berming used over the dome can be easily blended into the natural landscape. All the excavated earth and rocks can be used on the site for landscaping. The earth cover over the dome and all the modules will shield the station from solar and nuclear radiation. The cover will be at least 2.5 meters (102 inches) in thickness, providing a gamma protection factor of 262,144 and a neutron protection factor of 2,097,152. Using a reference gamma radiation dose of 13,000 rems, this will result in people in the station receiving only 0.05 rems lifetime dose if SOL is located one mile downwind from a 1 megaton surface burst with heavy fallout. Within this 1-mile radius of a 1 MT weapon, exposed to 60,000 rems of neutron radiation, the crew would receive only 0.03 rems lifetime dose from neutron radiation. Both doses combined are less than a chest X-ray.In order to avoid visitor cars in the neighborhood of the SOL station, a private parking place will be established in the valley or the nearest town. A special SOL truck or all-terrain vehicle will be used to ferry the visitors and their luggage to SOL. This same transporter will also be used to supply provisions and bring garbage to the local recycling facility or a pre-determined garbage pit for organically degradable mass.At full residency, the station’s septic tank will take approximately 1 year before total capacity is reached. The big underground paraboloid tank will be connected to the modules by an underground hose below the frost line. The tank can easily be pumped out using a manual septic pump from the ground surface by removing the septic tank access plug. Conventional concrete septic tanks have flat walls and are therefore not able to withstand external pressure; they will typically collapse if, for instance, any traffic drives over them. A high-pressure semi-paraboloid tank will therefore be used. It can be installed below the water table with a gravity dish. In this way the earth over the gravity dish creates more gravity force than the hydrostatic force (buoyancy) of the empty septic tank.
The SOL station will be constructed by the experienced contractor Domos & Bioconstrucción (www.domos.es), with the help of volunteers and the future SOL crew. The Mataha Foundation will supervise the coordination of the construction works to make sure that the station is realized to the highest possible standards. SOL2012 - LOCATION - SOL 2012 survival projectAfter intense research by a wide range of specialists, the Mataha Foundation decided that the Sierra Nevada would be the best location for the construction of SOL. The Sierra Nevada is an extensive mountain range in the region of Andalusia in Spain. There are over 20 peaks over 3000 meters above sea level, which makes it the second highest mountain range in Europe after the Alps. The area boards the Mediterranean, and is predominantly known for its warm temperatures and abundant sunshine. By its foothills lie the beautiful city of Granada and the ports of Málaga and Almería. Granada has some of the most remarkable architecture from the Muslim, Jewish and Christian past, and is situated where the Sierra Nevada mountains meet the lower fertile plains. The Sierra Nevada range was formed during the geological upheavals that also formed the European Alps to the east and the Atlas Mountains of northern Africa across the Mediterranean to the south. The Sierra as observed today was formed 65 to 1.8 million years ago, during the Tertiary Period, from a collision of the African and Eurasian continental plates.
The Mataha Foundation pinpointed this mountain range so as to locate SOL in a remote location at least 2000 meters above sea level. This height will protect SOL from asteroid- and pole-shift-induced floods and mega-tsunamis. The Sierra Nevada is an excellent location for the project due to the absence of volcanoes and nuclear power plants in the close vicinity. However, from a nuclear perspective, Europe remains one of the most critical locations on the planet because of its extensive arsenal of nuclear facilities. Europe fortunately still has areas like southern Spain that are safer yet easily accessible by road, unlike some other safe areas in lesser-developed countries. As regards a potential ice age triggered by weakening of the gulf stream, the Sierra Nevada is positioned at a favorable latitude since it lies at a safe distance from the polar regions. The two downsides of the Sierra Nevada are: 1) that the highest peaks and areas are ski resorts where it is very expensive to acquire larger tracts of land; and 2) that the majority of the non-ski resort areas are government-sponsored nature reserves. UNESCO has even declared the whole range to be a biosphere reserve, in recognition of its exceptionally diverse plant, bird and animal species. This is fantastic from a conservation angle, but will make it hard to obtain the necessary building permits.
To manage all the related restrictions and regulations, the Mataha Foundation designers, architects and engineers will blend SOL harmoniously into the mountainous landscape, in architectural harmony with the indigenous culture and ecology of the Sierra Nevada region.
In the case of great difficulties in purchasing a plot of land and/or obtaining building permits in Spain, the Mataha Foundation envisages the Atlas mountains in Morocco as a good alternative for realizing SOL. Here there is a perfect blend between the majestic Atlas mountains and the nearby, timeless city of Marrakesh.SOL2012 - FUNDING - SOL 2012 survival projectThe wide scope and lengthy timespan of the SOL project will require a corresponding support system. Hopefully, some version of the project will continue as long as the earth remains habitable, transcending national boundaries and the lifetimes of administrations and political systems. While funding from governmental organizations, national institutes or universities will be accepted, its core support will come from private sector philanthropy. Once the SOL project is realized, the station will become financially autonomous by generating sustainable income via workshops, courses and training. These profits will be re-invested in SOL, and will serve to help reduce levies. The SOL project is financially coordinated by the Mataha Foundation, which will also support the station’s operational management.The Mataha Foundation is a Belgian non-profit organization founded by the artist Louis De Cordier. The MF’s headquarters are situated in Belgium, at the center of Europe. To facilitate support for its projects from philanthropists and private corporations via tax-deductible donations, the Mataha Foundation will provide solutions that can be tailored to related needs, interests and priorities. Since the Mataha Foundation is a non-profit organisation, donors may claim the maximum tax benefits allowable for their contributions under, for instance, United States tax law.
Ascending a high mountain starts with small steps. In the case of SOL, we have begun to publicize the idea to attract supporters and collect funds. As soon as resources permit, a staff of project coordinators will be formed. Among the first matters to be considered are: acquisition of the location, timetable for project development, compilation of lists of material for archiving, acquisition of materials storage and retrieval facilities, and a list of resources needed for various crisis scenarios. The biggest challenge to actual realization of the project is the financial management of the undertaking. The Mataha Foundation is a new financial instrument for transactions, without established reserves. All funds to realize the project will have to come from donations and self-generated income. Given the Mataha Foundation’s financial independence policy, it will not rely on bank loans to achieve the project. To fund realization of the SOL project, the Mataha Foundation envisages membership fees, donations (tax-deductible), the sale of art (Golden Sun Disk), volunteering, and organization of the SOL-2012 venture.The total budget for realizing SOL is estimated at several million euros. Philanthropic donations will be used to acquire books and to realize specific parts of the SOL station. To cover most construction costs the Mataha Foundation will organize SOL 2012, a 2-month residency at the station for the maximum number of 150 people. This is an extraordinary venture organized to coincide with the end of the Mesoamerican Long Count cycle, an event that may mark the beginning of an entirely new era. Given the wide range of ancient and contemporary cataclysmic or transformative prophecies and theories associated with this transit, the Mataha Foundation considers that preparing a spiritual and material testimony to this event will be a commitment to realizing its philanthropic mission. sol2012.com - © 2009 Mataha Foundation All rights reserved