What better way use for an old coal mine than a whole a new green world? This is just what the Duke of Buccleuch and architect Charles Jencks did with an open cast coal mine located within Scotland’s Lowther hills. The 22-hectare site used to be an industrial eyesore and since it was no longer in use, local villagers lobbied the duke to do something with it according to Inhabitat.
But the villagers didn’t just want it to look better, they also wanted something that would replace the jobs lost when the coal mine closed down. The results are the Crawick Multiverse, a place made up entirely of plants, rocks and dirt.
According to “The New Scientist”, at first sight, the area looks like a system of earthworks “dominated by two vast mounds of two stone circles”, but after looking at the map, one finds that the mounds represent the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies.
There is also a 3rd circle of earthworks that represents for a supercluster of galaxies and another that is a multiverse that our own universe is likely a part of. Connecting everything together are paths that circle and wind around different galactic mounds and then join in a black hole at the summits.
There’s also the garden of Cosmic Speculation, located in the Dumfries, Scotland. It’s about half the size of the Crawick Multiverse and is full of art, ornaments and horticultural features that show off ideas from modern science.
Each level represents a different development from the big bang to the beginning of life. While some are skeptical, Jencks stated and quoted “if you build it, it will come”.
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Featured Image Credit: Inhabitat.com