Its mission is to carry out Martin's experiment on a much grander scale, pouring iron ore into the ocean in an attempt to stimulate plankton growth and assess the wider effects on sea life.
On October 28th Fortescue reversed its long-standing public optimism and announced it would curtail expansion, a huge blow given the importance of scale in efficient mining of iron ore.
The miniature building began as a detailed 3-D software rendering before the physical model was built to iron out all the intricacies of connecting the units in the full-scale building.