Submergence The Wasteland
Chien–I Liao
The planetary crisis has caused serious impacts on earth and our splendid ocean is gradually filled with plastics and other manmade wastes. There is an unimaginable amount of five trillion pieces of plastics already drifting in the sea. Considering the way how plastics will affect the way to live and damaging the precious marine lives as photographer John Cancalosi said, “One Bag can kill more than once: carcasses decay, but the plastics lasts.” (National Geographic, 2018: 82). Something need to be done to help saving our planet. In this project I would like to question people’s perspective and willingness towards understanding of an unfamiliar and unapproachable issue. As well the impacts that an interior and its circumstance can influence one’s perception. Who can be brave enough to make a change? Therefore, I aim to design a facility that offer a choice for people to throw away their prejudice and embrace their own responsibility of preserving our environment together, as a whole. The project sets the context in an imaginary dystopian abandoned coastal land, where everything would start from this point. Phenomenological methodology and narrative inquiry are the main methodologies that I undertake for this research process. Shapes, typology or future trends would be results of investigation of the relevant case studies and projects. Through constructing the design of my project in a story, the lesson and main issue is going to weave within the content to convey my message.
In a land of abandoned ruins, just like what can you imagined of Fukushima, Japan, a ghost town after the nuclear disaster have happened. This is a place full of waste, abandoned due to heavy pollution, mainly from plastic. It has been emptied for a long time, however not completely in silence, some animals managed to survive in this place, make the air not so deadly here. After moving out from this disaster, people slowly forget its existence and their own faults, gradually joining another cycle of drowning in the waste, again.
People need to be reminded of their doings, so that they will not keep making the same mistakes. Travelling and experiencing something new and unique is an enthusiastic thing for most people. Living in a badly polluted place would be a challenging yet worth trying thing to do for those who are responsible and willing to alter one’s behaviour and thinking.
This coastal land of unknown name was once live with overcrowded population of irresponsible people who lived rich and squandered all their resources, left behind with only sea of wastes that covered this splendid city. Plastics was one of the amazing materials they discovered which possess with all kind of possibilities. However, it was being overused, too depended upon, finally flooded to every corner of the city, and the place then disregarded. After decades, a group of the later generations who longing for returning to their home land, made their firm resolutions of retrieving its bright and glory days.
We cannot stop our influence on the environment system happening from what is happening now. But how should we decrease its frequency of happening or more specific what should designers do to engage with this issue criticality? Most interior design projects did not last long, only for a period of five to ten years, and then everything will be thrown away for other new designs to occupy. How designers going to address this current situation? Retail trade is one of the areas which requires frequent renovation, but considering that online shopping is becoming more dominant, some stores that are not been use efficiently on the high street could be turn into recycle point. By creating opportunity and convenience for the publics, recycle would be more easily manageable and acceptable. Sometimes we do not need too much to take people to a journey as long as we are believing in it. Designers are inventing things but in a different way, that contribute and showing our concern towards the precious planet. Altering people’s existing perception and habit is always not an easy task to achieve, as time and favourable circumstances are some of the essential factors in eradicating the deep-rooted problems.
Presentation of these arks through 3D model gives audiences clear understanding of the real structures. Each ark is separable from their plinth to demonstrate respective source of motion. The plinths are conceptual representation to mimic four contexts of land, river, mountain and ocean.
