Architecture is changing. Current masters’ modernistic monuments of enormous raw material usage as well as high construction and maintenance cost are becoming something of the past. Our planet is dying and our consideration as architects have to be recycling; something the art circle has employed far more extensively and successfully then us.
Shanghai, like any other major cities in China, is becoming a cliché for the “Blade Runner” syndrome: rapid industrialization and rapid pollution growth. The Suzhou creek is considered as the major estuary off the HuangPu River yet it is losing its identity due to over-development and sewage dissipation from buildings around it. My challenge is design a solution upon it without altering too much the structural and geometrical integrity of the creek.
Without delving too much into it we all know China needs, and is in the process of, replacing its fossil fuel dependence. China is currently the biggest renewable energy investor and produces highest number of wind power generators in the world. But there is a problem as current wind turbines are enormous in size, extremely space wasting and very unsightly to the natural landscape. A re-thinking of the wind turbine design has to be considered for integration within a city like Shanghai.
Another issue is bamboo scaffolding. Majority of building constructions in China uses this technique and although more environmentally friendly then their steel or aluminum counterpart, after 5-6 usage the bamboo fibers are stress beyond safety and has be discarded as landfill or rubbish. They are perfectly reusable as a cladding material and since bamboo is hollow by nature, building services can be embedded into them as well. Why don’t we reclaim this invaluable resource and start building something with it.
Finally, the concept of modern urban farming and China’s meteoric rise towards the champion in plastic bottle wastage becomes the inspiration. Over here people are overtly worried about what they are eating. Rapid industrialization and commercialization in agriculture has created many devious schemes and corner cutting scams. Sometimes even the “organic farms” are in on it for that extra bit of profit. Let’s bring the farming to the people and within a city like Shanghai. Let’s allow city dwellers to see and learn to control and grow their own crops. Let’s once and for all eliminate their worries!
To apply the above concept farm fields have to be reimagined. Since China is throwing so much plastic bottles away, like 40million/day. Let’s reuse them into our project. Make a cultivation field out of them and re-employ what we consider as rubbish. This is the idea of the TRASH project. A manifesto to truly explore large scale architectural development using mostly rubbish. An idea to make Suzhou Creek and Shanghai into one of the most advance trash regeneration, wind power producing and urban farming hub in the world. The TRASH project hopes to educate the next generation on urban recycling and farming as more and more people are moving to cities to search for opportunities. I believe this is the main solution of a healthier lifestyle for us as well as our planet.