ISLANDSCAPE AND AQUATIC URBANISM

Nomadic, Amphibious, and Resilient Archipelagic Ecosystem for SIDS

*The Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a grouping of developing countries which are small island countries and tend to share similar sustainable development challenges. These include small but growing populations, limited resources, remoteness, susceptibility to natural disasters, vulnerability to external shocks, excessive dependence on international trade, and fragile environments.

Preface

Climate change is not unidirectional. It is a systemic and episodic transformation of ecologies, systems and structures over time and space. Global politics intensifies environmental challenges on atoll islands and amplifies pre-existing inequalities by imposing additional hardships on already vulnerable communities.

Islands, as both tangible geographical environments and metaphoric entities, are characterized by their isolation, fluid boundaries imbued with contention, and self-sufficient yet vulnerable ecosystems. Island is a miniature experimental station for the hybridization of cultures and global climate observation. They provide a unique framework for rethinking the relationship between aquatic systems and terrestrial environments. This uniqueness not only provides a distinctive perspective for understanding the notion of territory within the realm of design praxis, but also positions islands as potent instruments in architecture discourse. This should spark an enriched dialogue exploring the potential and criticality of archipelagic landscapes in architectural imagination, and at the heart of this discussion are the powerful visions of nomadic, amphibious, and resilient island landscapes aimed at addressing the severe challenges faced by Pacific small island nations within the global environmental crisis, such as rising sea levels, marine pollution, and coral bleaching. 

My thesis starts with questioning why territorial framing and the national scales dominated adaptation governance. How do “borderless climate risks” challenge this framing and what are possible governance responses? What happens to our urban resilience evaluation systems if we shift away from predominant global views and mega-city model, to the extensive socio-spatial and ecological transition currently transpiring in regions stereotypically perceived as “remote” or “wilderness,” like the Pacific Ocean. Are non-terrestrial environments such as the oceans becoming spaces of urbanization? To what extent are such zones now being integrated into the global nexus of urbanization? Furthermore, how do they deal with climate adaptation in relation to energy, water, material, and food and how do we understand aquatic urbanism in such contexts? Through representation and interventions across varied spatial scales, coupled with an integration of climate resilience theory, geopolitical visualization, and material experimentation, my thesis aims to addressing global challenges of climate resilience and equitable environmental adaptation in small island nations in Pacific Ocean and broaden the architectural perspectives of informal urban theory into the urbanization of “extreme territories”.

The concept of “islandscape”, weaving the tangible topographies of islands with their cultural, historical and symbolic resonance, is proposed as the theorization of aquatic urbanization. Far from being a passive backdrop, “islandscape” asserts itself as a generative design milieu, inviting nuanced provocations and interventions. Amid the intricate economic and political landscape and the geographical-territorial imaginaries, “islandscape” has become an interdisciplinary corpus that posits a profound avenue for contemplating climate resilience and confronting environmental inequities. The morphological strategy and testing of the concept “islandscape” commence with the subsequent four themes：

Atlas

Shifting Territories and Atlas of Ocean_ Boundaries, territories and governance
Indigenous Atlas vs Modern Mapping (cooperate with nature vs control nature/knowledge pass from generation to generation/carbon footprint )
New measurement system+ cartography

Examples:
Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin
Marshall Islands stick chart, Rebbelib type, 192-. Geography and Map Division.

 

Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin

Portolan charts

Marshall Islands stick chart, Rebbelib type, 192-. Geography and Map Division.

Water

Can you imagine a place surrounded by water that has difficulty in freshwater supply?

Waves become the “environmental infrastructure” of the ocean; they serve as the integrative nexus between energy, geopolitics, economy, and maritime ecological development. If we rethink the water geopolitics in the age of the Anthropocene, islands will no longer be the antithesis of the mainland. Atolls can be regarded as the belts for ecological integration, which have intense relationships with aquatic environments. They are the test places of amphibious landscape interventions and imaginative water-based urbanisms.

We will specifically look into the water supply system of Tarawa, Kiribati:
The population of Kiribati is approximately 92000, 50000 of which reside in densely populated neighborhoods of South Tarawa. South Tarawa is the most densely populated island among Kiribati's 33 atolls and has experienced a population growth rate of 3% per year. The geography of Kiribati is somewhat limited in arable land resources.
The infrastructure of Kiribati especially in the island of South Tarawa is under immense tension due to sea level rise. Most of the houses lack modern sanitation and are not connected to the town sewage system. Extreme weather conditions and high tides routinely contaminate the groundwater.

Community
A global biopolitical community- Local Community

Collective community in Pacific Ocean islands +vernacular modernity
We will design community-based adaptation to the climate change
In the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, each island stands as a beacon of curiosity, compelling one to dream of the next landform in the archipelagic sequence. This sequence, not just a geographical continuum but also a tapestry of diverse cultures, histories, and ecosystems, encapsulates the essence of an ever-evolving narrative. The notion of a nomadic islandscape, where the boundaries of land and water blur, offers a dynamic medium for Pacific cultures to intertwine and evolve. As these island communities navigate from one land to another, they carry with them tales of their ancestors, traditional practices, and innovations, leading to unexpected intersections of stories and shared experiences. This fluid movement and confluence present a vision of hope, suggesting a future where cultures can coalesce in harmony, learning from one another and collectively adapting to the challenges of the ever-changing Pacific landscape.

System
M scale: Self-organized, self-managed and self-iterative aquatic system
XL scale: Vulnerability assessment and framework of equitable climate resilience for informal settlements