Submerged by Xiao Shao

NEW PAPER 2020 | UNIT 03 UNKNOWN TERRITORIES XIAO SHAO

Inspirations

Inspired by the 60s apocalyptic novel, the Drowned World written by the J.G Barllard, which shows the rising temperatures create a flooded, increasingly tropical Earth.

Apocalyptic

Negative vision about the future to emphasize the issue that Australia is facing a serious impact under climate change.

Unknown

Standing from the perspective of an unknown future to describe something well-known in reality.

Artificial

An alternative artificial mechanism to show what we can do potentially to protect something really important in the future.

Simplicity

Starting from a minimal and simple idea to show an unknown future with solid research.

Memorial

A place for humans to repent for the mistake they made in the early generation.

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A memorial space for humans to recollect the former memories before sea level rising.

Prologue

Welcome to : Unit 03

The Inspirations

Initial Thoughts

Blender Explorations

Design Iteration01

Design Iteration 02

Mid- term Review and Reflection 01

Design Iteration 03

Case Study

Final Review

Reflection 02

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Table of Contents

SUBMERGED The new experience of landmark

’Soon it will be to hot......’ As the beginning of The Drowned World, a 1962 science fiction novel by J. G. Ballard, the novel depicts a post-apocalyptic future in which global warming has caused the majority of the Earth to become uninhabitable. The imagination of an unknown future influenced by climate change had started from the last century till now. We are inspired by this novel and aim to get people involved with sea-level-rising emotionally, not intellectually. So, we try to stand from the perspective of the unknown future, describing something well-known in reality. Since Australia is one of the countries most affected by sea level rise, we speculate the living pattern and human experience which focuses on Australian landmarks and big cities. Sydney is an ideal site as the city has modern urban elements as well as unique identity, for instance, world-famous landmarks. We assume that most of the land we currently occupied will be submerged. Here are the questions we ask:

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How will architecture behave differently?

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How will the world look like? How will people’s living patterns and experience adapt?

Welcome Unknown Territories 6-17 July AA Visiting School Melbourne New Paper 2020

nit 03(Unknown Territories): investigates lands to be mapped not by conventional cartography, but by digital exploration of lands in dimensions not yet established. Moving beyond actual simulation as representation and towards lived in experiences in their own right, we will focus on building, generating and exploring worlds that extrapolate the surreal qualities of the extreme Australian landscape. Drawing from the urban and natural landscapes, the generation of these worlds will be informed by layers of datascapes, and re-explored through speculative narratives of the not-toodistant future. We will develop concept designs to build your narratives extrapolated from extraordinary natures. We will aim to explore the uncharted territories at the boundary of our physical world, and capture your visions via still, immersive, and animated imagery.

The Great Unknown land of the South, Terra Australis Incognita, was the name given to a theoretical continent required by the classical Greek geographers, knowing that the Earth was spherical, to balance the landmass known to exist north of the equator.

Studio Leader

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Jessica In, Denis Vlieghe

THE INSPIRATIONS What’s the new struggle then?

The Drowned World, J.G. Ballard, 1962

e are initially inspired by the 1962 novel, The Drowned World, it explored the deep implications of time, space and psychology. When the inevitable catastrophe happens, the novel depicts how characters seize the apocalyptic in civilization as opportunities to pursue new modes of perception. Several impressive scenes demonstrate the status of the drowned world, for instance, the cities are reclaimed as lagoons and jungles. Moreover, there are also several concept arts that demonstrates the dramatic scene when the city is submerged. Readers can directly impressed with the apocalyptic future and deeply touched.

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We realized the power of words and art, which 6 can connect people emotionally even it's radical. This inspiration not only gives us the image of the drowned world but the messages we want to convey. The living mode and psychological states of people will be emphasized as we aim to connect people with climate change emotionally. We are encouraged to speculate what Sydney will look like and how people struggle to survive.

INITIAL THOUGHTS

e rather present our project with a cinematic narrative instead of simply showing the scene with a different angle. Then we started to enrich our story and draw shot sketches. There are two scenes pop up in my head:

UNDERWATER: FLUID Climate change leads to sea-level change, coastlines are eaten dramatically. Addresses are erased, almost all the civilizations are inundated. Wildlife feast begins and marine benthos dead initially but thrive after years… The matrix of Sydney became a mysterious pattern under the sea. The materiality of human utilities is utilized by fish’s habitat. (For instance, trolley as their breeding place)

NOMAD CITY

How to connect the underwater and the future city is not easy. Fortunately, my groupmate has experience in film making. We list our shots in order to separate our story into 3 parts: The drowned city, Journey, and Future city.

Shot List Sketch

The drowned city demonstrated the context of the project. We utilize several iconic landmarks to represent the sense of the place. Whole Sydney CBD will be flooded by inevitable sea level rising as background. The landmark like Opera House is sunken in seabed and fishes freely swim through it. Then a boat with a little tiger toy on it drifts by Harbour Bridge, starting the journey towards future city. This scene is also a tribute to the Ang Lee’s movie, Life of Pi. The boat gradually approached the shore, in this scene, people can only see it is some rugged rocks standing on the sea. When the camera gradually look up, a massive city with a giant concrete basement is revealed.

Key Frames Sketch

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People began to live a separate life: some are live as nomads, wandering from stops to stops above the sea. Some are live in a shell where has basic nutrients, live on the cloud.

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Cities that are survival at the higher land become broken and dusty. Some are collapses due to bushfires or other disasters. Wild vegetation starts to grow between the crack. Bricks split into ashes, Stones start to wear moss.

BLENDER EXPLORATIONS PHASE 1: SELF EXPLORATION After the pre-teaching session, I started to get familiar with Blender 2.8 by online tutorial. I made a donut only in two hours with this powerful tool. Through self-learning sessions, I learn basic operation and information, for instance, modifier, scatter, weight map, material, Eevee, and Cycles. The pre-learning session really gives me confidence and skills throughout the entire workshop.

PHASE 2: UNDERWATER Next challenge for me is to create a real underwater atmosphere. I tried 3 different methods for water surface. Using a real underwater image as a reference, I learned how to animate moving fishes, shining water, and HDRI as a world environment. During this period, I obsessed with Blender skills and try to fulfill our scene as much as I can.

In the next phase, I mainly put my efforts into model building and applying texture. I learn how to draw a material map in UV editing mode to add more fine detail of material. Moreover, setting camera and lights is crucial for our narrative. I set most of the cameras in this project as well as the animation of camera.

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PHASE 3: FUTURE CITY

DESIGN ITERATION 01

e spent most of our time building underwater model and setting environments and lights to achieve our initial ideas at this stage. My groupmate input Open Street Map Data to Blender, conducting to create a context for submerged city. I mainly contribute to the iconic landmark model, for instance, The Opera House and Harbor Bridge. I spent a lot of time to alter the texture in Blender, which gives facade some ruined and underwater traces. Moreover, the experience and skill that I learn from donut generation help me efficiently create a seabed with terrain and coral scattered on it. We are both satisfied with our underwater scene. As for the first version of our future city, we speculate that it is the last island in Australia. Therefore, people have to live in high-density buildings instead of former houses. My groupmate suggested we use the original Sydney CBD grid and

buildings, only extending the building hight. But I strongly disagreed because people won’t build the future city exactly the same city they used to live in. Besides, the boxes are too random to embed the new connection between buildings.

Scene 01: Submerged city as back ground.

We both agree on the concrete dam as the basement structure to avoid flooding, which is critical, ironic, and exactly the main solution people confronting the sea level rising issue. For example, in the Netherlands, the government use horizontal levee and sea wall to protect their inland. They are successful for now, but what about an unpredictable future? People used to resist unknown and uncontrollable factors. So we want to warn people in a radical way that we have to embrace the unknown factors and co-exist with nature. Otherwise, we will end up struggling on an island.

Scene 02: Submerged Opera House with thrived habitat

Scene 03: A boat drfit to unkown future

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First version of our future city.

DESIGN ITERATION 02

fter a group session with Jessica and Denis, we realize that the underwater scenes are disconnected with our future city no matter from story or design. The connection between the old drowned city and future city is by a drifted boat which is weak. Besides, future city idea is immature and it need a massive workload. Our scene should under our control. Small scenes with fine details are clearer for our narrative. We started to re-imagine the future travel mode and living pattern. The fly units are our starting point to connect underwater and above water. We assume that in the post-apocalyptic civilization, people’s living patterns will be altered completely. They are refugees worldwide, living in thousands of fly units, only parking on the temporary structure for energy supply and social activities. Gradually, the infrastructure becomes‘village’spontaneously.

structure, seeking for hope and warmth. Although each flying unit has limited energy, they still emit faint flashing lights. When more units are parked in the valley, the light will be dazzling, but when the unknown comes, they will fly into the tender night. The second scene will be the dazzling light from millions of fly units in a short distance.

They are lucky but still panic, Frustrated but still brave.

Scene 01: Flying unit toward village in the sunset

Our first scene of future village starts from the fly units staying crowded on messy

Scene 02: Dazzling lights of fly units village

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The Drowned City Section Sketch

MID -TERM REVIEW & REFLECTION 01

e present our project with a one minute trailer and 5 stills included in a slide, demonstrating the design process and work we produced so far in one week. The storyline is basically the same as our shot list, but the journey is canceled by directly transit to the future city. The trailer starts with a melting iceberg and a quote by Jonathan, a Gurdian writter. Followed two underwater scenes convey a negative message that Sydney will be underwater by then. Then we emphasize that we can survive in this catastrophe but only in another way. Two scenes of fly units and village come after, describing the future living typologies and travel mode. The story starts from sunrise to sunset, representing cyclic nature and repeated exhaustion of people in the future. The panel gave us constructive feedback, also question the connection between future city and drowned city. Here are the reflection we got:

What should we reconsider? 1. The future city is totally disconnected with the drowned city. How to build a relation between the landmark and future city is essential. 2. The story is lack of localbility and context of Australia. 3. The future we speculate should not be too far, the height of the sea level rise is too dramatic. 4.The form of future city is not crucial, the future living pattern, belief, a social class should be redeveloped. 5. There are too many scenes and messages we want to convey.

What is working well so far?

1. Finding our focus is the very first thing we should do. 2. We should develop our project based on more supportive evidence instead of imagination. 3. The Opera house and Harbour Bridge should be redeveloped instead of context.

What should we focus next?

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1. Our blender skills are developed well, we are capable of producing our idea efficiently. 2. Our background is solid. Starting with climate change is the right way to go.

DESIGN ITERATION 03

“A building that changed the image of an entire country”

hrough our further research, even if all iceberg melt, the sea level will rise to 60 meters. We were too radical when we decide the whole Sydney sink into the water. If the sea level is rising faster than scientists predict, people don't have enough time for protecting the whole seaside city, what will people cherish and choose to preserve?

SOURCE: ABC NEWS

After 4 degrees of warming

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Synonymous with inspiration and imagination, the Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognizable buildings of the twentieth century. It is also a building that changes the image of an entire country. We decided to focus on this unique landmark as a corner of the future world. How can we protect it against the powerful force of the sea? What will the function of Opera House adapt? What is the new approach to the landmark then? We speculate that the Opera House will become a monumental landmark then where people recall the memories before sea-level rise.

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After 2 degrees of warming

CASE STUDY HOOVER DAM Denis inspired us by sending a reference of dam structure’s section. We found that the concrete arch-gravity dam can hold water effectively. For instance, it takes only 5 years for Hoover dam to construct and it can impound the Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when it is full. We decide to build a boundary made of giant concrete blocks to protect the Opera House.

The Hoover Dam : Giant concrete block to resist water

MAZE RUNNER We kept looking inspirations from concept art and movie. The concrete maze in Maze Runner has the closest materiality we looking for our concrete wall. It’s brutal, depressive, and mysterious. There is a trace of time on that wall. We hope this wall can tell about the vicissitudes of life it has experienced.

Maze Runner: The extrem camparison between people and brutalist concrete

Line Light Installation Demonstrates the “catastrophic impact” of rising sea-levels

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Light installation warn people the upcoming sea level rise.

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We learn how to provoke a dialogue on how the rising sea-level impacts our future and the uncertainty the light represents.

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“The installation explores the catastrophic impact of our relationship with nature and its long-term effects.” -Niittyvirta and Aho

FINAL REVIEW

e start our final video with two quotes from a novel,The Drowned World, by J. G. Ballard in 1962, and news from Guardian, written by JonathanWatts, in 2020. What we want to emphasize is that the speculation 40 years ago has now become a fact that can be proved by science.

Addresses are erased, Coastlines are eaten by rising sea level.

Scene 02: [CURIOUS, LONELY] Key Fram Design Sketcch

At that time, People drifted to the opera house, Trying to recollect the former memories before sea level rising.

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Scene 01: [Submerged city as context]

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We revised our narratives and storyboard, but the core value of the project is still the relation between sea-level-rise and people's reflection and living patterns. Through our lens, we focus on expressing the psychological fluctuations and emotional changes when people approach and standing with the Protected Opera House. The landmark won't be the Opera House itself but the surrounding structure and environment including the brutal concrete wall, the dead coral reef in front of Opera House, and the realtime seal level laser.

Scene 03: [SHOCK, ANXIOUS]

Carved names on the concrete wall remind people how much they paid for mistakes made by the early generation.

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Scene 04: [SORROW, REGRET]

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Standing on the boundary , People shocked by giant efforts they spent to protect a single landmark against water.

Scene 05: [CONFUSED, LOST IN THOUGHTS]

Projected laser demonstrates real-time sea level change, The structure can protect Opera House for now, What about tomorrow? Finally, it will be flooded.

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Scene 06: [DISTURBED, UNCERTAIN]

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Sitting on the boundary, A man sighs. The uncertain future is yet to come.

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Final Scene: Sunset? Sunrise? It is an open-ended scene. Audience choose to believe a better or worse future in this circumstance.

REFLECTION 02 What is working well in this project? 1. The image and video quality are excellent and the message we want to convey is clear and powerful. 2. The research of the issue and solution is solid. Dam structure is reasonable in terms of form and materiality. 3. The narrative is simple but strong enough. Each scene conveys the emotion and unique atmosphere.

What needs to be more considered? How to improve this project? 1. The adaptive function of Opera House and activities that could happen should be taken into consideration. 2. We should consider what will happen over time. People eventually will abandon the Opera House due to time-waste or technology issues when the boundary is too high to hold the water. When will it be flooded? What do people think about it then?

What do you take from the project? What are main challenges? 1. I realize how important to find a focus when we have so many ideas. If we try to do everything in a short time, we can only get rough and disconnect images without fine details and great narratives. 2. The main challenge for me is story-telling. We spent most of our time discussing storyboard. It's hard to shift the mind from the introduction of our design to story-telling. I conclude the main feeling we want to convey for each scene then describe it from people's perspective. I'm glad that we finally made it.

How to take project further?

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There is a huge gap between our project and the future drowned world. We haven't discussed the future living typology and how people co-exist with the ocean. We may continue our ideas that we put aside to develop further.