Brief

Master of Landscape Architecture Thesis Documentation

Vanishing String:The Future of Landscape in Different Aspects of Humanity

Space Odysseys

Yoshiyuki Tomino (1987)

“Human souls are bounded by the Earth’s gravity”

[Figure 1]

“Prometheus Brings Fire to Mankind” by Friedrich Heinrich Füger, 1817

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Although the “Mission to Mars” and “O’Neill Colonies” by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are often regarded as unbelievable, impossible, infeasible ideas to populate the space, they hold certain values to push space exploration development into new level and offer distinct goal for scholars and practitioners.

From the very first draft of aircraft by Leonardo da Vinci to contemporary matured aviation, human took more than 500 years to smelt an unrestrained imagination to actual matter, one living in Renaissance could never believe human can always possibly travel in air.

Now, the definition of

Abstract: The Prometheus

Abstract: The Prometheus

landscape architecture is shaped by long processes of field development. The word “terra” - being the origin of the “land” and “land” derived “landscape”, told the story that the practice is bounded on ground (interpret as the Earth surface in science) and framed by individual lens afterwards.

“Landscape” does not only describe something 3-dimentional, the time factor and intangible connections between space and human makes it four folded meaning in design practice. As a person working on the landscape field, the question of how human lives without “ground” is same as how

landscape architects work without past defined subjects/context/history. There is not much human history, invested resources, defined space and human itself in the outer space, that makes us be pioneers again in human history.

A land-scape exists but becomes meaningless if not interrelated with humankind, same for space-scape, apart from interpreted as outer space scenery and possibly be without a solid surface, has overlaid additional interactions and functional means on top of the conventional landscape practice. Different from the existing context on the Earth, living in outer space requires alternate methods

for hospitality and survival. The new concept of land and resources need a prospective blueprint to prepare for the coming largest migration in humanity, the role of landscape architect also need to be transformed for our future.

However, the continuation of humankind does not be guaranteed even though we successfully migrated to the space. This thesis is hence speculating future space migration in three phases, from early resource extraction to latter terraforming planet and from political projection to humankind evolution, trying to reveal our final destiny in perspective of Landscape Architecture.

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Vanishing String | Tony Yuen

Overview

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[Figure 20] “Floating People”, imagining people living in zero gravity, a sketch by Rocket Scientist and Engineer Tsiolkovsky, 1933.

The Vanishing String: The Future of Landscape in Different Aspects of Humanity is a thesis investigating the change of landscape in a possible but uncertain future stage. The notion of this thesis emerged with rising environmental changes concerns and global awareness of environmental protection, though the attention to these topics may regarded as paranoia among groups of people, as there is no scientific model in the laboratory can take all parameters from the reality into account to generate a complete prediction result.

Coincide with the 50th

Proposed Project Brief

ii – Proposed Project Brief

anniversary of moon landing and the intensified space exploration fantasies heated by entrepreneurs and competitions between territories, many hold the believe that space migration shall be the last resort for the continuation of humanity. Space colonization has always been the dream in astronomy, it is not only reflected in various fictions since the first launched satellite in 1930s but also in the foundations of well-known companies specialized in space travel.

Holding these antecedents and consequences, the position of future ‘landscape’ remains unexplored in landscape architectural practice for

decades. Contextualized with the rapid expansion and development of the field in previous 20 years, the thesis is bridging the space industries and the landscape industry with systematic thinking and planning in an expanded timeframe. This requires the thesis to go beyond the conventional scope of landscape architecture and rethink the position of the discipline base on given assumptions.

This thesis critiques the formation of current believes of space colonization through landscape planning and philosophical lens, acknowledging the difficulties of maintaining life in ‘true void’ and

unknown ground beyond the atmosphere. While engaging with logical and systematic design processes, providing new position and directions to Landscape Architecture, the argument nevertheless exemplifies the ‘utopian’ fantasy in an inverted way, stimulating self-reflection on the significance of design constructions.

Objectives

The thesis aimed to deliver messages to stakeholders within the discipline and raising questions of the effectiveness and necessity of landscape designs, particularly making reflection upon hypocritical thoughts of environmental protection

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Vanishing String | Tony Yuen

Proposed Project Brief

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and attitudes towards the nature. Possible scenarios in broader perspectives had planned to construct and was targeted to direct audience outside the landscape discipline to explore our paths to the possible futures.

The speculations did not target to offer absolute solutions for the new outer space living but leave rooms for openended discussions within the humanity framework in purpose. The exploration of the meaning of ‘landscape’, or perhaps the meaning of ‘life’ and ‘land’ was the thread leading research, design and conclusions of this thesis. In other words, the ‘process’ was ‘loose’, the ‘methodology’ was ‘pervious’ and the ‘outcome’ was ‘scattered’,

the real objective is always bringing provocativeness to all audiences.

This ‘from void to solid’, ‘from fiction to reality’, ‘from indirect to direct’ and ‘from future back to present’ thinking remained as the foremost critical ideology throughout the whole thesis construction process.

Scope

The scope of the thesis was framed and followed by the thesis objectives. The time period of the ‘landscape’ speculations was set in future stage where the Earth had experienced catastrophic condition in global scale, human could no longer live in the familiar environment and was forced to eject from the Earth’s surface.

Hence, the pre-design research and study were conducted in broader spectrum of humanity development, summarized in four major aspects: social, culture, socioculture and energy. The scope therefore was broad and not following the structure of conventional thesis, as ‘focus’ of specific topic in humanity cannot reach the objectives mentioned and none of it can represent the humanity as a whole.

Outcomes

The outcome of the thesis was a plot and was targeted as a trilogy of human space migration.

(1) Starting from the assumption of a planetary scale disaster, the space

Vanishing String | Tony Yuen

migration will begin with the first phase of setting up pioneering manufacture sites on asteroids and human living in space ateliers. The feeder zone will be emerged as the primer of survival network.

(2) Terraforming planets to make habitable places, the time space citizens will shake off their identity as the Earth refugee and started onsurface space settlements. The basic framework of survival network will be formed.

(3) The shortage in resources and saturated population will force pan-humanity to explore beyond the Galaxy. The space citizens will reengineer their bodies by biomechatronic surgery for

longevity to adapt longer space travel.

Medium

The medium of the thesis was visual materials listed as follows:

(1) Graphics

a.

Diagrams

b.

Infographics

c.

Technical visualizations

d.

Renderings

e.

Illustrations

f.

Digital paintings

(2) Video

a.

Trailer production

b.

Film production

(3) Booklet

a. Documentation of all the above

(4) Webpage

a. Website documented all the above

[Figure 21] “Greenhouse in Space”, proposed aircraft with greenhouse to support astronaut living, a sketch by Rocket Scientist and Engineer Tsiolkovsky, 1933.

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