PLASTICITY: PLASTIC-BASED INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CLIMATE-RESILIENT COASTAL COMMUNITIES

Abstract

Many of the world’s coasts are becoming increasingly urbanized, with two-fifths of cities with populations of millions located near coastlines. Coastal settlements have always been attractive due to the provision of critical inputs to industries, despite the many threats — floods, typhoons, tsunamis, etc. With the Southeast Asian market expected to become the fifth largest economy by 2020, migration from rural to urban areas is set to increase, putting a strain on existing infrastructures within the cities, one of which is the solid waste disposal and recycling infrastructure within the developing nations in Southeast Asia.

Currently in the age of the Anthropocene, it is clear that human has greatly reshaped the Earth, bending nature into the course of human wishes, terraforming the land with landfills, mines, and patchwork agriculture fields, choking the atmosphere with toxic emissions, and cloging the seas with plastic waste. Inadequate waste disposal management has resulted in poorly managed landfills with waste being washed into water during rainy seasons, jeopardizing the environment and local communities (typically the most vulnerable ones) that depend on it. This project hopes to explore the nature of plastics, by envisioning a “mechanic landscape” that manages waste input within rivers whilst creating a speculative infrastructural network that varies with environmental conditions (such as global warming and sea-level rise).

Keywords

City Infrastructure / Sea-Level Rise / Territory / Plastic / Community / Manila

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

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