Scenario (DRAFTS) + Visual Research/Experimenting

After The Rotterdam Flooding of 2023, the people of the city had to once again re-adapt themselves to the ever-changing environment; from the viral pandemic of 2020-2021, to the floods of 2023. It is now 12.00PM in the afternoon and Miro, a 25 year-old biology student who studied at Erasmus MC is on his way to the Zuiderpark Platform where researchers, teachers, and other students were now conducting studies on new species of underwater plants. What used to be a recreational park for the community is now submerged in water and is used as a botanical garden; hosting plants of different species: both edible and non-edible to humans. The Platform serves as a research and testing site for emerging plant species. Along with the flood came this new sense of viewing nature and the environment around us; causing more awareness towards how we as humans act in our environment. The new conditions of the city did not leave the citizens in despair; for the government were prepared and ready to apply previously tested strategies against the expected floods. With the use of floating pavilions, students and researchers are able to create a space in which they have access to both ‘land’ and water.

It’s the year 2050, ten years after the final phase of the gradual flooding of Rotterdam. The day begins for Khadija, 25 years old and studying at Erasmus MC to receive an MSc in Marine Biology. A message from the director of the research facility located in the Aquatic Gardens of Rotterdam wakes her ten minutes before her daily 09:00 am alarm to tell her to “Come at once! Eccentric behaviour observed in spore2004203112031158A.”
To be able keep paying tuition fees and making ends meet she was forced to cancel her subscriptions to the public transport system introduced after the ban of personal vehicles. These grew exponentially intelligent, but costly too. For a student from a working class family responsible for all her own bills and expenses many of the technologically advanced products and services which developed to keep society running in a drastically different landscape and atmosphere were unaffordable.
Her mode of transportation relies either on the shared commute facilitated by the Gardens or on her swimming skills. Having grown up in covid society raised by a mom who had become an incurable germaphobe because of it she couldn’t help the inner dialogue she had on all the nastities that might be roaming around in the confined space of the Garden’s commute vehicle. And after contracting a harmless but very real four day lasting common cold on the third day of commuting with colleagues, she now pulls her waterproof suit out the closet every morning, zips it up over her work clothes and swims along one of the warm swimmer streams that lead to the research facility. She enjoys the scenery, the exercise and most of all the freedom of her chosen mode of transportation. A sentiment she carefully enjoys as it partly seems an illusion in this society of regulated services and algorithmic rule to be truly “free”.

It’s the year 2050, ten years after the final phase of the gradual flooding of Rotterdam. The day begins for Khadija, 25 years old and studying at Erasmus MC to receive an MSc in Marine Biology. A message from the director of the research facility located in the Aquatic Gardens of Rotterdam wakes her ten minutes before her daily 09:00 am alarm to tell her to “Come at once! Eccentric behaviour observed in spore2004203112031158A.”
To be able keep paying tuition fees and making ends meet she was forced to cancel her subscriptions to the public transport system introduced after the ban of personal vehicles. These grew exponentially intelligent, but costly too. For a student from a working class family responsible for all her own bills and expenses many of the technologically advanced products and services which developed to keep society running in a drastically different landscape and atmosphere were unaffordable.
Her mode of transportation relies either on the shared commute facilitated by the Gardens or on her swimming skills. Having grown up in covid society raised by a mom who had become an incurable germaphobe because of it she couldn’t help the inner dialogue she had on all the nastities that might be roaming around in the confined space of the Garden’s commute vehicle. And after contracting a harmless but very real four day lasting common cold on the third day of commuting with colleagues, she now pulls her waterproof suit out the closet every morning, zips it up over her work clothes and swims along one of the warm swimmer streams that lead to the research facility. She enjoys the scenery, the exercise and most of all the freedom of her chosen mode of transportation. A sentiment she carefully enjoys as it partly seems an illusion in this society of regulated services and algorithmic rule to be truly “free”.

Scenario A - “Assigning New Purposes for Old Spaces”

Scenario B - “Redesigning daily products and actions”

A & B